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The Language of Surrogacy: A Linguistic Disguise for the Erasure of Mothers

Following The Telegraph’s recent discussion of surrogacy as a new culture war, it is worth examining not only the politics of surrogacy, but the language through which it is being normalised. Beneath the arguments about choice, bodily autonomy, family formation and reproductive freedom lies a replacement of the language of motherhood with the vocabulary of commerce, logistics and technology.

What has been presented as a call for women to ‘be kind’ has developed into a full-blown linguistic disguise. Words are repurposed, euphemisms become the standard and biological reality is obscured by design, to make the commissioning of a child sound like an ordinary exchange.

We are expected to accept this language as neutral but it’s anything but. Language determines what we observe, what we overlook or and what we are encouraged to accept and not question. Let’s begin with the most straightforward.

‘Surrogate’ drops the label of ‘mother’. Associated with a deputy or stand in (though I would argue that the ‘intended mother’ is a primary carer and substitute for the real thing) this simple shortcut reframes the relationship a mother has with a child. ‘Surrogate’ dismisses this and plays down the reality. This is a recurrent feature of the industry.

Under UK law, a woman who gives birth is the child’s legal mother at birth. Motherhood is not rendered irrelevant because the adults involved agree to use a different word. The ideological, elaborate lexicon that has been developed renames the mother and reclassifies motherhood in their own terms and reduces a woman to a function or service provider.

But first, ‘Intended parent’. This relies heavily on the intention of the adult parties but also who the child is intended for. Prior to conception decisions are made and action is taken for a child to be conceived and removed from their mother at birth. This new phrase helped to sanitise and soften these extreme acts for society to make it tolerable and to persuade and normalise surrogacy, as a simple alternative way of ‘family building’ and ‘pathway to parenthood’.

By comparison, in adoption in the UK, the vocabulary traditionally refers to birth mother, rightfully recognising the biological and legal role that she plays. A birth mother relinquishes her parental rights (although this can be under coercion) and the child is ‘placed’ for adoption after a lengthy period of detailed checks, training, discussion and guidance, with the idea that the child’s best interests central to the entire process.

Compensation and ‘expenses’

Consider compensation. Traditionally, the word evokes thoughts of damages, medical negligence, injury or loss, for which financial redress is due. In surrogacy, it has become a familiar term for substantial sums to be paid to women in commercial arrangements. Compensation is for what, exactly? The physical hardship of pregnancy? The high risks of serious obstetric complications? The restrictions imposed on a woman’s life? The delivery of a child to another person? Time and inconvenience?

The terminology sanitises the transaction with this catch-all term without resolving its ethical questions. A financial payment does not make pregnancy risk-free, nor does a carefully chosen label explain what the money is supposed to compensate for. But the word does useful work: it makes payment sound like restitution for an arrangement where the purpose is to obtain a child.

Then there are expenses. In the UK, commercial surrogacy is prohibited, while reasonable expenses may be paid. This distinction has legal significance and deserves scrutiny. Expenses sounds modest and practical. Yet sums associated with some arrangements can be substantial, and the label itself does not tell us everything about the financial relationship between the adult parties. I have personally seen expense claims for everything from a gardener and childcare (where the father was taking care of his own children) to mortgage or rent, food and mobile phone bills.

‘Expenses’ help to distinguish so-called altruistic surrogacy from commercial surrogacy, presenting the former as a fundamentally different moral proposition. But does the absence of an explicitly agreed fee, amongst thousands paid in ‘expenses’ eliminate the underlying exchange? Does a friendship-based arrangement (most are formed on the internet or via matching services or agency events) cease to raise questions about power, expectations and the transfer of parental status because money is described as reimbursement?

A brief online poll in a Facebook group suggests that ‘expenses’ now total on average between 20-25k. Surrogacy UK research suggests this is significantly higher. Their 2025 report confirms that of 119 responses 26% chose £20,000-30,00 as the price paid and 25% paid £40,00-60,000.

But the lingo gets worse…

Incubators, vessels and gestational or embryo carriers

These expressions belong to the vocabulary of equipment, transport and biological function. An incubator maintains conditions for a child’s life. A vessel is a container. A carrier transports something from one place to another. The imagery inspired by these words is revealing because it removes the woman from her own pregnancy.

An incubator has no personal history, relationships, fears or expectations. And embryo carrier? For some reason this makes me think of a shipping container. One half expects the baby to arrive with a tracking number.

These terms revive a profoundly regressive view of women: that their bodies can be separated from their personhood and understood principally through the functions they perform for others. There is a particular irony here as contemporary politics is rightly concerned with challenging the objectification of women. Yet in surrogacy discourse the woman is objectified and disappears behind the very terminology.

Reproductive justice: justice for whom?

Reproductive justice is a framework developed by Black women activists in the United States during the 1990s. Women of African Descent for Reproductive Justice organised to call for the right to have children, the right not to have children and the right to parent children in safe and sustainable environments. The concept considers reproductive decisions within a wider social, economic and political contexts.

Now, the language of this all female movement is increasingly invoked in arguments for surrogacy as though the desire to have a child through another woman’s body constitutes a claim to justice.

If reproductive justice or gestational justice requires us to consider everyone involved, where does the woman giving birth fit within the argument? What about economic inequalities that may shape her decision and risk her physical, mental health and wellbeing, her autonomy during pregnancy and her relationship with the child she carries? What about the child, whose identity and origins cannot simply be reduced to the fulfilment of an adult’s reproductive aspirations?

Having or parenting a child is not a human right, nor does invoking justice settle the ethical questions raised when one person’s desires to parent depend upon another woman’s body, because Justice cannot simply be declared, it must be demonstrated.

Framing surrogacy in these terms leads to a call of discrimination if a woman is not available to undertake a pregnancy, will a woman be provided by the State? It seems extreme but so are other arguments in surrogacy.

Humanitarian surrogacy and wombs without borders

The vocabulary becomes more even troubling when surrogacy is presented as humanitarian.

Humanitarianism evokes the idea that we should as a society protect vulnerable groups and offer assistance in response to suffering. Attached to surrogacy, it can transform an arranged pregnancy into an act of charity. The ‘intended parents’ (I call them commissioning parent/s) become people in need, people we should feel sorry for. The ‘surrogate’ becomes the generous helper, and angel sent from above. The child is framed as the happy conclusion to a story of compassion, generosity and kindness.

But whose vulnerability is being considered? Who defines the need, and who bears the physical risks of meeting it? Where women living in poverty undertake pregnancies for wealthier commissioners, the rhetoric of helping others should prompt questions, not shut them down with wild, borrowed language.

Likewise, Wombs Without Borders evokes international solidarity and reproductive freedom. But the metaphor is telling: it is the womb that has a border, a very obvious one. A womb is an organ inside a woman’s body. It feels obtuse to point this out but due to the language of entitlement, it bears repeating. Her body is a barrier to meeting the demands of a global reproductive marketplace. That barrier must be overcome for the people we feel sorry for to reach fulfilment and ultimate happiness.

A capitalist vocabulary for a human relationship

Taken together, these expressions form a coherent, clever narrative. The woman becomes a carrier and her pregnancy becomes a service. Payment, with either label, ‘expenses’ or ‘compensation’, is a transaction. The commissioning of a child becomes an exercise in reproductive justice or humanitarian purposes.

This language shifts attention away from our capitalist understanding of the world to a more fluffy, friendly version we can swallow and once the vocabulary becomes normalised in everyday conversations we stop questioning why a woman is called a vessel because everyone else is calling her that too. We allow the word mother to disappear because a technical alternative has been provided. The language has done the political lobbying before the argument has got it’s boots on.

