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A U.N. human rights official recommends that surrogacy be banned entirely due to its consequences for women and girls.
The report, written by Reem Alsalem, special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, examined surrogacy through the lens of violence against women and girls. It concluded that the practice of surrogacy—whether in its “altruistic” form or commercial—commodifies and exploits women and children. And despite surrogacy’s rapid global expansion, the report noted, it is incompatible with human rights.
While most developed nations have outlawed or strictly regulated commercial surrogacy, the United States is in the minority in its explicit support of the practice.
Surrogacy is a particularly underregulated industry. Unsurprisingly, California and New York are the leaders in the American surrogacy market. Nearly all states permit surrogacy and enforce surrogacy contracts, while Louisiana, Michigan, and Nebraska are the only states in which it is illegal.
Sadly, in stark contrast to the screening processes for adoptive or foster parents, there are almost no limits to who can enter into a surrogacy contract. This allows all kinds of bad actors to commission a child.
[T]he primary legal difference between selling a baby—which is rightly illegal—and a commercial surrogacy contract is the timing. If the contract is signed prior to the child’s conception, it is a legal transfer of parental rights from the surrogate to the commissioning parents. However, if the parties sign the contract after the child is conceived, they’re guilty of child trafficking.
While not a party to the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, the U.S. has signed and ratified the convention’s optional protocol banning the sale of children. Unfortunately, the official position of the U.S. is that “surrogacy arrangements fall outside the scope” of the protocol’s protections against child exploitation.
[S]urrogacy puts the desires of adults over the needs of children. In doing so, it sacrifices the natural right of a child to be cared for by his or her mother and father.