On the regulation of surrogate motherhood,
From organisations in Australia, Canada, South Korean, Nigeria, and the United Kingdom.
To the Members of the Chamber of Deputies of the Republic of Chile,
We are women’s organisations writing from Nigeria, the United Kingdom, and Australia. We have no stake in the Chilean debate; we do not presume to tell Chile which law it should adopt, and we write to you only because you are about to decide a question our own countries have already answered, in different ways and with results that no one in Chile appears to have been told about.
You are considering a bill that would prohibit surrogate motherhood without distinction of form, and part of the debate invites you to prefer regulation instead, with strict requirements, controls and safeguards, on the ground that a reality already exists and must be taken in hand rather than driven underground. That argument is not new to us. Australia has applied it for decades, in all six states and both territories, in the so-called altruistic form that is now being held up to you as the humane alternative. The United Kingdom has applied it since 1985, in a model regarded internationally as the best-regulated version of the same idea. Nigeria has not yet legislated at all, and is at this moment being told, as you are, that a legal vacuum must be filled. Between us, we cover every position a legislature can occupy on this question, and what follows is what each of us has to report from it.
We ask you to read the three accounts below with one question in mind, the one we consider decisive: when something went wrong, what did the legal framework actually deliver to the woman who had carried the child?
Australia
FINRRAGE (Australia) and ABSA
We are writing from Australia, where surrogacy is so-called altruistic in all six states and two territories. This was reconfirmed in 2016 by a Federal Inquiry in its Final Report ‘Surrogacy Matters’. Surrogacy is regulated, and there are safeguards. Nevertheless, surrogate mothers Bev and Odette told a National conference in Melbourne in August 2026 that their surrogacies have devastated their lives.
Bev wanted to help a close friend who was unable to conceive. During the difficult pregnancy, the friend turned rude and withdrew any help she had promised to provide, including money for pregnancy expenses. Once the baby was born and taken from her mother, she stopped Bev from seeing her daughter. The court later reinforced this decision. The girl, now almost 10 years old, thinks she is a single child and has no idea she has a grieving mother and a half-brother and half-sister just a few kilometres away. Bev feels very bitter and believes all surrogacy needs to be abolished, as regulation fails the child as well as the mother.
Odette was very happy to become a surrogate for her favourite infertile cousin. But the commissioning mother could not cope with Odette being pregnant and was abusive during Odette’s pregnancy. She stopped paying the lawyer and medical bills, and to this day Odette is in debt of $60,000. The Family Court said it was up to the Commissioning Parents whether Odette could see her son or not. They said no. The boy is now 10 years old, and she has never seen him. He has no idea Odette exists. The commissioning mother continued to stalk Odette and to try to make her life miserable. Odette wants all surrogacy abolished. She says it breaches the human rights of the mother and the child that was taken from her.
Canada
SOS-GPA
Canada adopted the Assisted Human Reproduction Act in 2004, which does not prohibit surrogate motherhood but prohibits paying a woman to act as a surrogate mother and prohibits paid intermediation, while allowing reimbursement of receipted expenses. Parliament provided no mechanism to verify compliance. In more than twenty years a single prosecution has been brought, resulting in a sixty thousand dollar fine, while an open industry of agencies and consultants operates without any federal licence, accreditation or code of conduct, and commissioning parents report being asked to reimburse expenses against undated screenshots, handmade receipts and duplicates.
Quebec had answered the question differently, declaring in 1991 that any surrogacy contract was absolutely null, a regime reserved for rules protecting public order. That article was repealed on 6 June 2023 in order to regulate the practice, the Minister of Justice explaining that surrogacy is a procreative process that exists and is used in Quebec, and that an important catching-up was required. What followed is instructive for you. The residence requirement meant to keep foreign commissioning parties out is circumvented by signing the contract and giving birth in neighbouring Ontario, which also erases the thirty days Quebec gives the surrogate mother to withdraw her renunciation of maternal filiation, and in 2025 Quebec courts recognised filiations established in states the legislature had expressly not designated, including the United States, Georgia and Mexico.
As to what the framework delivers when things go wrong, one Ontario surrogate mother sought roughly ten thousand dollars in unreimbursed pregnancy expenses before the Small Claims Court and discovered that her contract required arbitration, so her claim was never adjudicated. Arbitration clauses remove these disputes from public courts altogether, so that conflicts exist but their resolution stays private and no case law accumulates. In 2026 an Ontario surrogate mother who refused to terminate her pregnancy at twenty-two weeks, when the commissioning parties invoked a contractual clause on foetal anomaly, was sued by them for hundreds of thousands of dollars for the distress her refusal had caused, although the Supreme Court of Canada has held that no one may constrain a pregnant woman’s autonomy in order to protect the foetus, and Ontario law states that a surrogacy contract is unenforceable in law.
If Chile does not wish the reproductive capacities of Chilean women to become a new extractive resource, local regulation will not contain reproductive tourism, and universal abolition, including where the practice is carried out abroad, is the only realistic option.
South Korea
WRPK (Women’s Right Plus Korea)
The Republic of Korea has no specific statute on surrogate motherhood, but a surrogacy contract is generally regarded as an unlawful arrangement, somewhat analogous to a form of “slave contract”.