At Stop Surrogacy Now UK, we believe the debate must begin by restoring plain language to the subject which is saturated with euphemisms. The language is not incidental to the practice, it is one of the means by which the practice is made palatable. The more consistently motherhood is removed from the vocabulary, the more important it becomes to put it back.

We will speak plainly. Women become pregnant and give birth. Children are born. Mothers exist. No amount of linguistic engineering can make these realities disappear.

What the Surrogacy Petition Debate really told us

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Dressed head to toe in black, petitioner Adam Frisby and his partner Jamie arrived in Parliament moments before the debate began. They were alone.

Adam and Jamie did not appear to have the support of members of the UK surrogacy ‘community’ who have also been calling for parental rights to transfer at birth. Our understanding is that they had not engaged with other campaigners and were not entirely aligned with their objectives. Nor were they aligned with the Law Commission’s recommendations for the ‘New Pathway’, which did not call for parental rights at birth for international arrangements.

Adam and Jamie engaged with a foreign agency Circle Surrogacy (which has a London office) to match them with a woman called Krista. Krista, a single mother in Connecticut, would have been required to sign a contract before being implanted with an embryo which subsequently became her daughter, Leven Rose. Despite 6 years of research, Adam and Jamie seem not to have come across the government webpage on surrogacy and despite working with an agency that welcomes foreign clients and a lawyer, they did not appear to be informed of the necessary parental order process. At least they gave the impression on ITV’s daytime show This Morning, that they believed the pre-birth order which named them on the birth certificate in America, would apply in Greater Manchester.

The question asked of Parliament was whether the law should dispense with the state’s involvement in the permanent transfer of legal parenthood and once the debate began, the reality of what that meant became much clearer. The emotional language framing surrogacy was held up to the light and you could see right through it.

A parental order (which is 13 pages long, not 200 as was claimed) is not simply administrative paperwork. It is the legal mechanism through which the state authorises the transfer of parenthood following a surrogacy arrangement. This takes place after the child is born and requires the surrogate mother’s consent. The process therefore provides an opportunity to consider what has actually happened, rather than relying entirely on agreements and intentions made before a child existed. Whether legal parenthood is transferred before birth or at birth, the practical effect is the same and to remove the point at which the state can independently examine what has happened, removes that oversight.

The response from MPs in the room was remarkably consistent. Those speaking against the petition repeatedly raised the question of safeguarding, the commodification of children and the rapid increase of international surrogacy. Concerns for women and exploitation in surrogacy were constantly mentioned and it quickly became clear that automatic parenthood from birth in surrogacy would remove the state’s ability to be informed of the circumstances surrounding these arrangements. Even among the MPs supporting surrogacy, there was recognition that some form of a cooling-off period for the surrogate mother was necessary. That should tell us something.

International surrogacy was central to the policy question Parliament was considering, because like Adam and Jamie and other UK commissioning parents, and collectively British Citizens and the government participate in the international market in which the laws, safeguards and protections for women and children vary enormously.

MPs who spoke against the petition understood this but one intervention was particularly troubling. Rachel Taylor, speaking about consent, said:

“We need to strengthen checks for consent in surrogacy relationships, but we cannot have a situation where somebody can give consent, which has been adequately checked and monitored, and then withdraw it afterwards. We have to be careful about challenging that, because it goes to the very root of consent, and it is dangerous to do so.”

We do not accept the implication behind this argument. However inconvenient it may be, women can change their minds. Consent in any area is not permanently fixed, women (and men) are human beings, not robots. How you feel and what you decide can change. You may regret what you agreed to and you should have the ability to withdraw consent. I was reminded of this with the mention of a specific court case by Rebecca Smith, involving surrogate mother Hannah*, who I personally supported and whose case centred on exactly that issue:

“In 2023, the Court of Appeal dealt with a case where a parental order was set aside and the surrogate mother was ultimately awarded contact with the child four times a year. That child was conceived using the surrogate’s own egg. She had to fight for that contact against the wishes of the commissioning parents.”

Another significant moment in the debate was when Phil Brickell raised concerns about constituents who had had a very poor experience with My Surrogacy Journey, a UK surrogacy agency in Mexico.

“While in Mexico, they had repeated traumatic experiences with the company relating to issues including insurance for their children, accusations of bullying towards staff and repeated efforts to silence any constructive criticism. I understand that other Members of this House have received similar complaints.”

Phil Brickell called for a review of whether this agency should remain listed on the government’s surrogacy webpage. Diana Johnson confirmed that the allegations about this company would be explored.

That intervention alone demonstrates why Parliament should be extremely cautious about weakening the safeguards surrounding surrogacy. For background, this agency is run by Michael and Wes Johnson Ellis, commissioning parents of 3 surrogate born children (two were born in the UK, one in Mexico and Wes has a daughter with a former partner). Said to be worth $8m with a financial target of $20m next year, these Co-CEOs also run Ethica Fertility.

Sitting in the room, the contrast was striking. The petition was framed around one family. Adam and Jamie say they became Leven’s fathers the moment they held her but Krista became her mother from the moment of conception. However deep, genuine and steadfast their love for Baby Leven is, legal parenthood is not the same thing. Parliament should legislate for everyone, and with my great relief, the strength of support in the room for retaining safeguards for children was overwhelming.

The petition did not produce the straightforward endorsement it’s campaigners hoped for. Instead, it exposed uncomfortable questions surrounding surrogacy. Who protects the child? Who protects the woman? What happens when she changes her mind? And who, ultimately, gets to decide when a child is treated as a legal commodity transferred from one adult to another?

MPs rightly discussed the petition in full, highlighted the deeply complex nature of surrogacy agreements and ultimately concluded that transferring legal parenthood at birth is not going to happen. If Adam and Jamie want their parental rights recognised in the UK, they will have to complete the parental-order process, just like other UK commissioning parents.

Why more women are questioning Surrogacy

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I feel increasingly uneasy about the direction in which reproductive technologies and surrogacy are taking place in society. My perspective does not come from infertility, fertility treatment, or involvement in surrogacy arrangements. It comes from a lifetime of reflecting on family, motherhood, belonging and the consequences of human vulnerability. As a daughter, granddaughter and as a mother, I carry a personal history shaped by displacement, sexual abuse and physical abuse. Those experiences have made me deeply aware of how power operates and how people facing hardship can become vulnerable to exploitation, even when exploitation is presented as opportunity or empowerment.

Discussions around surrogacy are often framed around the hopes and desires of adults who wish to have children but much less attention is given to the growing number of women who are drawn into surrogacy, but it is their bodies, their mental health that is at risk.

Because I have not walked the path of infertility I approach the subject with humility. I recognise the profound grief and soul-searching that can accompany the inability to conceive a child. Yet compassion for that suffering does not remove the need to ask serious ethical questions around the solutions being offered. For many women, concern about surrogacy is not rooted in hostility towards those who long for children. Rather, it comes from a sense that something fundamental about human relationships is being altered in ways we have not fully considered.

At the centre of every surrogacy arrangement is a pregnant woman and the child growing within her. Pregnancy begins with a unique relationship between the mother and her child. Family members relate to the unborn child, children observe their mother’s pregnancy and begin to understand that they, too, once began life in the same way. Pregnancy is the first chapter of a story of belonging.

