Unfortunately a minority of surrogacy agencies are eager to profit from clients using false claims and without care about legal recognition of newborns. That they are enabled by fertility event promoters is terrifying. Sam Everingham reports.
One gay UK couple reached out to me in May this year. They were expecting a baby through Success Surrogacy in Cyprus – a company which claims to operate programs in ‘nine clinics in six countries’.
Their surrogate was from Kazakhstan and the agency had just told then the birth would take place not in the UK as promised but in Georgia – despite the fact that surrogacy for same-sex couples is illegal there. They panicked. I never heard from them again.
Since then, one of Georgia’s leading surrogacy lawyers has also become alarmed. Different intended parents were contacting her who had entered surrogacy arrangements in North Cyprus. These were also UK couples. One couple’s surrogate had birthed in Georgia over a year ago. Because they had entered the agreement and undertaken the transfer in Cyprus, the infant remains stranded in Georgia without any official identity.
Georgia has strict paperwork requirements. Infants born via surrogacy cannot be issued a birth certificate naming the intended parents unless certain pre-conditions are met, including a notarised agreement and embryo transfer in Georgia. The only work-around is taking the matter through Georgia’s labyrinthine court-system.
Why was this happening? I started to dig. Success Surrogacy’s website blatantly claims that the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus has laws legalizing surrogacy. No such laws exist. Then the claims become even more alarming. Intended parents could ‘spend the last 3 months of pregnancy … with a surrogate mother and enjoy preparing for childbirth in your country’.
Yes, the agency claims they will relocate your surrogate, presumably by arranging a visa for a six-month pregnant foreigner to travel to the recipient parents’ country, and then ‘make the registration process ….. in accordance with the laws of your country of residence’.
Putting aside the ethical and legal issues around removing a pregnant woman from her own family, to blinkered intended parents, this all looks convenient. In reality, countries seldom offer long-stay visas to those from developing nations. Secondly, given surrogacy is illegal in many countries, most have no mechanism to register a child to intended parents after a surrogacy birth. So, like the UK case mentioned above, naïve couples are routinely told midway through the pregnancy – ‘Change of plan – Your surrogate is now giving birth in …..’
Yet if the laws of the country of birth are not followed from the outset, newborns can end up stateless. I contacted a few UK surrogacy lawyers. Each could cite at least two cases where they had been brought in to try to unravel nightmare scenarios involving ‘travelling’ surrogates from this same agency.
Digging a little deeper, it turns out that this provider paid to exhibit at London’s 2024 Fertility Show as well as Paris and Cologne’s upcoming Wish for a Baby Shows.
Fertility shows – all run by UK-based companies – roll out every year in London, Manchester, Berlin, Brussels, Sydney, Cologne and Paris. They have two key aims. Firstly, to attract as many exhibitors and sponsors as possible. Secondly, to attract infertile singles and couples. ‘Foot traffic’ they call it.
Earlier this year, Wish For a Baby’s Sydney show hosted providers spruiking Ukraine solutions. These shows also invite charities, support groups and foundations to take part. But attendees are vulnerable – often years into a family building journey that has cost them many thousands, resulted in dead-ends, desperation and heartbreak. They are ready to be sold anything that might solve their inability to carry a child.
No wonder then, that a large proportion of exhibitors at such events are not the IVF clinics which have failed them. Instead, many are fertility coaches or complementary therapy providers, even luxury retreats – all promising fertility enhancement. At London’s Fertility Show in May 2024, no fewer than 16 exhibitors were in these categories. While spending big on such programs might not solve a woman’s issues, at least they are unlikely to do harm.
What is concerning is the willingness of these events companies to promote and host providers who offer solutions which can leave newborns stranded indefinitely in a foreign country.
Large fertility shows can give dodgy operators credibility, by riding on the back of well-respected providers and professionals. Punters are often unable to differentiate between the two. Some come away with such conflicting information, they are left overwhelmed and more confused.
That a company can sell its services at shows targeting vulnerable intended parents without any vetting is alarming. Experts may have the chance to set a few couples straight, but dozens more may grab at offers to ‘bring the surrogate to you’, naively believing the marketing spiel. While consumers are exposed to the same lies in online environments, you might hope a curated fertility show would do its homework first.
Growing Families stepped up a decade ago to address the issue, by creating a platform which put the rights of intended parents, surrogates and unborn children front and centre. We continue to mitigate against harm by providing accurate online resources and regular seminars, led by parents and surrogates rather than industry. The trouble is, too few are listening.
Growing Families has Information Days coming up in London, Dublin, Melbourne and Perth in the weeks and months ahead. We also offer customised consultations tailored to individual circumstances.
Neither the UK regulator – the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority -nor professional bodies British Fertility Society or the Association of Reproductive and Clinical Scientists any longer exhibit at the UK’s Fertility Show.
