Discourse surrounding surrogacy has gained momentum in recent years but there has been a clear shift in how we talk about it. Previously thought of as a blessing for infertile couples who find a friend or close relative to have a baby for them, a linguistic reframing has shaped how we think of surrogacy. This unlikely way to form a family is becoming central to a social justice movement, if not a full-blown crusade, with festering ego-driven expectations and ugly entitlement.
With our ever-evolving lexicon of rights, grievances and victimhood, this has escalated to outrageously misogynistic levels
Admittedly, this began with a subtle rebrand so was hard to spot. Campaigns for safe and accessible abortion historically used “My Body: My Choice” as a slogan to argue for body autonomy. Now that surrogacy is the new “reproductive right”, this slogan has reappeared but this time with a twist. It is now more “Her Body: My Choice” as same sex male couples and single men have reproductive rights too, don’t you know, and these “rights” include access to another person’s body — a woman’s. It’s a clever sleight of hand.
With our ever-evolving lexicon of rights, grievances and victimhood, this has escalated to outrageously misogynistic levels. We now face an even bolder claim — that not only is surrogacy a “reproductive right” and “reproductive justice”, but an actual human right.
Let me reassure you, there is no domestic or international human rights law anywhere in the world that states that an adult wanting to be a parent gets to be one. What there is, is the right to marry and start a family. Article 12 of the 1998 Human Rights Act incorporated European law into UK law.
Designed to protect the rights of individuals of marriageable age, to marry and start a family without government interference, this was a response to post-war times where families were separated due to displacement, forced sterilisations were performed on those deemed to be unfit to parent and mothers had their children taken from them. This international treaty clearly outlines that the state cannot interfere with family and this principled law was rightly ratified by the UK government in 1979.
What I don’t think anyone saw coming was how this would be weaponised under the guise of equality. We now live in a world where becoming a parent is on a par with life’s fundamental freedoms.
If there was a rights-based approach to surrogacy, surely this begins with the child? Another international treaty, the Convention on the Rights of the Child states that children have the right to identity, and to know their origins, and ensures that the “sale of or all traffic in children for any purpose or in any form” is banned. These rights include birth registration, a name and, as far as possible, to know and be cared for by their parents. It is designed to protect the child’s right to a family environment and the preservation of family relations, but surrogacy violates this from the outset. Even the preferred model from the Law Commissions would see the mother’s name removed from the birth certificate. Frequently, babies are paid for and moved across borders for parental rights to be secured in the UK.
The truth is, these rights of children are politically inconvenient to surrogacy advocates, and have been swept aside, leaving this global market unchecked.
It is now all too familiar to see these human rights claims centering those who want to become parents, or those who are already parents but want to be parents again. The language around this has transformed to one of manufacturing, of demand and supply, and perhaps even more disturbingly, to one of privilege and non-privilege.
“Fertility privilege” is the accusation that those who do not need to pay for third party reproduction in order to conceive are privileged. Within this, is the idea that when a woman isn’t using her eggs she’s just throwing them away, by a naturally occurring period for example. How selfish of her. Why doesn’t she “use” her eggs to do some good and help someone else? The guilt trip is designed to pressure women into harvesting her eggs and sharing them around. Anything less falls too far away from “allyship”.
But that’s not all. “Reproductive refugee” is a term that is fairly new to me, though I was not surprised to hear it. This label includes those who have to travel abroad in order to afford surrogacy. These poor souls are forced to venture overseas in search of bargain baby deals. As victims due to the costs and logistical nuisances they endure, their “only choice” is to exploit a woman in poorer circumstances than themselves as their homeland fails to support their dreams.
Perhaps my least favourite phase, which requires some linguistic gymnastics, is “Humanitarian Surrogacy”. I first saw this at a surrogacy webinar titled “Wombs without Borders”. The obvious border that cannot be denied is a physical one. A womb is inside a woman’s body, but let’s not let that get in the way. Some believe this barrier must be overcome, to be rescued from a fate worse than war.
Do people really think this way? Former columnist at The Times, author and commissioning mother Sophie Beresiner once compared looking for a suitable candidate to have a baby for her to a violent, dystopian movie.
“It’s like the Hunger Games, but hopefully with the creation of life at the end, rather than violent destruction of it. But only for a couple of the successful intended parents who battled their desperate peers to win the surrogacy match.”
On a recent TV appearance, former Made in Chelsea star, now author and Birth Trauma campaigner, Louise Thompson speaks of how she and fiancé Ryan Libbey deserve another child. Ryan told This Morning audiences that his partner “in particular deserves that chance to do it the right way without all the pain.” Louise suffered enormous trauma from the birth of her son and as a result of the impact of this means together they “deserve to grow our family and have another baby” she said.
Let’s consider, if you want a baby you not only deserve one but are entitled to a child under Human Rights law and women will be required to meet this government commitment. By this twisted logic, what would follow, mandatory baby handouts? Newborns will be taken from their mothers under new NHS protocols and handed to happy strangers made parents by this separation.
If a child is quite literally a deliverable commodity, let’s hope someone is keeping track of product shipping timelines, supply stock (or “women”, as we used to call them) and those pesky risk assessments, as gestational surrogacy carries three times the risk of severe pregnancy complications. Risks include preeclampsia, postpartum sepsis and sepsis, all life threatening conditions.
But what better “pathway to parenthood” can there be to reach that fairytale ending than by routinely risking the lives of women and separating newborns from their mothers at birth?