Surrogacy introduces a different reality. The child is intentionally conceived with the expectation that they will be separated from their mother who carried them. When that separation occurs as part of a contractual arrangement, many women find themselves asking questions that are rarely discussed openly. What does this mean for the child? How will future generations understand the meaning of motherhood, kinship, and origin? What are the emotional and existential consequences when the earliest human bond becomes subject to a transaction?

These concerns are not always easily expressed because they touch on dimensions of life that modern culture often struggles to discuss: identity, attachment, meaning and the spiritual significance of human relationships.

For some women, concern extends beyond the surrogate pregnancy itself to the wider fertility industry. They question the creation of multiple embryos, the fate of embryos that are not implanted and the growing use of donor conception. They worry about a system that increasingly treats human reproduction as a process that can be organised, managed, bought and sold.

There is also unease about the commercial pressures driving this industry. While surrogacy is often presented as an act of generosity there are economic inequalities that underpin these arrangements. Wealthier individuals are able to access ‘reproductive services’ provided by women whose financial circumstances are limited. This imbalance raises questions about consent, autonomy and whether genuine freedom can exist in these conditions.

Increasingly, some women fear that society is moving towards a view of reproduction in which technology and market forces take precedence over human relationships. I am one of those women. We see the normalisation of reproductive outsourcing as part of a broader trend towards viewing the human body, fertility and even children through the lens of production – almost one of manufacturing when you consider egg harvesting and pre-implantation testing alongside capitalism and consumerism.

Whether one describes this concern in moral, philosophical or spiritual terms, the underlying question remains the same: what does it mean to be human and what responsibilities do we owe to the most vulnerable among us?

These questions are not anti-child, anti-family, or anti-compassion. They emerge precisely because of a desire to protect human dignity. As public debate continues, there is a growing need to create space for perspectives that are often overlooked. This includes the voices of surrogate-born people, donor-conceived individuals, women who regret being surrogates mothers and those who simply feel compelled to question the ethical implications of an expanding global industry.

For many women, this conversation is ultimately about more than surrogacy. It is about preserving a vision of humanity grounded in relationships rather than transactions, belonging rather than abstraction and human dignity over commodification.

If we are to move forward responsibly, we must be willing to engage in deeper reflection, not only on what is technologically possible, but on what kind of society we wish to become.

~ V.V

Regulation is not the answer

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Supporters of surrogacy often argue that the answer to the myriad of ethical concerns regarding surrogacy is better regulation. Supporters claim that regulation protects and safeguards women and children from exploitation and abuse. They are wrong. Increasingly, we see countries apply regulatory models that still fail women and children.

America’s commercial model remains the preferred option for British commissioning parents as the USA has taken the number one spot for surrogacy for over a decade. Asian Businessmen are a popular cohort within the USA’s commissioning parents group.

One study in the United States found that of the 40,000+ embryo transfers to a surrogate mother performed between 2014 to 2020, 32% were for international commissioning parents. These foreign nationals were more likely to be male, older than 42 years, and ‘identify as Asian’. The father of Olympic medalist, Alyssa Lui, Arthur (Junguo) Liu, is an attorney and former political activist. Having always wanted a large family he obtained has five children (Alysa, a younger sister, and triplets), all born via surrogacy and anonymous egg donors.

Another Chinese commissioning parent, billionaire video-game executive Xu Bo, claimed in 2025 that he has “a little over 100” children born via surrogacy in the U.S – though his ex-girlfriend, Tang Jing, claims the number is closer to 300 children worldwide – to obtain ‘high quality sons’ as for him, boys are “superior” to girls for leadership roles.

Now, take the extraordinary case of American businessman Greg Lindberg. This former billionaire built what has been described as a “baby project” involving dozens of egg donors, surrogate mother mothers, fertility clinics, lawyers and staff. Through a network involving at least 25 women, he fathered numerous children using ‘donor’ eggs and surrogate mothers, all whilst facing criminal investigations, imprisonment and financial collapse.

Although Lindberg was based in North Carolina where surrogacy is permitted and enforced through contract law, many of the surrogacy pregnancies occurred in other states. This type of interstate arrangement is common in the United States, as commissioning parents often pursue surrogacy in jurisdictions with more favorable legal frameworks. State laws generally do not prevent residents from entering surrogacy arrangements elsewhere and then returning home with the child. A similar dynamic exists in the UK; residents may engage in commercial surrogacy overseas and return to the UK with the child, even though commercial surrogacy is illegal.

The states where Lindberg’s surrogacy pregnancies occurred each had their own legal frameworks for gestational surrogacy. For example, in Illinois the surrogate mother must be at least 21 years old, have given birth to at least one child, pass medical/mental health screening and at least one commissioning parent must be genetically related to the child. Lindberg met this criteria.

In Florida, enforceable gestational surrogacy contracts are generally limited to married couples when a physician determines that the commissioning mother cannot safely carry a pregnancy. As an unmarried man, Lindberg would not meet those statutory requirements but Florida law provides alternative parentage pathways, including preplanned adoption agreements.

New York is often cited as having the strongest surrogacy protections in the United States. The law requires surrogate mothers to be at least 21 years old and guarantees their right to make all medical decisions during pregnancy and mandates that commissioning parents pay for independent legal representation, comprehensive health insurance, and life insurance. The state also requires either the surrogate mother or at least one commissioning parent to have been a New York resident for six months. Together, these protections are frequently described as the gold standard but you’ll notice that no such checks or investigations apply to the commissioners. Regulation is designed to put the woman under the magnifying glass, not the person or people who walk away with a newborn.

Clinics, agencies, lawyers and professional bodies were all involved in obtaining children for Greg Lindberg, yet despite these layers of oversight, numerous women reported experiences of manipulation, deception and coercion. Several women who ‘donated’ their eggs described being recruited through romantic relationships. Some were promised marriage, a family life and substantial financial rewards. Others believed they were helping an infertile couple. Some women said they were unaware that multiple other ‘donors’ and surrogate mothers were being recruited simultaneously.

The existence of safeguards, legal contracts, life insurance, or psychological screening did not prevent this deception. In fact, many of the women signed legal agreements relinquishing rights to their eggs and any resulting children.

Greg Lindberg’s girlfriend has been given the pseudonym ‘Anya’. Anya has reportedly not seen her son Oliver in nearly four years as allegedly Lindberg used legal contracts signed by Anya during the IVF process to claim she was merely an “egg donor” and to cut her out of her son’s life. Regulation may have ensured paperwork was complete, but consent was not freely given as his intentions were kept hidden.

One problem with regulation is that it is not court-ordered, “tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth”. It is a flimsy form of red tape, built by stakeholders, none of which can force someone to be honest about their plans. For Lindberg, the truth came out when he was prosecuted – not for lies and deception in surrogacy and IVF fraud, but for a multibillion-dollar insurance fraud and a high-level public corruption plot. The money paid to buy children is neither here nor there. The purchase and sale of human beings is not a crime in surrogacy, it is the central purpose and not an illegal act under ‘regulation’.

The truth is there is a fundamental weakness in the regulatory approach to surrogacy. Those who manage it are the ones who benefit. Can we trust those who are so invested in the industry to say no when it is needed and work in the best interests of the woman, or even the child? Many agencies are run by commissioning parents or surrogate mothers.

Regulation tends to focus on procedures: contracts must be signed, medical tests completed and counselling offered. Boxes can and will be ticked, but exploitation often occurs in the human relationships surrounding the process. A woman may technically consent while being emotionally pressured, financially induced or misled about the circumstances. No amount of paperwork can fully eliminate risks of exploitation or the medical risks involved in surrogacy.

