Surrogacy - the many problems
Multiple Panelists
5 dec 2020

Jennifer Lahl is a film director, founder and president of The Center for Bioethics and Culture (CBC) Network and founder of the international Stop Surrogacy Now! coalition. She tells us why surrogacy is such a problem and how it violates women’s and children’s rights.

Gary Powell is a gay rights campaigner and UK representative of The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network. He explains that surrogacy is a Rich Rights Issue, not a Gay Rights Issue.

Laila Namdarkhan is a member of the OBJECT board. She speaks about the mother right, only recently enshrined in law and already under threat from surrogacy.

Lauren Hamstead is the winner of the OBJECT Essay Prize 2020 currently working on the OBJECT UK Surrogacy Consultation. She explains how both ‘altruistic’ and commercial surrogacy pose serious risks for women.

Olivia Palmer is an independent campaigner on surrogacy who has been targetted by online egg donation adverts. She explains how the economic pressures on young women may suck them onto surrogacy or egg donation without proper awareness of the risks.

The voices of surrogacy critics are hidden because the prevailing orthodoxy is that surrogacy is a gay rights issue and therefore a positive – a view Gary Powell explodes here. There are over 30 problems with surrogacy yet the well-funded pro-surrogacy lobby, supported by Big Pharma who will profit from the practice, refuses to acknowledge or address them, and the government currently colludes with this.