Section 30–the acceptable face of surrogacy?

This paper considers the development of surrogacy practice in Britain and policy responses to it. Four discrete policy options are identified and discussed. Although surrogacy has been on the political agenda since the appointment of the Warnock Committee in 1982 there has been a failure to initiate adequate public debate concerning the challenges posed by surrogacy. Instead, official policy, notably the Surrogacy Arrangements Act 1985 and Section 30 of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, has been dictated by double standards and short-term expediency. The paper analyses the consequences of unco-ordinated incrementalism, as evidenced by Section 30 itself, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority Code of Practice (and recent revisions) and espousal of medica-lised versions of surrogacy by clinical practitioners. It concludes that, contrary to expressed governmental policy, these processes have culminated in both the symbolic and practical legitimation of a medicalised model of surrogacy that is founded on and reinforces conventional assumptions about family life in Britain.