‘We need to talk about how difficult it is’: why one couple are pinning surrogacy hopes on Mexico

It’s going to be interesting to see what happens with surrogacy (which my phone tries to autocorrect to suffrage) when the cohort of neutered young women gets to the age where they want children .
Babies might make you want to puke at 15 but it’s incredible how your mind can change by the time you’ve reached 30.

Nobody has a right to have a child.

It also really puzzles me when it's framed in terms of rights, particularly gay rights. How can something be both a right and also only available to the very wealthy?

It's just not an answer to any problem, if for no other reason that while there may be some women who, for altruistic reasons, want to give birth to a child for somebody else, the number is always going to be tiny.

Framing the campaign to change the law as a response to increased demand just ignores what surrogacy involves.

I couldn't have children and i adopted. I am infuriated by articles like the one in today's Guardian which basically accepts the need for surrogacy - all these young people with cancer for example. Yesterday's Guardian's two articles were much more balanced - they gave more info on objections to surrogacy - and I think it's interesting that after being relatively balanced yesterday, they have gone full throttle today on promoting it as a necessary development which requires changes to bennefit commissioning parents.

I agree. I’m disgusted actually by the Guardian’s wholesale embrace of surrogacy. Who is speaking up for the babies who are taken at birth from the mother and handed over to their “commissioners”?

Whilst I cannot imagine the pain of infertility and empathise with women who can’t conceive naturally, there are many painful things about being human which can happen to all of us and which are outside our control. It is Tough Shit. Get some therapy.

Someone’s pain at being infertile will never justify the act of “commissioning” a woman - usually poor vulnerable women who have no options in life - to grow and give birth to a baby to hand over with no further contact. It’s unjustifiable and unconscionable. If anyone has a spare hour please watch the Channel 4 documentary on surrogacy in Tbilisi in Georgia. It will break your heart.

Those who agree with surrogacy need to ask themselves if they would happily advise their own daughters into this “line of work” (as per the glib Grazia article upthread written by a woman so emotionally detached from what she’s doing and who talks about acting as a surrogate as if she’s baking cakes to give them away for free) and perhaps think about how they’d feel if surrogacy became a careers option for year 13 school girls. That might make them reconsider their stance.

I agree, and partially because I have been there, to an extent. I had a very tough journey to having my first, with multiple miscarriages. Obviously I was tremendously lucky to have children in the end, and never had to decide when or how to call it quits. However, I was really desperate and pretty irrational at one point - might have made a really unethical choice? Maybe. Should I have been allowed to? No. Similarly, if I'm honest can I imagine making an unethical choice around buying organs to save my child's life? Maybe. Does that mean that the law should allow it out of compassion for that dreadful situation? Absolutely not.

"how not being able to have a baby is so indescribably painful for a woman that anybody who has not experienced it isn't in a position to criticise..."

I see this argument all the time, and like you, I could not disagree with it more. A woman (or man) suffering from extreme grief and pain due to infertility is not in the mental state to make a rational ethical decision.

Surrogacy is buying a child. We cannot buy or sell people. It is desperately sad when people want a child and cannot have one, but violating the most fundamental principles of ethics in order to obtain a child is not the answer. We cannot buy or sell people.

The Guardian also has another 'isn't surrogacy just lovely and so misunderstood' piece today: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jul/21/struggling-eight-rounds-ivf-midwife-surrogate

I note that they include the age of the surrogate but, carefully, not the commissioning couple, which I suspect doesn't fit the narrative. There's also this gently euphemistic paragraph:

Turner admitted the immediate aftermath of the birth was the most difficult part of the whole process for her. “The hormones come into play and you can’t do anything about that. So it was challenging,” she said.

No consideration, of course, of whether the baby might be feeling an equally deep-seated and fundamental reaction to the deeply unnatural act of separating mother and baby.

