Surrogacy is a form of human trafficking.
This disturbing case proves it
The ethical and legal snarls created by our commodification of human life and trafficking in human children have never been more apparent.
Surrogacy is a form of human trafficking.
This is true not only ethically speaking – using IVF in order to create children in lab and then renting a woman or women in which to gestate those children – but, in an increasing number of places, legally speaking, as well. Italy has banned surrogacy on those grounds, and the European Court of Human Rights, in a rare moment of moral clarity,
has also labelled surrogacy human trafficking (as did the EU Parliament).
The ethical and legal snarls created by our commodification of human life and trafficking in human children have never been more apparent. I have covered many of those stories in this space; there are many others I could have reported on, such as the grotesque rise in for-profit “baby factories” in countries such asUkraine and Nigeria, driven by wealthy Westerners who cannot conceive their own children naturally or simply prefer to outsource the task of bearing children to women in developing countries who are desperate for the money.
If it weren’t so sinister, the confused babbling by progressives about pro-life laws creating a new theocratic Gilead a la Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale would be funny. In their upside-down world, laws protecting pre-born children in the wombs of their mothers is oppressive, but cash-strapped women being rented by wealthy homosexuals attempting to procure a child is not. They don’t mind women and children being commodified; they just want the commodification to be done by their preferred elites.
Another cautionary tale was reported by the Independent on February 20. According to the outlet: “Would-be parents seeking out commercial foreign surrogacies are being warned the government may fight their bids for adoption, rendering the infants both permanently stateless and legally parentless.” The High Court case in question involved a “self-centered,” older lesbian couple from the UK who engaged in an “unlawful arrangement with a clinic in Cyprus” that resulted in two siblings being born to Ukrainian women who were subsequently left stateless for “four years before the judge granted adoption as their only option.”
According to the Independent:
An application for a parental order following a conventional surrogacy may only be made if the gametes of the applicant were used to bring about the creation of the embryo. But in this case, the women in their sixties had used donors for the eggs and sperm. Furthermore, the order can’t be made if the surrogate has been paid, other than for expenses “reasonably incurred,” but the fee paid for the arrangement was around £120,000.
Lawyers acting for the Home Office warned the government may oppose on ‘policy grounds’ future attempts to adopt children born through overseas, commercial surrogacy arrangements before being brought to the U.K. Andrew McFarlane, president of the court’s family division, said the decision should put would-be parents “on notice that the courts in England and Wales may refuse to grant an adoption order … with the result that the child that they have caused to be born may be permanently stateless and legally parent-less.”
Justice McFarlane made it very clear that his ruling was intended to be a deterrent. “Put bluntly, anyone seeking to achieve the introduction of a child into their family by following in the footsteps of these applicants should think again,” he stated.
The lesbian couple at the centre of the case had decided to use a foreign surrogacy clinic that they believed was based in Cyprus but was actually located in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, where both surrogacy and the placement of children with same-sex couples are prohibited. Neither of the women are the natural mother of the children and thus could not be brought in the U.K. – but the children were not entitled to either Ukrainian or Northern Cypriot citizenship, either.
The children were thus trapped between countries until a court ruled, based on the European Convention on Human Rights, that the children could be obtained by their purchasers. “During the hearing, I expressed, in strong terms, my concern about the whole project that these two adults had embarked upon,” MacFarlane emphasized. “I described the wisdom, in terms of the welfare of any children created by such an endeavor, as being high questionable. The motives of the two applicants in wanting to become parents of babies in their late sixties would seem to have been entirely self-centred, with no thought as to the long-term welfare of the resulting children.”
Indeed, in his statement MacFarlane pinpointed the grotesque nature of surrogacy: That children are being treated as commodities, and that those purchasing them are doing so with utter disregard for the wellbeing of those children, who have a right to their natural parents but in many cases will never find out who they are. “It was astonishing to learn, and have confirmed by their solicitor, that the applicants had not given any consideration to the impact on the children of having parents who are well over 60 years older than they are,” MacFarlene stated.
Cases like these, as I have already noted, have become increasingly common – and they are, thankfully, fueling increasing skepticism about this form of human trafficking. As the Independent noted: “In summarising the submission of lawyers for the Home Office, the judge said the government will consider in future cases whether to oppose an adoption order on policy grounds.” If that turns out to be the case, then at least the tragedy of these children may prevent similar injustices from occurring in the future.
