At Sovereignty, we oppose United Kingdom legislation permitting surrogacy, and call for a total ban on the practice.
Surrogacy exploits women. Mothers are exposed to health risks without appropriate safeguards. While on paper, the law prohibits commercial surrogacy, compensatory payments to mothers are poorly regulated and can serve as an inducement for those most in need.
Surrogacy commodifies children. It treats them as products rather than people. Their sense of belonging and identity will for the rest of their life be undermined by having been traded in their infancy.
Surrogacy preys on the poor. Society’s most vulnerable are pressured into coercive arrangements for the pleasure of wealthy adoptees.
For the sake of Scotland’s families, the Surrogacy Arrangements Act should be strengthened to outlaw all surrogacy, or alternative legislation passed at Holyrood to affect the same change.