I saw this article in the Telegraph. I think the judge has made a fair comparison

https://archive.ph/mmKUH

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2026/05/15/surrogacy-judge-ruling-unconstitutional/

In his ruling, he argued that children are human beings with their own rights and individualities, and therefore cannot be treated as property to be bought and sold through contracts or legal paperwork, comparing it to the buying and selling of slaves.

Obviously I meant 18. 😂

Demand. As is Supply and Demand.

A commodity.

The Guardian has a new article on surrogacy today - it is a much more detailed version of one they ran yesterday alongside the gay couple/Mexico article and is profoundly pro surrogacy (yesterday's version was much more balanced).

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jul/21/uk-surrogacy-law-creaking-at-seams-as-demand-rises-sharply

Here is yesterday's article if anyone wants to see how their approach has developed over the last 24 hours https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jul/19/rise-overseas-surrogates-increases-risk-stateless-babies-experts-warn

From the Guardian article,
At present, the surrogate must be listed on the baby’s birth certificate as its mother, while the intended parents must apply for a parental order after birth, which can take months. Experts said this can be distressing for the new family, and deters many prospective surrogates who do not wish to be a child’s legal mother. (My bold)

Yes, because the child has a right to know its origins. In the same way that Freddie McConnell can’t be listed as her children’s father and adopted children can access their birth parents’ information at age 8. It’s about the child.

The rise has been driven by a rise in the number of gay couples seeking to be parents

All gay couples or is there something specific about these gay couples?

At present, the surrogate must be listed on the baby’s birth certificate as its mother

Because it is a record of birth and she is the mother.

Experts said this can be distressing for the new family, and deters many prospective surrogates

It's still a record of birth.

and deters many prospective surrogates who do not wish to be a child’s legal mother.

The law just reflects the reality of what they are doing. Everyone else can just walk away from a pregnancy. The law makes sure that the baby has a legal relationship with the mother at the point of birth.

The review’s author, Prof Nicholas Hopkins, said the best way to prevent intended parents going abroad, where arrangements with surrogates can be riskier and less well regulated, was to ensure there was a properly regulated scheme in the UK.

Or in other words, worse regulation in the UK.

and had unnecessary barriers that led to transnational surrogacy increasingly taking place in jurisdictions where neither surrogates nor parents had legal protections.

There will always be a limited number of women who wish to have a baby for somebody else for altruistic reasons and it will always be unethical to pay somebody to be pregnant. You are never going to change that. A woman who wants to give birth for altruistic reasons and truly appreciates what she is doing is not going to risk her life and health going through 9 months of pregnancy but balk at the fact that the paperwork reflects the reality of what she has done.

So who are these proposed changes aimed at?

We really do have a huge surrogate shortage in the UK, because of the restrictions.

We also prevent people from selling kidneys.

That’s a key issue isn’t it? If the baby is seen as imperfect in some way then he or she is rejected. Absolutely tragic.

Ha, I was about to post exactly this, but you got there first.

Recently I seem to have read about so many cases that have gone wrong. A few headlines

Same-Sex Couple Sues Surrogate After She Refused Request to Abort Baby With Cleft Lip

St. Augustine surrogate fights for parental rights as intended parent leaves children unclaimed for 20 months

Men using foreign surrogates ‘buy babies’ from women in poverty

Fertility clinic faces lawsuit after surrogate baby dies 10 days after birth

I really don't think people have a right to have children.

Sister might feel obliged to offer - that's the trouble with families, there can be subtle, unseen pressures.

I adopted and i think that adults completely underestimate the needs of the child in any form of assisted reproduction. What if the baby really, really wants the surrogate after birth, not the (to him/her) stranger calling herself "mummy"?

I reckon there is a huge chance for sibling jealousy to be unleashed. And baby doesn't get a say.

Did I miss the bit where they discussed how difficult it was for the baby, taken from the mother way earlier than we do for puppies, even?

Or has that not registered with the human traffickers we see in front of us? Just difficult for memememe?

It was unbearable to see these babies not being held and loved by their mothers. I wonder what happened to them?