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Comment and Health

Changes to surrogacy laws must consider future reproductive technology

A reform of surrogacy law in the UK could have major ramifications as reproductive technology advances. We need to look at the relationship between procreation and parenthood, says Teresa Baron

By Teresa Baron

8 March 2023

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Simone Rotella

MOST people assume that if you create a child, it is your child. But the links between creation, commission and child-rearing are growing more tenuous as reproductive technology advances and laws are reformed in response. In the coming decades, we might see the first children conceived using synthetic eggs and sperm and “born” through ectogenesis (artificial womb technology). How we respond to these advances will depend on what we do, between now and then, with the relationship between procreation and parenthood.

Since 2017, law reform bodies in England, Scotland and Wales have been refining proposals for a reform of …

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