The role of fertility clinics here is troubling. According to the investigation, just one clinic declined to work with Lindberg. Others reportedly continued accepting ‘donated’ eggs and surrogate mothers despite concerns raised by staff. Some women ‘donating’ their eggs alleged that warning signs were ignored. Former employees reportedly questioned whether women were being rushed through screening processes.

Whether every allegation can be substantiated is ultimately a matter for the police and judiciary. There are no public reports on the location of the children and who is caring for them now that Lindberg is back behind bars. Perhaps this is for the best so the children can maintain their anonymity and grow up without the spectre of the Baby Project looming over their childhood.

However, the broader point remains: regulation did not stop the system from functioning in this way. The professional guidelines that were supposed to provide safeguards did not prevent the Lindberg Baby Project.

Shamefully, this case is not an isolated example. In 2025 the Arcadia Surrogacy scandal revealed how dozens of women across multiple U.S. states were misled by a Californian surrogacy agency operated by commissioning parents. Silvia Zhang and Guojun Xuan had more than twenty-one children born through surrogacy arrangements across the United States. The case came to light after a two-month-old infant in their care was hospitalised with serious injuries, prompting police and child protection authorities to investigate. Officials later discovered all the very young children living in their mansion.

Multiple surrogate mothers came forward claiming they had been misled or not told that other surrogacy pregnancies were occurring simultaneously. All of the children were placed into protective custody whilst their welfare and long-term arrangements were assessed. (A further six children were born after investigations began.)

Most surrogacy regulation focus heavily on getting a live child and establishing legal parental rights. Far less scrutiny is applied to their long-term welfare. These cases highlight how regulatory systems fail at the point of consent – as clinical protocols do not prevent deception or unequal power dynamics – and again similar shortcomings occur after the children are born. This second level failure happens when surrogacy arrangements produce multiple children under legal frameworks, but there is limited safeguarding for the child.

Some children were born while Lindberg was in prison despite staff reportedly expressing concern about future childcare considering the ongoing financial difficulties, yet embryos continued to be created and implanted.

It’s clear that wealth can overwhelm safeguards. Lindberg reportedly spent over $15.4 million in direct payments to women and another $12 million on “reproductive services”. He also paid for rent, child care and cosmetic dentistry for some of the women involved.

Wealthy commissioning parents can hire lawyers, consultants, recruiters and clinics to facilitate their plans, significant sums of money are involved. Financial incentives compete with ethical concerns. Clinics charge fees. Agencies earn commissions. Lawyers are paid for their services. In such circumstances, the best interests of women and children are not the primary consideration.

Advocates of surrogacy frequently argue that problems arise because regulation is insufficient. Yet the Lindberg case suggests a deeper issue. The problem was not an absence of rules. It is the assumption that a market involving reproduction, money and unequal power can be made fully safe and the expectation, or naive belief, that regulation will be applied as the law says it will be.

Women may still be pressured. Children are the result of adult desires rather than individuals with independent interests. Industry professionals have financial incentives and determined individuals will find ways to manipulate the system.

Regulation, however extensive, does not seek to protect women from exploitation or children from being commodified. If a network of clinics and lawyers cannot prevent exploitation from taking place, policymakers should be cautious about claims that surrogacy can simply be made safe through better regulation.

Before expanding markets in reproduction, governments should ask a more fundamental question: are some risks inherent to the practice itself, and therefore beyond the reach of regulation?

This blog was written by Kallie Fell, Executive Director of the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network and Lexi Ellingsworth, Founder of Stop Surrogacy Now UK.

Please write to your MP…again!

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**UPDATE: This petition will be debated on Monday 7th September 2026**

Call for MP to oppose petition reforms and raise concerns in parliamentary debate

You may be aware of a government petition launched by fashion owner and social media influencer, Adam Frisby. He and husband Jamie would like to change the Surrogacy Arrangements Act to have the law recognise parental rights at birth.

Jamie and Adam went abroad to Connecticut, USA to obtain a baby from a single mother. Krista gave birth to Leven Rose in January, and by law Krista is rightly the legal parent here, even with a pre-birth order under the commercial contract she signed with Circle Surrogacy.

Transferring parental rights at birth would see a significant shift, one that not even the Law Commission in their 2023 report and Draft Bill suggested. Under the proposed ‘new pathway’ parental rights at birth along with the removal of the birth mother’s name from the birth certificate were proposed, but this was not suggested for international surrogacy. The Law Commission had a whole chapter in their Core Report arguing for the Parental Order process to remain in place.

As the petition secured over 100,000 signatures it is likely that there will be a debate, so we ask you to write to your MP to highlight the key issues with this proposal:
1. No oversight from courts: Right now, there’s at least one formal, straightforward application – a parental order. Surrogacy arrangements are checked and officially recorded before legal parenthood is transferred. It’s not perfect, but it’s the only point where any real scrutiny happens. Removing this means less transparency and accountability.
2. No safety checks: Unlike adoption, surrogacy already has much less safeguarding, but this petition calls for zero checks. At the moment, social workers do home visits but by removing CAFCASS even that basic safeguard would be lost and background checks wouldn’t be required either.
3. Concerns on consent: The current system makes sure the birth mother can give full and free consent and importantly this is ongoing, after the baby is born. Changing this to decisions made before birth could lock things in too early and take away her ability to change her mind. That risks shifting UK surrogacy even closer to commercial surrogacy with pre-birth orders seen in contracts in Ukraine and the USA. This is a significant shift away from the type of surrogacy the public generally endorses.

If you would like to go further…please include:

Health risks for surrogate mothers: Evidence from Canada, which operates a similar ‘expenses only’ systems as the UK, shows that surrogate pregnancies carry high risks – x3 – for severe pregnancy complications like sepsis, preeclampsia, and postpartum haemorrhage.
Growing international concern: A 2025 report from the UN Special Rapporteur for Violence Against Women and Girls found that surrogacy cannot be made safe and she warned about risks of exploitation and human trafficking. Reem Alsalem’s recommendation was to prohibit surrogacy.
Surrogacy is a crime against humanity: as a form of reproductive violence and the sale of children, surrogacy is included in proposals from the UN Special Rapporteur for member states’ consideration to expand the list of crimes against humanity
Surrogacy is human trafficking: A newly released report from the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioning names “coercive surrogacy”, “forced surrogacy” and egg harvesting as forms of reproductive exploitation.
Public support for reform is unclear: The 2019 consultation from the Law Commission showed that more than half of respondents actually supported banning surrogacy altogether.
UK Involvement and Facilitation in a global baby buyers market: We have seen an increasing numbers of UK residents are going abroad for surrogacy, especially since 2021, often to countries with weaker or no regulations and cheap deals. Changes would make the UK complicit in a global industry linked to exploitation and trafficking. (See the Annual Report from the Modern Slavery Line, Unseen below)
Access to banned practices: Some of these countries allow practices illegal in the UK, such as sex selection. Many of the clinics abroad would not meet UK HFEA guidance of implanting one embryo at a time.
High-risk environments: Surrogacy arrangements are happening in conflict zones like Ukraine and countries with concerns about corruption and exploitation, such as Nigeria, where British citizens cannot adopt from due to concerns of corruption and human trafficking.
Conflict with UK law and values: the UK has commitments under the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and the Human Rights Act 1998, and ignoring the harms of a global industry (projected to be worth over $200bn by 2035) women are exploited and children are treated as commodities for trade.

Please conclude your letter by asking your MP to raise these concerns, oppose the reforms and to attend the parliamentary debate and it would be very helpful to us if you could let us know if you receive a response.

