Surrogacy is mother of all ethical debates

The European Parliament voted against it in December, signalling that the commodification of humans is about what adults want, not what children need, says Margaret Hickey

A CHILD surrogacy conference took place in Dublin on Mothers’ Day, March 6. The title was ‘Families Through Surrogacy’, and it was a trade fair for fertility centres and legal and medical professionals, who were promoting the expanding, international, assisted human reproduction (AHR) industry.

This conference was business-like. It focused on the practicalities, legalities, and logistics of surrogacy in the US. Agencies represented included the trans-national ‘Oregon Reproductive Medicine Ireland’ and various other US fertility centres, which had names like ‘Growing Generations’, ‘Hope Springs’ and ‘Create’. The cost of having a child through surrogacy averages €100,000. The surrogate mother gets €30,000, so she is by no means the main beneficiary. Costly, but, as the conference was told, this was the gold standard in reproductive technology, the Rolls Royce’ of AHR, not to be compared with cheaper alternatives from Asian countries.