The surrogacy trade: proliferating bans and an opportunistic industry raise a worrying health risk

It is March 2023, and in the Tblisi office of BeParent, a commercial surrogacy agency with outposts in Georgia, Cyprus, and Mexico, smiling staff look at computer screens as “intended parents” (parents who seek to commission a surrogate birth, in industry parlance) are ushered into a consultation room with a hotel lobby-style sofa and walls decorated with close-up black and white images of newborn babies.Naia, a managing partner of BeParent, runs through the process of commissioning a surrogate birth. BeParent Georgia’s surrogates are aged 23 to 39 years old, have their own children, and hail from Georgia or Kazakhstan. Egg donations, where these are required, come from a separate list of women; a list of prospective donors is later emailed to me with photographs and details including the donors’ age, “race,” height, education level, and blood group. Surrogates and donors are “prepared” for gamete harvesting and embryo implantation within three…
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