Ms Natalie Gamble:

I have worked with thousands of intended parents going through surrogacy and, without exception, they do not do this lightly. For heterosexual parents, it is a last resort. I have never had a case where a woman has said she does not want to be pregnant and will use surrogacy; I have never seen that. These are people who have lost babies, lost pregnancies, been through 15 rounds of IVF, had cancer or were born without a womb. There are incredibly heartbreaking stories. It is incredibly hard for people to have to get to the last resort of doing surrogacy and then to face all the misunderstanding about who they are and what their motives are for doing it. The parents want to do this well and they want to do it ethically. They care about their surrogates. They retain that connection and make sure that their surrogates are well looked after.

It is easy to make ethical choices when one is wealthy. In the US there is a professional structure around it, with so much vetting and so forth. That is great, but it is massively expensive and out of the financial reach of many people. For everybody else, they are making very difficult choices and doing the best they can. We should bear that in mind. These are not people who are out to exploit women or buy babies. They want to start their families. All the people who have children and have not had those difficulties should perhaps ask themselves how far they would go to have a family. It is the most natural thing in the world. People want to do this responsibly and well, and we must help them to do that.