If you need support in sending an email please contact us at stopsurrogacynowuk@stopsurrogacynowuk

Thank you!

Lexi Ellingsworth

Further information:

Report from Women’s Policy Centre – written by Lexi Ellingsworth
https://www.womenpolicycentre.com/the-case-for-a-universal-ban-on-surrogacy/
UN Report on Surrogacy
https://docs.un.org/en/A/80/158
2024 Annual Report from Modern Slavery Helpline, Unseen: “Forced surrogacy was reported to the Helpline for the first time in 2023, a total of four times, with one case indicating various types of exploitation. Forced surrogacy cases involve a potential victim forced or coerced into carrying a pregnancy for another individual. In total, 104 cases were recorded where it was indicated that potential victims experienced various types of exploitation. This is an increase of 6% from 591 the previous year.” https://www.unseenuk.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Unseen-Helpline-Annual-Assessment_2023.pdf

What does ‘Mother’ mean?

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On Mother’s Day we celebrate our own mothers and our children celebrate us. It is a day to acknowledge the sheer hard work of raising children, how we come to have them and how family units are created in different sizes and forms, but the focus is on mothers.

Only women can be mothers. Only women can become pregnant, give birth and breastfeed and ‘mother’ is both a social term and a legal one. The legal definition was in response to scientific developments in IVF, where egg donor conceived pregnancies created the question “of what a “What is a Mother?” Prior to this, there was no confusion about the meaning of the word ‘mother’.

The 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act (Section 27) defines ‘mother’ as

“the woman who is carrying or has carried a child as a result of the placing in her of an embryo or of sperm and eggs, and no other woman, is to be treated as the mother of the child.”

In other words, the woman who gives birth has legal parental rights and responsibilities and the woman who provides the egg for that embryo does not.

Before this law, the word mother had one meaning which everyone understood. The only deviation and subsequent sub-subcategory was when legal rights and responsibilities were transferred from a birth mother to an adopting mother.

in surrogacy, the definition of the noun ‘surrogate’ is:

a substitute, especially a person deputising for another in a specific role or office.

For me, the person deputising or standing in for the mother is the commissioning parent; an adult – male or female – who not only commissioned the child into being but is the social parent caring for and raising the child, as a result of an arranged pregnancy, with or without a contract.

This person – single people can obtain a child through surrogacy in the UK – or couple, later become the legal parent/s when a parental order is granted by the courts. A parental order cannot be applied for, under the current law, before the newborn reaches 6 weeks old. So these people are not the legal parents from birth and there is always (as with adoption) a birth mother, regardless of how invisible they might want her to be.

Proposed law reform would see a seismic shift with the introduction of a ‘new pathway’. This would allow for parental rights for the commissioning couple to be transferred during the pregnancy, with a pre-birth order (like that seen in commercial surrogacy arrangements, a model we are told is rejected by the Law Commission and pro-surrogacy lobbyists).

That’s right, whilst the woman is still pregnant, the baby inside her doesn’t belong to her and in fact someone else has legal parental rights to the child she has not yet given birth to.

The idea that a child you have within your body belonging to someone else has lead to what I consider to be dangerous and deceptive discourse around surrogacy. Euphemistic language begins with ‘surrogate’, where the word mother doesn’t feature at all, (or worse ‘gestational carrier’) and ends with the claim that the mother is ‘giving the baby back’. Back to where, where the original order was made? The baby is not returning to the place they began. With IVF that would mean taking the child to a lab where they were conceived.

No, this claim refers to handing the baby over to the strangers they may or may not be related to. Under current UK law and reform proposals, the requirement for one commissioning parent to be genetically related to the child remains but the UK’s largest agency, Surrogacy UK, campaigns for ‘double donation’ so no genetic link would be required.

The dominating theory here is that the genetics are equal to ownership and that pregnancy and birth are minor details. This denies the reality of how babies are made, with or without a Petri dish. It dismisses the mother baby bond, something agencies and proponents of surrogacy, denies exist. Academics downplay the sharing of cells in the womb as “a mere fantasy of romanticism”.

Some supporters of surrogacy prefer to dehumanise the woman further, reducing her to an electrical appliance, calling women ‘ovens’ and the baby a ‘bun’. This goes beyond a lighthearted joke when they consider having a baby for others to be ‘extreme babysitting’ – like Ultra Marathons or Free Solo climbing. Something that is impressive in the danger and fraught with risk. I’m not convinced that the medical risks are fully explained prior to conception or implantation but that’s a different blog…

Saying that a pregnant woman is simply ‘babysitting’ is an insult to the magic of motherhood and it seeks to separate the mother and baby by reducing pregnancy to a bodily function or a paid role. There may be more truth shared in this than was intended.

In surrogate motherhood, a genetic link is unimportant, whilst the genetic link between the baby and the commissioning parent/s is paramount. In surrogacy, the natural maternal bond is dismissed as emotional and romantic and known science of maternal-foetal microchimerism is waved away.

But surrogacy doesn’t remove the reality of how babies are made, however inconvenient it may be. Everyone has a mother, whether she wants to be thought as one or not.

Behind the Screens: Dialogue from Surrogate Mothers

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So many of us live our lives online. Communities connect across long distances, and short, and we find comfort in that common ground online, particularly if what we are going through is unusual, a situation that perhaps few of those close to us can understand.

This applies to the online surrogacy world, with a statistically small but growing group of women gathering from around the world to share stories, experience and advice. But it’s not necessarily friendship that guides them. Facebook appears to be the primary place for potential parents to be ‘matched’ with candidates for surrogacy. Women may advertise their availability, detailing their age, previous pregnancies, health status and location or the commissioners can search for a woman they often describe as kind and generous, someone who will help them overcome their childlessness and be the way they start or expand their family.

Inevitably the commissioners may have spent a lot of money on IVF treatment by this point and are looking for cut-price, budget-friendly deal. The women must be fair and not charge too much for ‘expenses’ or ‘compensation’. In their search, commissioning parents will list the application criteria by age, location and BMI. If they want to use her eggs in the process as well her physical characteristics become more important. They will look for women who look like them, so the child may grow to resemble their commissioner.

Whilst these groups are dangerously close to being illegal, as currently advertising for surrogacy from either approach, is banned in the UK, but they almost pose a greater risk when you enter the echo chamber as a surrogate mother.

A recent post on X/Twitter inspired me to review all the screenshots from Facebook groups that have been shared by volunteers over the past 6 months or so. It was suggested that women in these self-help groups are healthy and largely unaffected by their involvement with surrogacy. We would argue the opposite, but, as a Facebook relationship status used to say, it’s complicated.

When surrogate mothers gather they discuss all kinds of topics within surrogacy. From the beginning there are gentle, curious enquiries which are swiftly followed by contract negotiations as they are keen to establish their worth. There is the weight of guilt from failed tests, failed embryo transfers and miscarriage, as if their bodies are not good enough, are not up to the task and may not be able to fulfil the promise they have made.

Women discuss body autonomy, on everything from vaccines and c-sections to abortion and whether they are entitled to receive medical advice, scans or updates without the commissioning parents in the room. Their privacy is compromised further when they discuss whether they can engage in sexual activity with their partners.

Being able to decide for themselves is a recurring theme as contracts can restrict their diet (commissioners can insist on a vegan or vegetarian diet) or travel. One surrogate mother tells her confidants that she has missed the passing of a loved one as she was not allowed – according to her contract – to cross state lines. While contracts are not enforceable in the UK, pressure can still be applied. Once you are pregnant as a surrogate mother, with a baby you tell yourself is not yours but in fact ‘belongs’ to someone else, all bets are off. (British commissioners often engage in surrogacy overseas through agencies and later travel to collect the child. When they return the courts will award them parental rights once some forms have been filled in.)

