All rights for surrogacy-born children full scale
| Author | Maud de Boer-Buquicchio |
| Date | 01 December 2019 |
| Published date | 01 December 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0924051919884752 |
| Subject Matter | Column |
Column
All rights for surrogacy-born
children full scale
Maud de Boer-Buquicchio
United Nations Special Rapporteur, Strasbourg, France
Abstract
Surrogacy offers new opportunities for family formation, but presents legal and ethical challenges
for the rights of different stakeholders concerned. This contribution looks at the practise from a
child rights’ perspective. Safeguards are needed to prevent exploitative practises and sale to occur
and to protect the fundamental rights of surrogacy-born children, regardless of States’ stance on
surrogacy.
Keywords
surrogacy, sale of children, safeguards, best interest, genetic link, identity
Introduction
Surrogacy as a reproductive practice has developed over the last decades as a method of family
formation, often with a cross border dimension resulting increasingly in complex legal and ethical
issues regarding the attribution of parenthood and parental authority, in which the protection of the
best interests of the child should be a paramount consideration in light of varying realities across
the world.
1
There is no doubt that contemporary practices of surrogacy offer new opportunities for
Corresponding author:
Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Sale and Sexual Exploitation of Children, including
Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Other Sexual Abuse Material, Strasbourg, France.
E-mail: srsaleofchildren@ohchr.org
1. Surrogacy refers to a form of third party reproductive practise in which the intending parent(s) and the surrogate women
agree that the surrogate women will become pregnant, gestate and give birth to a child. Surrogacy arrangements gen-
erally include an expectation or agreement that the surrogate women will legally or physically transfer the child to the
intending parent(s) without retaining parentage or parental responsibility. See Human Rights Council, ‘Report of the
Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and
other child sexual abuse material’ (2018) A/HRC/37/60, para. 10.
Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights
2019, Vol. 37(4) 275–281
ªThe Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0924051919884752
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