10
Loading video...
By Jenni Fink
Senior Editor
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
A United Nations official is being asked to recognize surrogacy as a contemporary form of slavery on the basis that the child becomes an object of disposal, which fits the definition of slavery under the 1926 Slavery Convention.
Surrogacy is a hotly debated issue, with some people seeing it as a means for people to have children and others criticizing it as turning human life into a commercial transaction. It's already banned in dozens of countries, including France, Spain, China, and Italy, and other countries only allow altruistic surrogacy, where no pay can be exchanged.
In a letter to Katarina Schwarz, the UN special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery and trafficking in persons, a group of international organizations said the love of the child isn't being questioned. But the group said surrogacy at its core is the "commissioning and handover of a child," and makes the child an object of a contract.
Read More on World
"The link between surrogacy and slavery then becomes apparent, since the 1926 Geneva Convention on Slavery defines in its Article 1 slavery as 'the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised,'" the petition said.
Newsweek reached out to the United Nations via email for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.
Among the organizations that signed the letter are the Casablanca Declaration Group of Experts, an international human rights manifesto and expert group; Juristes pour l'enfance, a nonprofit fighting against surrogacy; and the Ordo Iuris Institute, a Polish Catholic think tank.
“An ever-wider group of actors in the international arena now speaks with one voice: surrogacy reduces the child to the role of the object of a contract, and this is irreconcilable with the child’s dignity and legal personhood," Julia Książek, an analyst at the Ordo Iuris Center for International Law, said in a statement.
The petition said that modern-day slavery looks very different from slavery in the historical context. So, while a surrogate may not appear on a person's "balance sheet," a woman still exercises rights over her body through the contract of surrogacy.
"A woman’s consent to submit to surrogacy is not the exercise of a right freely to dispose of her body as she sees fit. It is, rather, a purported right to consent to her own exploitation and to her own enslavement," the petition stated.
...
Reem Alsalem, the United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, stated in a 2025 report that surrogacy reinforces "patriarchal norms by treating women's bodies as commodities and objects."
In 2018, Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, then-UN special rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, raised concerns about surrogacy. She said there's no right for someone to have a child under international law and that commercial surrogacy "usually amounts to the sale of children."
Boer-Buquicchio also expressed concerns about people from wealthy nations exploiting people from low-income nations for surrogacy.
In 2025, the battle over surrogacy at the UN heated up when Alsalem proposed that the UN General Assembly abolish all forms of surrogacy. She argued that the practice inflicted multiple forms of violence on women and abolishing it was necessary because a ban could change.
"They have absolutely no say in the process,” Alsalem previously told Newsweek in reference to the babies born from surrogacy. “No one asks for their consent or considers their welfare.”
Ron Poole-Dayan, the executive director of Men Having Babies—one of the largest international organizations supporting ethical surrogacy for LGBTQ+ families—previously told Newsweek that the argument is similar to saying there are horrible cases involving sex workers, so "let's ban sex."
“In ethical frameworks, compensation for surrogates is independent of the outcome—it’s for the discomfort, disruption and risk of the process,” Poole-Dayan said. “If a baby isn’t born alive, the surrogate still receives the same or even greater compensation. That’s what separates ethical surrogacy from baby buying.”
Surrogacy rules differ drastically by country, and in the United States, they even depend on which state a person is in.
Some countries ban surrogacy entirely, including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and China. For years, France didn't even recognize children born through surrogacy abroad as the children of their intended parents. However, in July, a top court in France ruled that it must recognize those children.
The court cited a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights, which said that a country's ban on surrogacy can't obstruct the relationship between a child and their parents. If that obstruction occurs, the court said the children are left in "legal uncertainty," which is contrary to their best interests.
Spain also bans automatic civil registration of children born to surrogates outside the country. A 2024 Italian Supreme Court ruling declared international surrogacy contracts null and void. Children born to international surrogates must go through the legal adoption procedure.
Related Story
Another Woman Carried My Baby. I Never Expected What Happened Next
Since surrogacy is banned in a lot of countries, Dr. Brian Levine, founder of CCRM Fertility New York, previously told Newsweek that people will come to the United States for surrogacy because of the legal certainty the country provides. In states where surrogacy is legal, courts issue a pre-birth parentage order that names the intended parents on the birth certificate before the child is born.
"Almost nowhere else in the world offers that," Levine said. "For a family that has already spent years trying, certainty about who the parents are is worth more than any other feature of the process."
Levine also said that surrogates in America have legal protections that aren't the norm everywhere else.
"In the American framework she has independent legal counsel, funds held in escrow, comprehensive insurance, and recognized authority over her own medical decisions. Ethical intended parents care about that, and it is not the standard everywhere," Levine said.
However, it's a costly decision. A surrogacy journey in the United States will run "well into six figures," according to Levine, whereas most programs abroad cost somewhere between $50,000 and $90,000.
Even within the United States, the laws around surrogacy vary widely. Some states, like Kentucky and Louisiana, have restrictions on financial arrangements for the surrogate if her own egg is being used. Louisiana also only allows married heterosexual couples to use surrogates, and both intended parents have to contribute their own genetic material. Couples are prohibited from using donor egg or sperm.
If the UN special rapporteur recognizes surrogacy as a form of slavery, it wouldn't force countries to change any of their laws. However, it could increase diplomatic pressure on UN member states and be cited by lawmakers who want to ban or restrict surrogacy.
It's also possible that judges in countries that look to international human rights law for guidance could be influenced in cases that involve surrogacy by the UN's decision to recognize or not recognize surrogacy as a form of modern slavery.
The Juristes pour l'enfance cited the 1926 Slavery Convention in their letter to Schwarz. If the UN decides that commercial surrogacy falls under that framework, countries that signed that declaration could face pressure to prohibit commercial surrogacy. That includes the United States, which allows commercial surrogacy and signed the Convention.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Sam Wilson.
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines