General Article British public: legalise paid surrogacy 

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Most people in Britain approve of paid surrogate pregnancies – but public support is lower when it is used by gay couples.

Recently an Australian couple were accused of abandoning a child with Down’s syndrome and a heart condition with his surrogate mother in Thailand, while taking home to Australia the child’s healthy twin sister. The details of the case are murky – the surrogacy agent who arranged the deal claims the couple later offered to take the child – but the incident shed light on the issue of regulation in surrogacy.

Surrogacy itself, or the process of a ‘surrogate’ mother carrying a child for someone else, has been regulated under British law since the 1980s. In 1985, the Surrogacy Arrangements Act made commercial surrogacy – when the surrogate is paid a fee – prohibited, so surrogates in the UK must currently be volunteers (though they can be paid for reasonable expenses related to the surrogacy). 

New YouGov research finds that the law is out of sync with British public...

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