Surrogacy, mainly through overseas arrangements, is becoming more popular as a family-building technique worldwide. Although there is no precise global data on the number of children born through surrogacy, the advancement of assisted reproductive technology (ART), changes in social conventions, and the trend toward having children later all contribute to an increase in the number of children born through surrogacy.
Surrogate children have the same rights as other children under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Regardless of specific state opinions on surrogacy, all states are responsible for respecting the human rights of all surrogatechildren born through ART without discrimination, including ensuring that suitable legal and regulatory frameworks occur at the general level to protect and promote their rights.
Let us look into the main challenges faced by children born through surrogacy.
Main Challenges Encountered by Surrogate-Born Children
Few countries have local legal and legislative frameworks that protect children’s rights in international and domestic surrogacy. International human rights legislation currently does not provide safeguards for domestic surrogacy and International Surrogacy Arrangements (ISAs), putting children born through surrogacy in danger.
Surrogate children face many human rights breaches, including the right to an identity, name, nationality, familial links, access to origins, the right to the most outstanding possible quality of health, and the right not to be sold.
Because many surrogacy contracts are primarily commercial in nature, children born through surrogacy are at risk of being offered for sale and/or abused. Questions are raised in this regard in ISAs and surrogacy instances when parenthood is proved entirely through private deals.
Assurance in the validity of their surrogacy contract is critical to protecting the child’s rights. Surrogate mothers’ human rights, particularly girls’ safety, should be preserved by avoiding the possibility of manipulation in surrogacy arrangements, such as through force and a lack of thorough consent from all sides.
Now, let us dive into legal frameworks of how the rights of surrogate children can be protected.
Recommendations For Preserving The Rights Of Children In Surrogacy Situations
Statesshould take the following steps to protect children’s rights in all surrogacy agreements.
Access to identifying information for children should be permitted in line with the child’s age and maturity. This will allow children access to information about their identity and origins and enhance their enjoyment of other rights. In particular, surrogate mothers’ and donor(s’) identities should be revealed.
As part of their vital statistics reports, CRVS systems should be established to gather, preserve, and make such data available.
Terms of contracts that claim to establish definitive legal parenthood or parental responsibility prior to birth shouldn’t be enforced. States should protect against the manipulation of identification information in surrogacy and ensure that the civil registrar records adequate identity information.
Conclusion
As easy as one can balance hormones through diet, it should be easy for surrogate children to have their rights upheld. Specific legal frameworks must be implemented to ensure their rights are not violated. These laws will prevent discrimination targeted at children born from ARTs.
Laws like allowing children born by surrogacy to enjoy their rights from birth, children are not discriminated against or abandoned on the grounds of disability,and any child born through a surrogacy agreement is entitled to nationality from birth as part of their right to identification should be implemented.