Healthcare in low and middle income countries in Africa and elsewhere is being “hijacked” by commercial surrogacy companies, experts have warned.
At a session at the European women’s rights conference FiLia in Brighton on 12 October, former surrogates and women’s rights campaigners from France, the US, and Germany argued that pregnancy complications such as sepsis, postpartum haemorrhage, and pre-eclampsia are higher in surrogate pregnancies and that the industry is distorting healthcare provision in commercial surrogacy destinations.
Marie Josephe Devilliers, president of the feminist organisation International Coalition Against Surrogate Motherhood, presented evidence of such practice in Uganda, where a medical sector has been developed for in vitro fertilisatoin (IVF) and reproductive surrogacy but where local women cannot access obstetric care. The situation is similar in South Africa, where “ordinary citizens have little access to medical care for their own pregnancies, but the most sophisticated clinics are available for surrogate pregnancies,” Devilliers said.
Lexi Ellingsworth, cofounder of the campaign group Stop Surrogacy …
