The love that can’t be erased

A recent court case exposed the surrogacy industry’s big lie: that mothers don’t have feelings for the children they gave birth to

Julie Bindel

THERE IS A CONTRADICTION AT THE HEART of the international surrogacy industry. Its participants pretend that surrogates’ feelings for the children in their wombs do not exist, while simultaneously trying to prevent them acting on those feelings. Many commissioning parents broker the babies in jurisdictions that allow restrictions on surrogates’ rights. In the UK, this contradiction was recently laid bare in a Family Court case (citation number: [2024] EWFC 20). A gay male couple were engaged in a long-running legal battle with their son’s surrogate. Rather than vanish after handing over the child, she wanted a role in the boy’s life. The men’s response was to insist that their son had no mother — only a surrogate — and that the child’s identity was as part of a motherless family.…

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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, June 2024

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