“i wanted to be interesting. i wanted to be able to say ‘i've done something interesting with my life’”: Interviews with surrogate mothers in britain

Abstract

Surrogacy arrangements have generated considerable debate in Britain and elsewhere, although such debate has taken place in an empirical vacuum. Nevertheless, despite the explicit intention of government policy that there should be no provision for licensing of non-commercial surrogacy services, surrogacy arrangements are being inexorably drawn into the regulatory framework established under the provisions of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 (Blyth, 1993). Following implementation of the Act an exploratory empirical study (the first of its kind to be conducted in Britain) was carried out to investigate the experiences of British surrogate mothers and commissioning parents. This paper reports on the findings concerning the experiences of the surrogate mothers involved in the study. The experiences of commissioning parents will be reported separately.