Picture the scene. A couple spends years navigating IVF's emotional roulette, finally pinning their hopes on surrogacy, only to discover Britain's creaking legal apparatus treats the whole business like an afterthought. Just under 1,000 children were born to surrogates here in 2025, twice the figure from 2015. Applications for parental orders topped 980. Yet of those, a mere 150 actually happened on these shores. The rest? Born in the United States, Ukraine, Nigeria, Georgia, Colombia or Mexico, where the rules, risks and price tags vary wildly.
The current setup insists on altruism alone. Surrogates get reasonable expenses, nothing more. The woman who carries the child remains the legal mother at birth. Intended parents must then apply for a parental order to sort out the paperwork. It sounds civilised until you hear the Guardian reporting agencies busier than ever, demand outstripping supply, turning hopeful parents away. Waiting times stretch to three years. Small wonder people look overseas.
The legal muddle nobody wants to fix
Under today's law the surrogate holds the hospital consent rights even when the baby has gone home with its intended mum and dad. One can only imagine the panicked phone calls at 2am. The framework, we are told, deters plenty of potential surrogates who balk at being listed as the legal mother on day one. So the system that was meant to protect everyone instead pushes participants toward foreign jurisdictions with their own complications.
Back in March 2023 the Law Commission of England and Wales and its Scottish counterpart issued a hefty report. They suggested a new pathway giving intended parents legal status from birth, tighter rules on agencies, and proper medical and safeguarding checks before anyone signs on the dotted line. The government nodded politely in principle, even produced a draft bill. Then came the inevitable line: not a current legislative priority. By April 2025 ministers confirmed they still could not find the parliamentary time. Classic.
A system of violence, exploitation and abuse against women.
That blunt verdict comes from Reem Alsalem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls. She wants surrogacy abolished outright, arguing it leaves poorer women vulnerable to richer western buyers. Harsh perhaps, yet hard to dismiss when the numbers show Britain exporting its baby-making demand to countries with looser standards.
Petitions, precedents and polite inaction
A petition demanding legal recognition for intended parents from birth gathered more than 100,000 signatures in days, enough to force talk of a parliamentary debate. Other nations, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, Canada, have tweaked their rules to cut through the red tape while trying to keep safeguards intact. Britain, meanwhile, sits on the 2023 recommendations like a cat on a hot tin roof, pretending the problem will sort itself.