This is true not only ethically speaking – using IVF in order to create children in lab and then renting a woman or women in which to gestate those children – but, in an increasing number of places, legally speaking, as well. Italy has banned surrogacy on those grounds, and the European Court of Human Rights, in a rare moment of moral clarity,
has also labelled surrogacy human trafficking (as did the EU Parliament).
The ethical and legal snarls created by our commodification of human life and trafficking in human children have never been more apparent. I have covered many of those stories in this space; there are many others I could have reported on, such as the grotesque rise in for-profit “baby factories” in countries such as
If it weren’t so sinister, the confused babbling by progressives about pro-life laws creating a new theocratic Gilead a la Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale would be funny. In their upside-down world, laws protecting pre-born children in the wombs of their mothers is oppressive, but cash-strapped women being rented by wealthy homosexuals attempting to procure a child is not. They don’t mind women and children being commodified; they just want the commodification to be done by their preferred elites.
Another cautionary tale was reported by the Independent on February 20. According to the outlet: “Would-be parents seeking out commercial foreign surrogacies are being warned the government may fight their bids for adoption, rendering the infants both permanently stateless and legally parentless.” The High Court case in question involved a “self-centered,” older lesbian couple from the UK who engaged in an “unlawful arrangement with a clinic in Cyprus” that resulted in two siblings being born to Ukrainian women who were subsequently left stateless for “four years before the judge granted adoption as their only option.”
According to the Independent:
An application for a parental order following a conventional surrogacy may only be made if the gametes of the applicant were used to bring about the creation of the embryo. But in this case, the women in their sixties had used donors for the eggs and sperm. Furthermore, the order can’t be made if the surrogate has been paid, other than for expenses “reasonably incurred,” but the fee paid for the arrangement was around £120,000.
Lawyers acting for the Home Office warned the government may oppose on ‘policy grounds’ future attempts to adopt children born through overseas, commercial surrogacy arrangements before being brought to the U.K. Andrew McFarlane, president of the court’s family division, said the decision should put would-be parents “on notice that the courts in England and Wales may refuse to grant an adoption order … with the result that the child that they have caused to be born may be permanently stateless and legally parent-less.”
Justice McFarlane made it very clear that his ruling was intended to be a deterrent. “Put bluntly, anyone seeking to achieve the introduction of a child into their family by following in the footsteps of these applicants should think again,” he stated.
The lesbian couple at the centre of the case had decided to use a foreign surrogacy clinic that they believed was based in Cyprus but was actually located in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, where both surrogacy and the placement of children with same-sex couples are prohibited. Neither of the women are the natural mother of the children and thus could not be brought in the U.K. – but the children were not entitled to either Ukrainian or Northern Cypriot citizenship, either.
The children were thus trapped between countries until a court ruled, based on the European Convention on Human Rights, that the children could be obtained by their purchasers. “During the hearing, I expressed, in strong terms, my concern about the whole project that these two adults had embarked upon,” MacFarlane emphasized. “I described the wisdom, in terms of the welfare of any children created by such an endeavor, as being high questionable. The motives of the two applicants in wanting to become parents of babies in their late sixties would seem to have been entirely self-centred, with no thought as to the long-term welfare of the resulting children.”
Indeed, in his statement MacFarlane pinpointed the grotesque nature of surrogacy: That children are being treated as commodities, and that those purchasing them are doing so with utter disregard for the wellbeing of those children, who have a right to their natural parents but in many cases will never find out who they are. “It was astonishing to learn, and have confirmed by their solicitor, that the applicants had not given any consideration to the impact on the children of having parents who are well over 60 years older than they are,” MacFarlene stated.
Cases like these, as I have already noted, have become increasingly common – and they are, thankfully, fueling increasing skepticism about this form of human trafficking. As the Independent noted: “In summarising the submission of lawyers for the Home Office, the judge said the government will consider in future cases whether to oppose an adoption order on policy grounds.” If that turns out to be the case, then at least the tragedy of these children may prevent similar injustices from occurring in the future.