In this social space these women speak of being rejected by agencies due to their high BMI or issues with a previous pregnancy and will ask whether anyone there knows of a clinic who might take on an older woman, a woman on anti-depressants or one with a pre-existing condition. One woman recently asked if anyone could point her to a clinic who will take her on; with her 4 previous miscarriages and the 5 children she has kept and she is planning another surrogacy pregnancy after her 3rd surrogate born baby who is due in a few months. Group members are quick to share advice and there is an element of ‘clinic shopping’ to side-step the usual limits.

They talk about the painful IVF injections and weight gain, the impact on their emotional wellbeing and even the strain it has on their families, as they aim to help someone else grow theirs, but perhaps the most significant issue discussed is the coercive nature of their commissioners.

Women compare notes, asking if they are being unreasonable as they are encouraged to give over their bodies to surrogacy. Shockingly, the reaction is often one of victim blaming. The “put your big pants on” or “you know what you were getting yourself into” responses are frequent, all shared within a supposed sisterhood for a very special pocket of the internet, one that outsiders couldn’t possibly understand.

Every woman is at some point faced with the biological reality of pregnancy, like any other woman, from the limiting daily morning sickness to life threatening preeclampsia. These situations lead to discussions about disability and life insurance and how much are their lives worth, including to those they might leave behind. With the increase of risk of twins or triplets come higher rates of pay…some might call it danger money.

Agency list their going rates for a hysterectomy, others hide these details in contracts. If a woman who relies on her uterus to make a living, arguably this permanent removal of this reproductive organ affects her career prospects, so what is this worth in monetary value? The prices vary…

Post birth we have seen women speak about their periods getting heavier, their bodies changing beyond recognition as the pregnancy and labour was so much harder than their previous experience of childbirth. There are practical discussions about expressing colostrum and breastmilk, how best should this precious fluid might be shipped and shared.

I have myself noticed commissioning parents returning to these groups to ask women how they might obtain breastmilk for the babies they took from their mothers at birth, could these random mothers on the internet root around “at the back of the freezer” to see if any is going spare? (Breastmilk banks rigorously tested for bacteria, heated to eliminated viruses and is stored in temperature monitored freezers. )

Surrogate mothers who speak about their worries and regrets are quickly shut down and can even be ejected from the group. These women may be entering a frightening new legal experience with subsequent court cases or an abandoned baby but no one will be there to support them as the shiny seal has been broken and tarnished. This is not the type of surrogacy the groups are usually interested in, though we have seen one woman who are allowed to stick around share how her ‘journey’ ended in her losing her job and divorcing her husband.

What is perhaps the most shocking is how when women do have regrets and suffer the mother child separation (which they were told they would not experience as it is not their baby) their new friends rally round to reassure them that this is simply their hormones reacting and this is not something they should worry about. They are told to straighten their spines as if they are facing a tricky work problem or relationship situation and not the desperate loss of a baby who hasn’t died, a child they know in their bones they will never see him or her (or them) again.

The message is clear, sweep this under the carpet as it’s not real, you are not the mother, this natural maternal bond is an illusion. Surrogate mothers are not allowed to feel what is real.

Some women who have a bad experience will praise the benefits of going another round. The aim appears to be to wipe away the bad memories with a new happy ones. It was just a ‘bad match’, she was unlucky, she knew she should have listened to her instincts and she will next time. If the new relationship break downs, or her health deteriorates again, there’s always a third time lucky 🤞.

There is a sense of toxic encouragement rather than genuine interest and reviewing the post and responses reminded me of what you might have once seen on a pro-ana site. (Try Googling to find out what I’m talking about and you’ll find those sites have been shut down, for good reason.)

One small silver lining is the direct messages a woman might receive when she has been shown the door. We have also seen the messages of careful support and camaraderie, away from the main stage where only ‘baby dust’, crossed fingers and positive vibes are permitted.

Words from a Surrogate Mother – Part 4: Clara*

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My name is Clara* and I am from Argentina. I have two daughters who are studying at a university in Argentina. Since 2023, I have been fighting to regain my place in my son’s life, with the help of my solicitor. This is my story.

In 2022, a very close friend of mine, whom I will call ‘G’, whom I met in 2007 when I was studying English, called me. He works in Europe and lives with his partner. They are both very wealthy.

At the time, I had recently separated, lost a child a few years earlier, and was not feeling well. During our conversation, G asked me to become the mother of his child. He said that the three of us would form a family. I was happy to help them become parents, and to become a mother again myself. I accepted this wonderful project. He mentioned the possibility of marrying me to make it easier for them to obtain papers in France. We would be a family of three in Europe. I would live on one floor of their large house and they would live on the other; we would raise the child together.

I know it may sound strange, but it felt strange to me at first too. I won’t lie — I didn’t want to upset him. I thought to myself, ‘Well, the world is changing so much that I’m going to become a mother this way.’ They brought me to France on a tourist visa. As I was in the early stages of menopause, they arranged for in vitro fertilisation in Spain using my friend’s partner’s sperm and donor eggs. The doctor suggested a donor with dark skin, like mine. However, ‘G’ insisted on a donor with fair skin and blue eyes. I refused.

It was a high-risk pregnancy: I was 41 years old at the time and had been diagnosed with high blood pressure and hypothyroidism. During the pregnancy, I had to go to hospital four times.

From the outset of my pregnancy, I found it extremely challenging to coexist with them. They argued a lot and started behaving very coldly towards me, as if it were a job. Gradually, the idea of a happy family life together disappeared. They decided that I should live in the neighbouring town and that I would only see the baby at weekends after he was born. G took my passport, but fortunately returned it to me four months later. I no longer recognised him; he had become a completely different person.

However, I thought I had to carry on since, after all, they were the parents and I was the mother, and we were going to start a family. I told myself that I had to put up with things, which unfortunately only got worse.

The delivery was difficult and a caesarean section had to be performed. When the child was born, G presented himself to the hospital staff as my partner. They prevented me from holding my son, saying that I was tired. They told the nursing staff that I couldn’t breastfeed him because I was going back to work. That wasn’t true. They forced me to express milk. I agreed because I thought that if the baby became too dependent on me, it would cause him distress later on. There was also the €300 they sent every month for my daughters. I had no job and no connections. I didn’t speak French yet either. I had no money. They paid all my expenses, but my visa had expired, so I couldn’t go out without being very discreet. I couldn’t ask for help, and I had to keep my word.

When I dared to protest, the tension between us increased. They made me write a curriculum vitae and told me that they could no longer support me. I had not yet recovered from my caesarean section, so I asked them for a little more time as I was still finding it very difficult to walk. However, without consulting me, they organised my departure to Spain, where I knew nobody except a vague Facebook contact in Murcia. It took five car changes via BlaBlaCar and a bus journey to get there — a distance of 1,500 km. ‘G’ accompanied me to the bus in Barcelona to Murcia, then flew back immediately.

The person I stayed with helped me and put me in touch with a solicitor. By leaving my son like that, I risked being accused of child abandonment. I called ‘G’, begging him to let me return to France. I naively told him that I risked being prosecuted for child abandonment. I then learned that they had immediately filed a complaint against me for child abandonment.

While in Spain, I was put in touch with solicitors Ambroselli and Montesinos. They organised my repatriation to France and have supported me in all my efforts, including with paperwork, work and legal action to regain custody of my son.

