British MP calls for ban on surrogacy: ‘We have a duty to protect children’

Miriam Cates, a member of the British Parliament (MP), is speaking out about the harms of surrogacy. In a new interview with The House, she argued that the desire for people to become parents is outweighing the rights and well-being of children. Additionally, she spoke about the population decline affecting the United Kingdom (UK) right now.

“We know from the polling that roughly eight per cent of young women say they don’t want to be mothers, and of course that’s absolutely fine,” she said. “But around 30 per cent of this generation of young women will probably not become mothers, we can see from the demographic trends. That’s an awful lot of young women who are not going to get what they want.” She adds: “One of the most basic biological instincts is to want to reproduce.”

The Office of National Statistics released data last year showing that the birth rate in England and Wales has plummeted… though abortions are rising. The number of births in 2022 was the lowest in 20 years, and the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children issued a warning about what this means for the UK’s future. “In England, roughly one in four pregnancies now end in abortion,” a spokesperson said. “This life-denying ethic rooted in death exposes a culture that diminishes the value of children and family, and ultimately life itself. Society is heading down a dark and dangerous path, though it is not too late to turn back.”

Cates noted that the answer to the declining birth rate is to push in-vitro fertilization (IVF) – but she disagrees. “I’m not sure making IVF cheaper and more available is going to help because it does encourage people to delay having children if they think that IVF is an option,” she said. “IVF absolutely should be an option for people, but we have to be real: it’s not very successful, in terms of how likely you are to conceive on each round, sadly, and the older you get the less successful you get.”

Though Cates said she does support IVF in general, she draws a hard line at surrogacy.

READ: Surrogacy is riskier for both women and babies than most people realize

“You have to look at it from the baby’s point of view. Of course adults have a strong desire to be parents, both men and women. Of course it’s a sadness if that’s unfulfilled for whatever reason – they can’t conceive, don’t have a partner, whatever it is. But to deliberately bring a child into the world in order to separate it from its mother at birth I think is just ethically not acceptable,” she said, adding, “You can’t take a puppy off its mother in this country before it’s weaned. You’re not allowed to.”

She also hit back at the notion that homophobia is behind opposition to surrogacy. “Gay people can adopt, absolutely. That’s been the case for quite a long time, and I think adopting a child who for whatever reason is not able to stay with its biological family is an incredibly altruistic, kind thing to do,” she said. “It’s sad, it’s desperately sad, but you don’t have a right to become a parent. But we do have a duty to protect children.”

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