Relaxed UK guidelines towards “commercial” surrogacy leads to calls for a new look at what makes surrogacy “ethical”
Natalie Gamble, one of the UK's leading fertility lawyers, has written a piece for leading bioethics publication Bionews about surrogacy outside the UK, including the USA. She explains how COVID-19 has thrown a spotlight on intended parents crossing borders for surrogacy in 2020. Gamble challenges “the policy myth that UK surrogacy is preferable”, and calls for “a shift from categorising surrogacy as altruistic or commercial, domestic or international, and instead ask how to ensure it is ethical.” Gamble then provides examples of robust ethical standards that exist in certain US states where compensation is allowed and regulated.