Last week a US company was due to host a surrogacy promotion event for gay men in Dublin. Two days beforehand it was cancelled with the company claiming "some security concerns". A similar event due to be held in London the next day was also cancelled "due to circumstances beyond our control related to the hotel/venue,.."

Surrogacy ‘booming industry’ disregards the best interests of a child

Reproduced with kind permission of The Irish Catholic which first published it on 7th May 2026:

In Ireland, surrogacy lobbying seems to be at full speed. No less than three surrogacy promotional events were held here within weeks of the passing of the Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Act two years ago which legalises both domestic and international surrogacy.

Under the Act both couples and single people can apply to the Assisted Human Reproduction Regulatory Authority (AHRRA) to avail of surrogacy with eligibility extending to those who’ve had residency here for just two years.  In the UK the number of single men applying to become fathers through surrogacy has tripled in the past four years since it first became possible for single people to avail of it in 2019. The number of babies brought into England now make up 77% of parental order applications.

A succession of TDs, mostly men, have been exerting pressure on Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill here through Parliamentary Questions to know when our legislation will be fully functioning.

How many Irish women will agree to undertake the gruelling process of multiple hormonal injections to prepare for surrogacy; undergo pregnancy and its attendant risks including those of childbirth for altruistic reasons (which is what the 2024 legislation provides for) even for close family, in which sometimes there can be coercion applied?

It’s clear that most couples and single people will have to apply for surrogacy in other countries where, as in the sex industry, only very poor women will feel forced or coerced into doing it. And what assurances can the AHRRA possibly offer as to what happens in other countries?

Surrogacy also utterly disregards the best interests of a child not to be taken from the only mother he or she knows, usually never to see or hear her voice again or to be breastfed and cared for by her. In the “booming industry” of surrogacy which is projected to be worth more than $200bn by 2035 a baby is a valuable commodity to be commissioned, removed from his or her mother at birth and handed over to strangers, sometimes while still attached by the umbilical cord. Meanwhile dog breeders and even private sellers here cannot sell puppies younger than eight weeks of age.

Surrogacy has resulted in multiple horror stories such as women being kept captive by criminals in Georgia who harvested their eggs regularly and sold them on the black market. In Scotland young women have been targeted by the NHS with appeals to donate their eggs so giving away their own future children to strangers.  Women have already died, including in the UK, through the process of stimulating their ovaries to produce sufficient eggs for harvesting. Professor of Health Catherine Meads of Anglia Ruskin University writes that when it comes to the use of an egg which comes from another woman “..emerging evidence suggests that these pregnancies may come with higher rates of complications, including pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes and pre-term birth,..”.

An Australian agency which comes to Ireland each year was offering a discount on referrals to one Greek clinic which saw eight arrested in 2023. The Sunday Independent reported that Greek police were “alleging the clinic was part of an ‘industrial’ level of fraud, human trafficking and sham embryo transfers”. Paedophiles have acquired babies through surrogacy with predictable results. In January it was reported that a video-game billionaire has fathered more than 100 U.S. children.

“In response to the atrocities of Nazism during the Second World War, human dignity became a foundational value in Europe, enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. This principle led many European countries to prohibit surrogacy as early as the 1980s. Today, despite strong market-driven pressure to legalise surrogacy, this prohibition remains in force in around twenty European countries, including Italy, France, Spain and Germany. However, a number of countries — such as Ireland, Greece, Cyprus and Portugal — have adopted legislation allowing surrogacy,”

says the Coalition for the Abolition of Surrogate Motherhood (CIAMS).

While many are happy to condemn the separation of mothers from babies who were sent abroad in the past they appear indifferent or even celebrate the acquiring of babies from poor women in other countries today.

“We need to vindicate the right to procreation...” said Deputy Padraig Rice in the Oireachtas just over a fortnight ago.  For gay men like Deputy Rice this would surely mean obliging women to have their bodies and eggs used to meet this “right”. 

Worryingly, in another related bill, now before the Seanad, there's provision for the State to provide financial assistance for assisted human reproduction.  Already an argument now being advanced is that gay men are infertile and so should also qualify for assistance. 

If the State is to fund fertility treatments can the demand to fund surrogacy be far behind?