According to experts, the use of foreign surrogacy agreements is leaving more children at risk of becoming stateless, and there are now calls for either the worldwide regulation of surrogacy or the complete outlawing of the practice.

Key Takeaways:

• International surrogacy agreements are flourishing, despite varying laws between countries.

• Experts are warning this could lead to "stateless" babies, with questions and confusion about citizenship, with one claiming, “That’s a serious risk in cases of international surrogacy agreements, and numbers are growing, and growing very fast.”

• Some have expressed concern that surrogacy is being used for birth tourism and can lead to trafficking.

The Details:

The Guardian reported that this "warning follows the suspension of a 15-year effort by The Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) to establish a global surrogacy convention, which was paused due to divisions among member states."

HCCH member states include the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada, where surrogacy is allowed, as well as France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, where surrogacy is restricted or banned.

"I invested 10 years of my life into this project. But if there's no political will, there's absolutely no point in us spending more of people's time and money," said Professor Michael Hellner, who chaired the HCCH working group. "The lack of coordination between the states on this issue leads to problems for the children, and the risk of statelessness is increasing."

He added that the differing surrogacy laws cause "limping parentage." Some nations do not grant nationality to a child born there, while others, like the United States, make anyone born in the nation an immediate citizen — even if the intended parent or parents are in China.

Some nations, like Italy, have banned domestic surrogacy and criminalized international surrogacy, citing the commodification of women and children as a violation of human rights and dignity.

With laws on surrogacy differing widely between nations and surrogacy use increasing, the number of children who have different legal parents in different countries is increasing.

Zoom In:

"If the government doesn’t issue a passport in either the country where the baby is born, or where it is going home to, then there are chances the baby will become stateless,” explained Bhaskar Mishra, a child protection specialist at UNICEF. “That’s a serious risk in cases of international surrogacy agreements, and numbers are growing, and growing very fast.”

The Guardian pointed to British citizens who hired a surrogate as an example of the creation of stateless children. Most of the children born via surrogate to British intended parents are born abroad. The adults must apply to the United Kingdom family courts for a parental order to become their biological child's legal parents, and, depending on the nation in which the child is born, must apply for British citizenship for the child.

“There are lots of situations where these children are just left in a limbo and that affects their legal status, which is something that is crucial to having an identity,” said Maud de Boer-Buquicchoi, president of Child Identity Protection. “The differences in legislation between different countries is still a big, big puzzle.”

In another case, a surrogate in Florida is currently fighting for custody of the boys she birthed nearly two years ago for a man in China who has yet to claim the children.

Early this year, Representatives Blake Moore and John Moolenaar introduced legislation aimed at preventing foreign adversarial nations such as China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea from abusing the American surrogacy industry to obtain United States citizenship for children and traffic infants abroad.

Some of the major drivers of surrogacy are gay couples and older women. Many are using donor eggs or sperm to create children who will be intentionally deprived of one or both of their biological parents.

The children are also taken from their birth mothers — the only mothers they have ever known, the surrogate, with whom they are most bonded — to be given to people who are strangers to them. When the surrogacy contract is international, there are likely to be legal issues that cause even more confusion and turmoil, which can cause harm to the children.

The Bottom Line:

If HCCH member states can't even agree to meet to discuss international surrogacy, the problems surrogacy creates and the number of wounded children will only increase.