Legal Issues Arising From Transnational Surrogacy

With the popularization of assisted reproductive technology,surrogacy has aroused wide concern upon its appearance in Anglo American countries in the 1970 s.Experts related to ethics,laws and medical science conducted a series of studies on the surrogate phenomenon,in an attempt to encourage the government to transform and improve public policy and to solve legal problems involved in surrogacy by means of legislation on assisted reproduction.The recognition of the transnational surrogacy agreement touches the question whether the rights and obligations of the parties can be protected and regulated by the law.Children born through surrogacy need to obtain legal status via legal recognition.The countries' attitudes towards surrogacy vary,leading to increasing legal conflicts of transnational surrogacy.Anglo-American countries,such as Britain,Australia,Israel,are relatively tolerant of surrogacy,and the legal regulation on surrogacy is relatively loose.By contrast,most European countries,like Germany,France,Japan,are more conservative towards surrogacy,where surrogacy is generally prohibited,the effect of the surrogacy agreement is denied in both legislation and judicial practice,and the parent-child relationship is not recognized.In China,there has not been specific laws formulating the standard of assisted reproductive technology and surrogacy,and the regulations of the Ministry of Health prohibits surrogacy.However,any form of implementation of administrative regulations only bans the medical institutions and medical staff from conducting surrogacy,which cannot prevent other organizations or people from practicing surrogacy.Blind prohibition does not actually solve the problem but will only lead to more problems concerning the phenomenon that surrogacy is practiced underground and cross-border.There has existed some basis for surrogacy in terms of reality and technology,and China is rich in labor resources,under which circumstance,China receives many children while there are children born here related to transnational surrogacy.Thereby,firstly,China should do more research on how to manage surrogacy to deal with the issues regarding transnational surrogacy by means of improving the existing legislation.Secondly,China should learn from other countries and then enact legislation which corresponds to the national conditions by considering and weighing the advantages and disadvantages.Thirdly,we should take an active part in the study of transnational surrogacy in Hague International Private Law Conference and strive for the cooperation of transnational surrogacy.