Medical risks of surrogacy and egg harvesting

This is a transcript of Liz Purslow’s talk at the What’s wrong with surrogacy? webinar on 6 September 2020.

In this powerful talk, Liz looks at the health risks for women involved in surrogacy and the egg harvesting on which most surrogacy is predicated, along with the inevitable conflicts of interests and safeguarding issues that may arise. She asks, Should the NHS pay women to put themselves at risk of harm to breed babies for others? Read More

Surrogacy: How much is a woman worth?

In 2019, the UK law commissioners ran a consultation on proposals to open up commercial-style surrogacy in the UK. We argued at the time that it was so flawed it should be abandoned and restarted, this time centring the human rights of women and children. The law commissioners subsequently invited us to meet with them to expand on our concerns. This is a personal account of that meeting, which took place on Thursday 13 February 2020 at their London offices. Read More

Surrogacy: Medical risks, and costs and implications for the NHS

In this article, Elizabeth Purslow, who was a midwife for 20 years, sets out some of the key medical risks associated with surrogacy pregnancies and egg harvesting, the burden of costs any increase in surrogacy in the UK will place on the NHS, and the implications of this for other NHS users. She also considers safeguarding and the impact of the conflicts of interests that are inherent to surrogacy relationships.

This article is based on a presentation that Liz gave to the UK law commissioners at a meeting on 13 February 2020 about their proposals for commercial-style surrogacy in the UK. Read More