Ms Marion Boteju:

Fertility treatments have a long, lucrative history in the global marketplace. In comparison, surrogacy is a relatively new and burgeoning industry. Legalising surrogacy will lead to the widespread suppression and erosion of norms surrounding women's rights, with particular consequences for vulnerable female populations. Family & Life believes that altruistic surrogacy will eventually lead to commercial surrogacy.

The first of the primary areas of concern we wish to highlight is a lack of attention to the rights and welfare of children produced, not created. Children who are the products of surrogacy will have no legal rights to their birth mother. The commodification of children as objects to be reared specifically to be bought, sold or traded is akin to child trafficking. Further, there is legal chaos surrounding parentage, and we have seen that in many other countries where surrogacy has been legalised.

There is a vast body of research, and a growing body of personal testimony, affirming the deep connection children have with their birth mother. Children of surrogates are now speaking out about the psychological trauma of being separated from their mother of origin. There are a number of examples of adults speaking out about the psychological consequences they experienced as a result of separation from their birth mother. A particular example is Jessica Curran, who is leading this campaign.

A second area of overall concern is the serious ethical and practical consequences of commodifying a woman's body. Pregnancy is an extremely high-risk activity. Legalising surrogacy puts women's health at risk. The medical drugs required to prepare a surrogate for an embryo carry well-documented short-term and long-term risks. Surrogacy will not just expose but normalise exposure to such drugs. We have a list of drugs commonly used for IVF, and some of the consequences as a result of using these drugs.

Our final and overarching concern is the moral and ethical consequences of transforming a normal biological function of a woman's body into a transaction. Surrogacy threatens the dignity of women. Women lose proprietorship of their bodies during this process, and women who have been through surrogacy have self-identified themselves as incubators or breeders. The medical facilities promoting the practice of surrogacy are in the profit-making business and, in many cases, information on the risks involved are not effectively communicated in an attempt to garner clientele.

Legalising altruistic surrogacy will lead to commercial surrogacy and have an impact on countries, such as India, Mexico, Thailand, in two of which cases there are unregulated markets - India has just started regulating surrogacy. The trade-off for a woman in those countries who is exposed to commercial surrogacy is choosing to place a price tag on her womb in lieu of the right to dignified and safe employment, education and sustainable economic mobility for her and her family which are markers of true progress for women and, consequently, for children. As in the insupportable case for a legalised prostitution, hidden behind an application of any rights-based language to the practice of surrogacy is really the exploitation of a marginalised woman and her necessity to have to make a choice. Women of privilege will rarely offer themselves as surrogates to incubate children of strangers. We believe that this particular assault on the dignity of women is really quite a twisted turn in the reproductive industry's attempt to incentivise profitable pregnancy in short-term motherhood.