Thanks to their efforts, I can now see my son for two hours every fortnight under social services supervision. However, for me, this is only a first step: I hope to be reunited with my son, who is now two years old, one day.

This speech was read by Clara* at FiLiA in Brighton on 11th October 2025. Clara* has used a pseudonym due to ongoing legal action.

Words from a Surrogate Mother – Part 3: Julie*

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By 2019, I had been dreaming of having a child for a long time. This desire was deep and long-standing, but I lacked the financial means to raise a child alone. It was essential to me that the future child should know their origins and never be cut off from me. As an LGBTI+ activist who cares deeply about the cause of the oppressed, I also wanted this project to align with my political beliefs. Ethical, altruistic or humanitarian surrogacy, as it is presented and ‘sold’ today, seemed to me to be the perfect solution: it would fulfil my desire for motherhood, allow a male couple to become parents, and right an injustice. At the time, I believed that the ban on surrogacy (and assisted reproductive technology) in France was unjust.

In my search for ‘intended parents’ — in other words, commissioning parents — I was contacted by people from all countries and of all sexual orientations. I systematically refused all offers of remuneration, including those from abroad and from heterosexual couples. I would never have accepted the child having any mother other than me. We envisaged ‘traditional’ and ‘artisanal’ surrogacy without the involvement of clinics, agencies or excessive costs, apart from the initial medical tests. We agreed on homemade artificial insemination, and I insisted on registering the child with the civil authorities. I refused to give birth anonymously, as I did not want my baby to have a start in life marked by abandonment. The agreement was clear: they would raise the child in their home, and I would remain close to them. The child was always to know me and consider me a member of his family. It was an underground surrogacy arrangement which, at the time, I considered to be a ‘solidarity project’ operating on the fringes of the law. There was no written contract, only a verbal agreement, a ‘contract of trust’.

The pregnancy was much more difficult than I had imagined. I went through it all alone, with no support from the couple, my family or my friends. During the last month, they began to put pressure on me by imposing their concerns and medical choices. On the day of the birth, I realised that, in their eyes, I had never had any human dignity or maternal role. I was nothing more than a body responsible for ‘delivering’ the baby. They wanted to watch the birth from the front, despite the fact that I had no intimate relationship with any of them. The biological father preferred a caesarean section to the use of a vacuum extractor. Fortunately, the obstetrician did not listen to him. He insisted that the baby be placed in the nursery for the first night and that my stay in the maternity ward be shortened, despite my repeated objections. In the delivery room, a paediatric nurse, unaware of our surrogacy plans, said, “Don’t try to separate the mother and child.” She understood better than I did what was at stake. My stay was so difficult that the staff thought I was a battered woman. They sent me a psychologist and promised me postnatal care, but ultimately, nothing was done.

I had given my word, and when I left the maternity ward, I entrusted my baby to them. I couldn’t afford to raise him, and I believed that they would keep their promise just as I had kept mine. I never asked for any money; in fact, I gave them the social security benefits I received so that the child would have everything he needed.

Very quickly, however, the initial promises evaporated. They organised a birth party without telling or inviting me. To their relatives, they maintained the pretence that they had conceived the baby alone. The regular visits they had promised me during the first year became rare and sporadic. News and photos were slow in coming. Then, in 2022, I discovered that they were planning to move to the other side of France. Whenever the local social services intervened, they moved again. The stability that I had hoped the child would have – and which had motivated my choice of them – was not forthcoming. They also hid information about the child’s health from me. I learned from a doctor that my son had been diagnosed with autism six months earlier and that they had portrayed me as absent and unstable.

Finally, they settled in the Gard region, where social services stopped investigating. Three months later, the biological father died of aggressive cancer at the age of 37. Legally, I remained the sole holder of parental authority and was entitled to regain custody of my son, as the second commissioning couple had no biological or legal connection to him. I had resisted the pressure they had put on me to give up my rights or agree to adoption.

Naively, and in the interests of the child, I suggested to the stepfather that we arrange shared custody. However, he told me that he wanted to return to the Paris region, so I moved back there and rented a one-bedroom flat for my son. Meanwhile, he was initiating several legal proceedings against me, including temporary and long-term placement, total and exclusive transfer of my parental rights and custody, and even child maintenance. The judges granted all his requests.

The second commissioning person, who is legally nothing to my son, refused to return the family record book to me, with the approval of the magistrates. The public prosecutor in Nîmes described me as nothing more than a ‘procreator’. Social services were extremely accommodating, refusing to treat me as a parent for a year and explaining that they were there to ‘support the gentleman in his parenting’. The Departmental Child Welfare Services (ASE) even asked the Children’s Judge to remove my visiting and accommodation rights, which were already extremely limited, and this was ordered. Whenever this man prevented a meeting, phone call or video call between me and my son, social services covered for him.

To top it all off, the stepfather remarried another man, becoming my son’s ‘second stepfather’. This man obtained parental rights. Now, social services and magistrates are asking me to recognise this second stepfather as my child’s ‘father’. Both my son’s genetic father and my own family have been removed from his life.

Although the judge ordered visitation rights, I was unable to see my child from 31 July 2023 to 11 May 2024 – almost ten months in total. I received no updates and was reprimanded when I dared to ask for any. Social services cited being overloaded or the fact that I no longer had parental rights. Even the juvenile court judge acknowledged off the record that this should not have happened.

A complaint for incitement to child abandonment was filed against them in the Alpes de Haute Provence. All parties recognised the surrogacy, including social services and the surviving stepfather. In court, he openly admitted to this illegal surrogacy, knowing that he would not be punished, but rather that it would allow him to obtain exclusive rights and full custody of the child. The penalty in France is derisory: a €7,500 fine. If the sponsors knew this, none of them would pay for surrogacy abroad. Women’s bodies are being sold in France. Despite the evidence and confessions, the public prosecutor in Digne-les-Bains dismissed the child abandonment complaint. No judge wanted to investigate or simply apply the law. I appealed to the Attorney General in Aix-en-Provence, but he dismissed the case too.

I have now been fighting social services and judges for two years, and I am due to appear in court again on 9 October. I am fighting to be recognised as a mother and for my son to recognise me and be reunited with his maternal family. After eight months with no visiting rights, followed by supervised and semi-supervised visits where we had to ‘meet’ like strangers under the watchful eye of social services, I finally regained my visiting and accommodation rights. However, I still haven’t regained my parental rights or any prospect of custody. Social services keep telling me that their role is to ensure that the child has his father, as if the father were the child in need of protection.

For each visit and hearing, I travel 1,500 km. It requires a huge time, energy and financial commitment. Currently, I have custody of my son for half of the school holidays at my home and one and a half days per month during the school year, but I have to spend these periods in the Gard region. Needless to say, the stepfather has never moved to be closer, which makes shared custody impossible.

I had hoped this story would be one of friendship, solidarity and justice. Instead, it has become a tragedy; the biggest mistake and source of shame in my life. The state has stolen my son, as well as my dignity as a woman and a mother. Even today, I am not recognised as a parent. At school, at the doctor’s, with insurance companies or solicitors, I am nobody. I am fighting so that one day my son will truly be part of his maternal family, and so that he can forgive me — perhaps even love me. I am fighting so that no other woman will be treated as I was, and so that no other child will be torn away from their mother and maternal family. No one should have to go through what I am going through.

This speech was read by Julie* at FiLiA in Brighton on 11th October 2025. Julie* has used a pseudonym due to ongoing legal action.

Words from a Surrogate Mother – Part 1: Marie Anne

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My name is Marie-Anne Isabelle and the surrogacy experience that I endured here in this country nearly killed me. My mission now is to ensure that nobody goes through what I did. I have made it my cause to expose this barbaric practice for what it is and to enact change. I am not looking for glory or sympathy I just want change.

People hear about how wonderful surrogacy is, how it’s a beautiful gift and a positive experience. Then, you hear about the “terrible” surrogate who dares to ask for her child back. It’s an all-too-common depiction in our modern fairy tale world.

I believed that fairy tale when I agreed to help a family member by carrying her child. At the time, I was happy to help because I loved her and did not want or need to be paid. However, I made it clear that the child would be conceived using her egg and that I must be allowed to see and have contact with the child I would give birth to. That was the condition I would only do this under, if I could have regular contact with the child, as I could not live without seeing a child I would give birth to.

I agreed to become a surrogate mother for my cousin. She was more like a sister to me. She had been a significant presence in my life. We were a vital part of each other’s lives. I knew about her cancer. In 2009 she told me that she had created embryos and that she was researching surrogacy.

One day, she came to my house with her sister, who is also my cousin and asked if I could help her. I told her that I would only help if she let me see the child. She looked me in the eye and said, “Absolutely. There’s trust.” We’re family, you know? Not for a minute did I think I’d actually need to get a lawyer and write a contract.

I think when she asked me, she knew I had no choice but to say yes. I think she exploited our relationship. As further information came out afterwards, it appeared that they couldn’t go ahead with a surrogacy abroad as it was deemed too expensive, so they were looking for a cheaper alternative. They kind of saw me as “Oh, she’ll do it for free.” A free and cheap option.

I was told there is trust. “You will be the child’s godmother.” Those words would later come back to haunt me. I don’t believe she knows what trust means. She made all sorts of promises to brainwash and coerce me into helping her.

It was a gestational surrogacy. They used IVF with their own biological material. I remember lots of injections and visits to the clinic for very obtrusive physical examinations. It was a very procedural process, and it was quite challenging, both emotionally and physically, to go through. I’d had two normal, non-assisted pregnancies of my own and this pregnancy was nothing like those. This overmedication was purely to help these two people.

The experience was bad enough. Having somebody else try to dictate what medical procedures you should endure, how you should give birth, and what you should eat was awful. The list goes on. This affected me from the beginning of my pregnancy, yet there is still no specialized support for women going through surrogate pregnancies here in the UK.

In 2014, at the time of delivery, I made it clear that the commissioning father wouldn’t be present; it would just be her, me, and my partner. Everything went smoothly, and I felt in control. The hospital saw me as the mother. So, my wishes were taken into account; in how I wanted to do things. However, they wanted me to have an elective C-section. I refused, and my midwife backed me up by stating that C sections were not good practice. If someone doesn’t need one, they shouldn’t have one. They tried to force me and put pressure on me, saying, “Oh, it’d be better for you.”

I remember there being some confusion at the hospital. Even though the hospital had been told that it was a surrogacy, social services became involved. I thought, “This is awful. I’m trying to have a baby, and now I’ve got suspicious social services interviewing me.

The father came in after the birth because he wanted to have skin to skin contact. They had the baby. They were happy. They didn’t need me anymore so they told me to go home. However, the hospital staff did not agree. They wanted to see me walk out with the baby, carrying it according to their policy. I remember having to carry the car seat with the baby in it through the hospital in full view of the medical staff. Then, we had to do this strange exchange where I handed over the child in the hospital car park because, legally, the hospital was no longer responsible for the child once it was outside.

After the birth, I was presented with all sorts of legal documents that I was forced to sign. The timing was awful, too, right when I was trying to recover from the birth. Imagine training your body and mind for nine months to believe that you are not the mother of the child you are giving birth to. Every surrogate woman has to do that. Then, after doing that, you are presented with a document stating that you are the mother, and you are forced to sign it. I was also threatened with financial and legal consequences if I didn’t sign it. This is the dark side of surrogacy in the UK that nobody hears about because most women are given gag orders to prevent them from talking about it.

No payment was made. I was only compensated for time off work. I remember them buying me maternity clothes and reimbursing me for transportation to the clinic. They wanted to pay for food, but I politely declined. I didn’t want to feel controlled by having someone tell me what to eat. I remember my dear cousin saying, “We’d like to pay for a kitchen for you,” and I said, “No, this is me helping you I am not doing this to get anything back in return. For me to receive gifts would feel like I was being paid for a service.” I said no.

The court case started in 2014 and lasted two years. I didn’t start the court case. It was initiated by the commissioning parents because they wanted a parental order. A parental order legally transfers parental responsibility from the surrogate to the intended parents and ends the surrogate’s rights.

I had no idea about any of this. I didn’t even know there was going to be a court case. I just thought I would hand the child over and be done with it. None of this was made clear to me beforehand. Nobody told me. I gave birth, and suddenly, all of this legal process was forced upon me. I refused to sign because they reneged on their promise of allowing me contact and everything went downhill from there.

They attempted to obtain my consent against my will at the court, exploiting my mental health, which was irreparably damaged as a result of my experience. They tried to prove that I was incapable of giving consent. However, through grit and determination—including psychiatric assessments proving I was capable of giving consent—I was permitted to remain involved in the court case and my consent was needed much to their dismay. Still, they continually tried to shut me out. Children’s Services even tried to use the case of a deceased surrogate mother. They said, “We can just use that case where someone died and pretend that’s happened here.” It was just appalling. It was made clear to me that the only way I had the best chance of having any contact was to agree to the parental order so in the end, I signed it to try and have contact with the child I gave birth to as I was promised. I have never seen the child to this day.

She was born in 2014. I haven’t seen her since I gave birth to her.

I was promised on multiple occasions during the court case that I would see her, but each time, the appointment was cancelled the day before. They were playing games with me. I believe the promises were only for the benefit of the court.

They hinted that they used me as a cheap commercial surrogate and if it hadn’t been for their legal costs they would have been granted their wish. They constantly tried to remove any trace of me from their child’s life, which is another reason why they needed my silence. I believe their behaviour stems from their resentment of me as the child’s birth mother, and that is me being generous.

I have been diagnosed with complex PTSD and underwent EMDR to alleviate some of the trauma resulting from the surrogacy. I have a deep fear of hospitals, children, and babies, which does not work well with my career in education. The damage done to me will never be repaired. Constant panic attacks and a fear and distrust of people serve as constant reminders. There are many days that I still wish I wasn’t here just to be rid of this painful world that did this to me.

The impact was not only on me, but also on my children. They took on the role of parents because I wasn’t able to take care of them. This happened ten years ago, and for the first five years, my children didn’t have a mother. They were taken away from me and sent to live with their father, which was traumatic for everyone. Then, the judge, when presented with evidence, came to the conclusion that this was not helpful to anyone and returned them to my care. Over the last five years, we have come together as a family and rebuilt our relationships, but for the first five years, we were a broken family.

In trying to help another family, they broke mine.

When did a women’s right to have a child mean that it would take away another woman’s right to have contact with a child she gave birth to? We talk about women’s rights as if they are universal but surrogacy actually means you are choosing which woman deserves more rights. That is inequality.

If leaders and law makers care so much about women’s rights why are they continuing to erode the rights of surrogate mothers?

Change needs to happen fast. Surrogacy in any form is wrong, not safe and harmful. It needs to be banned before any more women die as they already have. Listen to our voices and do not let us be silenced any more.

This speech was read by Marie Anne at FiLiA in Brighton on 11th October 2025.