Under Article 103 of the Civil Act, the fact that such a contract may be entered into does not mean that it can receive legal recognition or protection: as in any country where slavery is prohibited, a person assuming the role of owner could not go to court and demand enforcement because the person who had agreed to become a slave failed to perform. Article 23(3) of the Bioethics and Safety Act further prohibits providing, using, inducing or brokering embryos, eggs or sperm for financial or other consideration, subject to criminal penalties. Legal motherhood is determined by giving birth and not by genetic relationship, a principle the courts have applied even where the commissioning woman was the genetic mother (Seoul Family Court, 2018Beu15) and which the Supreme Court reaffirmed on 24 April 2025 (2022Meu15371).
Because these contracts are performed privately, they may remain hidden until exceptional circumstances bring them to light, such as the nationwide investigation into unregistered children launched in 2023, disputes between the parties, or investigations exposing brokers; the invalidity of the contracts, the possibility of criminal liability and the risks to the child’s legal status make surrogacy a legally precarious choice and deter its expansion in South Korea.
Prohibition does not prevent every unlawful act, as murder is prohibited everywhere and still occurs, which no one treats as an argument for legalising it in certain circumstances; what matters is how a society responds when it happens.
Nigeria
Naija Feminists Media
There is no law explicitly relating to surrogacy in Nigeria, and its legality has therefore been debatable. Surrogacy is argued to be prohibited under legal provisions such as the National Health Act of 2014, which prohibits the donation of human organs, cells, or tissues for monetary gain or profit, and it also appears to partly violate Nigerian laws such as the Child Rights Act of 2003, Section 13 of the Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Enforcement and Administration Act, and Order 23 of the Code of Medical Ethics in Nigeria.
Efforts to make an explicit law to address surrogacy have been largely unsuccessful: the Bill for Establishing a Nigerian Assisted Reproduction Authority (2012) and the Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulatory) Bill 2016 did not pass because they did not enjoy a majority vote. Two lawmakers are now attempting to pass a law to regulate surrogacy. Hon. Uchenna Okonkwo, representing the Idemili North/Idemili South Federal Constituency of Anambra State, is sponsoring a bill titled “A Bill for an Act to Protect the Health and Well-being of Women, Particularly in Relation to Surrogacy and for Related Matters,” and it is therefore framed as protecting women’s health. Hon. Olamijuwonlo Alao-Akala, a House of Representatives member representing Ogbomoso North, South, and Oriire constituencies, has a bill titled the National Surrogacy Regulatory Commission Bill (2024), framed as wanting “to regulate and evaluate surrogacy in Nigeria, thereby ensuring medical and health laws are not flouted”; it passed the second reading in the House of Representatives in October 2024, and there has been no further update. Currently, surrogacy flourishes in Nigeria, while no law explicitly prohibits or allows it.
Although Hon. Uchenna Okonkwo’s bill proposes a jail term and monetary fine for people facilitating surrogacy, there is no law in Nigeria, so the practice continues to flourish. Young vulnerable women are recruited through various means, including Facebook, and are left with debilitating illnesses and mental stress. These women also remain burdened by the poverty that led to the practice in the first place. Naija Feminists Media has documented some of their stories.
As to what protection the framework delivered: the women are often too poor to negotiate properly or seek redress. On medical follow-up, one surrogate told Nigerian journalist Simbiat Bakare that the agency informed her that post-partum is six weeks, so they can no longer address her health challenges any more. Another surrogate mother told the journalist that she was told she needed no compensation for additional surgery she was made to go through because it was done to save her life. There have also been reports of surrogates dying to no avail. Despite several complaints, only one surrogate is reported to have gone to a Nigerian court for redress, and with Nigeria lacking a framework to address surrogacy matters, the judgement awaits.
To a Chilean legislator who believes that strict conditions and controls would prevent this, we say: pregnancy is a risky journey. In Nigeria, a pregnant woman dies every seven minutes due to childbirth. There is no way to regulate who lives or dies in childbirth, and no woman deserves to die because of the desires of others. No country should implement a law that risks vulnerable women’s lives.
United Kingdom
Stop Surrogacy Now UK
UK law was enacted in 1985 to allow for ‘altruistic’ surrogacy only in direct response to the actions of Kim Cotton, the UK’s first surrogate mother; prior to this, the Warnock Report was produced by a government Committee which prevented profit-making agencies and advertising. Free and unconditional consent forms part of the law that followed the report. The Brazier Report followed even later, in 1997, but none of the recommendations was enacted. The HFE Act on IVF was enacted in 1991. Now in 2026, several campaigns reject the Law Commission’s 2023 proposals and Draft Bill, and so far these have not been enacted by the current or former government. A hotly contested government petition to debate parental rights at birth is scheduled for 7th September.
Broadly, the original law was framed not to monetise pregnancy but to recognise that family members or friends should be able to do this for a loved one. As commercial surrogacy was banned, the law was challenged by international surrogacy, and courts allow this as long as amounts don’t go beyond “reasonable expenses,” but as this is not defined and happens frequently and the baby is already born at this point, so judges grant parental orders. International surrogacy now makes up 77% of parental order applications for England and Wales.
