First Page
265
Last Page
344
Document Type
Article
Abstract
This Article argues that most surrogacy arrangements, as currently practiced, constitute the “sale of children” under international law and hence should not be legally legitimated. Therefore, maintaining the core legal norm against the sale of children requires rejecting claims that there is a right to procreate through surrogacy. Since a fundamental purpose of law in the modern era of human rights is to protect the inherent dignity of the human person, a claimed legal right that is built upon the sale of human beings must be rejected. This Article refutes common arguments claiming that commercial surrogacy does not constitute the sale of children and should be legally legitimated. Upon analysis, those arguments, and the corollary legal regimens legitimizing a commercial surrogacy industry, are thinly veiled rationalizations for accepting commercial arrangements involving the de jure and de facto transfer of infants in exchange for monetary compensation. This Article describes the minimum regulatory approach under which the practice of surrogacy would not constitute the sale of children. This Article argues that legal principles applicable to adoption, which are designed to protect vulnerable birth parents and children and to prevent human trafficking and the sale of children, should be adapted and applied to surrogacy.
Recommended Citation
David M. Smolin
Surrogacy as the Sale of Children: Applying Lessons Learned from Adoption to the Regulation of the Surrogacy Industry's Global Marketing of Children,
43 Pepp. L. Rev.
265
(2016)
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/plr/vol43/iss2/2
