Legal issues
The country's government is now planning to outlaw commercial surrogacy, having realised the extent to which the business is thriving.
Surrogacy is chosen by couples or individuals for various reasons.
"[There are] male couples who are in need of a surrogate for obvious reasons", says Barrie Drewitt-Barlow, Head of Social Work at the British Surrogacy Centre. "Straight couples come to us because normally the wife cannot carry a pregnancy for some medical reason or other. Illness is a reason, and age is another".
Many people are attracted to countries where surrogacy is legal and popular, such as India and Thailand, because they offer a cheap service with relatively few strings attached.
So-called ‘Fertility tourism' has seen a boom recently, and a number of websites have appeared online offering a smooth surrogacy process in a foreign country, for a fee.
But there have been several instances where complications have arisen for the biological parents when they want to take their baby back home. Several US and Australian couples were banned from leaving Thailand with their babies.
"There are also limits in some countries where paying the surrogate a fee is an issue," Barrie Drewitt-Barlow from the BSC says.
"The legal situation is completely unclear and very risky for people going overseas," says Dr Arthur Caplan, Head of Medical Ethics at New York University. "The local country may or may not have laws regarding surrogacy. For example, if a child is born with a deformity and you say you're not taking the child you may find yourself detained."
‘Official mother'
There are various types of surrogacy. For same-sex male couples, often the surrogate mother also acts as the biological mother by being inseminated by the intended father. In the case of heterosexual couples, the surrogate mother is as a ruler entirely unrelated to the child, who is the product of an embryo inserted into the surrogate mother.
For many same sex couples, surrogacy provides a good option for having their own biological children.
But local customs and attitudes towards same sex relationships can also complicate matters. Last year India banned surrogacy visas for gay couples.
A recent ruling in Ireland stated that the surrogate mother of her sister's biological child was the official mother. The law in Ireland remains that the genetic mother of a child born from a surrogate cannot appear on the child's birth certificate.
Emotional impact
The emotional effect on the carrier mother is frequently ignored.
For the surrogate mother, "the emotional risk is that you may find yourself bonded to the baby," says Dr Caplan.
It has been suggested that surrogacy is a way out of poverty for many women in countries such as India. But as Dr Caplan points out, "in many countries the women are exploited; the middlemen take the money — doctors, not the surrogates. I think surrogates deserve their own legal representation. Often they don't have anyone speaking for them apart from the clinic."
Legalisation of commercial surrogacy in Britain
Surrogacy is legal in Britain as long as it's not a paid transaction, although the surrogate can be paid ‘reasonable expenses'. The surrogate must then sign a parental order of consent, giving the biological parents legal rights over the child.
While organisations such as the British Surrogacy Centre are trying to provide more of a support service, it's still challenging, says Barrie Drewitt-Barlow; "The BSC has developed its own but it is not a legal framework of support. We make sure each surrogate has a social worker assigned to them that follows the case all the way to the end point of baby going home with its new mum or dad".
According to the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART), between 2004-2008 the numbers of gestational surrogacies increased by 89%
There are few concrete figures for the number of surrogate births in countries like India and Thailand.
Reports from India have said the industry is worth around $2 billion per year. In Thailand, there are reports of ‘surrogacy rings', where women are trafficked and forced into surrogacy.
While international surrogacy has its detractors, the evidence shows that in many cases it lifts women out of poverty in developing countries.
Advocates say that legalising commercial surrogacy in Britain would prevent the exploitation of women in developing countries, while some have suggested it is not the role of the British authorities to regulate the practice.
