Surrogacy Practices Raise Statelessness Risk for Babies

The increasing use of overseas surrogates is creating a growing risk that children born through such arrangements may become stateless. Experts warn that the lack of a coordinated international legal framework leaves babies vulnerable to “limping parentage,” where they have different legal parents in different jurisdictions, and in some cases no recognized nationality at all.

Efforts to craft a global surrogacy convention by The Hague Conference on Private International Law have been suspended after member states could not reconcile divergent ethical views. Countries vary widely: Italy bans surrogacy, several US states permit commercial arrangements, while the UK allows only altruistic surrogacy and does not compensate beyond expenses. The fragmented regulatory landscape pushes intended parents to seek surrogates abroad, often in locations with weaker protections for carriers and children.

Legal scholars and ethicists call for urgent multinational regulation to address the complex clinical, psychological, and legal challenges of gestational surrogacy and to safeguard the rights of all parties involved, especially the children at risk of statelessness.