A small 2022 study from a pro-surrogacy academic, Dr Kirsty Horsey, confirms that most surrogacy ‘teams’ meet through an agency as strangers. The survey completed by surrogate mothers details their careers, including midwifery, teaching and nursing: From 47 responses, 12 surrogates identified as being in nursing, midwifery, or health care, seven were in teaching or childcare professions, and 11 in business administration, management, or accounts; three were solicitors. Other roles included a civil servant, police staff, a registrar, a hotelier, a retail role, two students, and two ‘stay-at-home moms’. The survey summarises that 85% indicated household incomes below £70,000, but 44 respondents answered that question and a quarter (25%£ said they were on a joint income of less than £29k, and another 30% said they were on a joint income of between £29k and £40k. So that is over half, 55%, who are on significantly less than 70k. The footnotes for this question suggest it was badly worded.
The truth is that low-income and middle-class women are ‘matched’ online through Facebook or through agencies (of which there are four that are government recognised, one of which has closed), and British Commissioners go abroad to buy babies as the ‘lack of supply’ supposedly forces them abroad due to wait times, lack of control, and not having enforceable contracts. They also seek parental rights through pre-birth parental orders.
As to what protection the UK legal framework delivered when something went wrong, there are many cases to refer to: one woman was awarded parental rights after a dispute over parental care and the best interests of the child; another has visitation four times a year. International cases see consent dispensed with, and this was attempted in one UK case, referring to a deceased surrogate mother (Natasha Caltabiano) when the surrogate mother was alive and present in court.
To a Chilean legislator who believes that strict conditions and controls would prevent what has happened here, we say this: Even strict ‘regulation’ cannot prevent the medical risk of severe maternal morbidity (x3) the psychological harm posed to surrogate mothers (between 29 and 43% likelihood of a new onset mental health condition), or the psychological harm caused to the child through maternal separation in early years development which is so far unmeasured outside of genealogical bewilderment (being raised by genetically unrelated parents through donor conception) and the sense of being purchased to fill a role in the commissioning parent’s lives.
We would remind Chilean legislators that currently there are two ongoing civil cases in the US )Florida/California and Texas/California) where surrogacy is ‘strictly regulated’, as the USA is the strongest and most established country for ‘regulated surrogacy’ law, supplying babies to multiple countries. The USA offers many examples of disputes ranging from Mary Beth Whitehead and Baby M in 1985 to Kyla Simpson and McKenna West now, and there are multiple examples of regulatory holes, exploitation and human trafficking scandals under state-regulated models.
The UK’s current model is also highly regarded globally as a well-regulated so-called ‘altruistic’ system with the transfer of parental rights with free and unconditional consent after a ‘cooling off’ period (similar to consumer law), and there are distinct and complex problems within existing law and proposed law reform.
Regulation normalises and justifies children being the subject of contracts, wider societal messages of women’s bodies being useful to others, and the misogynistic understanding that women serve a purpose and that to be considered kind or an ally to the LGBT movement they should ‘help’ by donating their eggs and offering their bodies.
We urge your consideration and invite contact should you have any questions.
What we ask of you
We do not ask you to take our word for the consequences of regulation; we ask you to notice what the three accounts above have in common. Nigeria has no framework, the United Kingdom has one of the oldest and most admired frameworks in the world, and Australia has the altruistic framework that is being offered to you as the compassionate middle path. In none of the three did the framework protect the woman when the arrangement broke down. In Nigeria, a single case has reached a court and awaits judgement. In the United Kingdom, the courts grant parental orders because the child is already born by the time anyone examines the payments. In Australia, two women who did exactly what a regulated altruistic system asks of them, for a friend and for a cousin, have not seen their children in ten years and were told by a court that the decision belonged to the commissioning parties.
Whether a woman is paid or unpaid, whether the agency is licensed or clandestine, whether the country has a statute or none at all, the same thing happens at the same moment: the child is born, the transfer occurs, and from that instant the woman who gave birth has no leverage, no remedy and, in practice, no standing. That is not a failure of drafting that better safeguards could repair. It is the structure of the arrangement itself, which is why we ask you to prohibit rather than regulate.
Should any member of the Chamber wish to examine these experiences in more detail, the signatory organisations are at your disposal to provide documentation, sources and testimony, whether in writing or by remote video call, in whatever form and at whatever moment you judge useful.
Yours faithfully,
Dr Renate Klein, Co-ordinator, FINRRAGE (Australia)
Dr Catherine Lynch, Co-ordinator, ABSA (Australia)
Ghislaine Gendron, SOS-GPA(Canada)
Jihye Kuk, Women’s Right Plus of Korea (South Korea)
Simbiat Bakare, Founding Director, Naija Feminists Media (Nigeria)
Lexi Ellingsworth, Founder, Stop Surrogacy Now UK (United Kingdom)
Letter coordinated by the International Coalition for the Abolition of Surrogate Motherhood (ICASM), and
transmitted to the Senate of the Republic of Chile by María Elena Abarca Salinas for WDI Chile.