Her body, Our Babies

The RTE documentary – Her body, Our Babies –was shown on Monday the 13th January 2014 (View on RTE Player).

This runs closely on the heels of the BBC documentary – Living Inside the House of Surrogates –shown in October 2013 which documents the surrogacy industry in India from the surrogate’s perspective.
(See website link below).

While surrogacy in India has grown into a one million dollar industry, it remains essentially unregulated. Draft legislation has been in the pipeline for many years.

In Ireland the position is not very different. Indeed there has been much criticism of the government for failure to enact legislation and regulate the area of assisted human reproduction generally and surrogacy in particular. There was much optimism when the Department of Justice and Equality issued a briefing note in November 2013 on the proposed Children and Family Relationships Bill 2013 specifically the proposed provisions relating to surrogacy.

This is a very complex area involving legal, ethical and social issues. Legislation should not be a knee jerk reaction but needs careful consideration, particularly when in some quarters it is anticipated that in 40 years’ time the majority of births will be through IVF.

Click here to view the article “Living inside the house of surrogates” on the BBC website