Babies, bodies and borders: the risks and rise of surrogacy

Despite its challenges surrogacy is becoming a readily available form of family formation for many who have endured considerable heartache and difficulty in conceiving naturally. Surrogacy has an important role to play within our modern society particularly bearing in mind the overwhelming tide-change in social attitudes the importance of assisted reproduction such as IVF and the introduction of same sex marriage which was legalised back in 2014.

Recent data has highlighted that there is a growing number of people who are turning to surrogacy which include:

• Same sex couples wanting to have a much longed for family;
• Heterosexual couples unable to get pregnant naturally;
• Single women who have been unable to find a lifelong partner and wish to become a single parent.

One of the key pivotal changes appears to have come in 2008 when non-profit surrogacy services were legalised in the UK and same-sex and unmarried couples were permitted to apply for parental orders (the means by which intended parents can be recognised as a child’s legal parents instead of the surrogate). The number of parental orders has since grown from around 50 per year a decade ago to...

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