A child’s best interests, not the desires of adults, should be at the heart of surrogacy | Sonia Sodha

The Law Commission has gone too far in its proposed guidelines for surrogate parents

Infertility can be deeply painful. There is a lot a compassionate society can - and should - do to make fertility treatment available to those who can be assisted to have a child with medical intervention. Few would disagree though that there are ethical boundaries to this, shaped by children's interests, not just adult desires.

Last week, the Law Commission drove a coach and horses through that moral frontier - which it framed as an overdue modernisation of the law - by publishing draft proposals to reform the UK's surrogacy framework. Implicit in them is the, I suspect controversial, assumption that a single man seeking to have a child alone through surrogacy, because he doesn't want or can't maintain a committed relationship, presents no greater moral quandary than a couple seeking IVF. How controversial is anyone's guess: the Law Commission hasn't canvassed public attitudes.

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