Calls are growing for urgent global regulation as rising numbers of westerners use surrogates in countries with different laws, a trend experts warn is leaving more babies at risk of becoming stateless. This warning follows the suspension of a 15-year effort by The Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) to establish a global surrogacy convention, a project paused due to deep divisions among member states. With more older women, gay couples, and people affected by infertility seeking to become parents, increasing numbers of babies are being born to surrogates globally. Surrogates typically carry pregnancies from a donor egg or the egg of someone who wishes to become a parent.
Laws regarding the practice differ significantly; Italy bans it outright, while some US states allow commercial surrogacy. The UK only permits “altruistic” surrogacy, where surrogates cannot be paid more than their expenses. UK surrogacy agencies argue that this outdated legal framework at home pushes couples to seek surrogates abroad, where regulations to protect surrogates from exploitation can be less robust or non-existent. Conversely, anti-surrogacy campaigners argue the practice is fundamentally abusive in all cases and are pushing for a global ban.
Prof Michael Hellner, who chaired the HCCH working group, stated that differing ethical opinions among member states made a global framework on legal parentage impossible. “I invested 10 years of my life into this project. But if there’s no political will, there’s absolutely no point in us spending more of people’s time and money,” he said. Hellner warned that the lack of coordination leads to “limping parentage,” where a child has different legal parents in different countries, and increases the risk of statelessness. He noted the project struggled because some countries were “violently opposed to anything that could be seen as legitimising surrogacy, which they think is a violation of human rights and dignity.”
While global data on surrogacy births is unavailable, numbers have increased rapidly in the UK, doubling since 2015 to more than 981 in 2025. Most of these children were born abroad, primarily in the US, Ukraine, Nigeria, Georgia, Colombia, and Mexico. British parents must apply to UK family courts for a parental order and often must apply for British citizenship for the child. Experts warn that children are frequently left in legal limbo, which is crucial to having an identity. The issue gained prominence recently when Jens Spahn, a former German health minister, resigned his party position after revealing he and his husband used a surrogate, a practice he had previously criticized and which his party opposes.
Bhaskar Mishra, a child protection specialist at Unicef, stated the agency is pushing for better guidelines. “If the government doesn’t issue a passport in either the country where the baby is born, or where it is going home to, then there are chances the baby will become stateless,” he said. “That’s a serious risk in cases of international surrogacy agreements, and numbers are growing, and growing very fast.” In 2025, a senior UK judge, Andrew McFarlane, warned that courts might refuse to grant parental orders in commercial surrogacy cases, potentially leaving children “permanently stateless and legally parentless,” citing a four-year legal battle involving children born to Ukrainian women in Cyprus. Last year, Denmark was forced to change its laws to allow legal parentage recognition in foreign surrogacy arrangements after the European court of human rights ruled that preventing this violated children’s rights.
Reem Alsalem, the UN’s special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, has called for a global abolition of surrogacy, labeling it a “system of violence, exploitation and abuse against women.” She argued that impoverished women are more likely to be exploited by commissioning individuals from wealthier western states. Marie-Josèphe Devillers of the International Coalition for the Abolition of Surrogate Motherhood (CIAMS) reported that she works with surrogates who feel “cheated, lied to and exploited,” citing cases of human trafficking, health complications, and deaths.
In contrast, Michael Johnson-Ellis, founder of My Surrogacy Journey, argued that international surrogacy works well if done ethically. “People should be allowed to make a choice on where and how they do surrogacy, providing it’s safe and there’s no risk of people being exploited or coerced,” he said. He added that for some, the two-year wait for a UK surrogate is not an option. He stated his agency only recommends the US and Mexico, advising clients to avoid exploitative destinations like Cyprus, Georgia, or Ukraine. Rachel Westbury, who runs Nappy Endings and has been a surrogate four times, emphasized that surrogacy is not just for the wealthy. “It’s a privilege to be a surrogate. If more people knew the magic of surrogacy, when it’s done right, more surrogates would come forward,” she said.
