Al Jazeera | September 6, 2023
The Georgian government is planning to ban compensated surrogacy for foreigners. Some critics point to the conservative political agenda behind the bill. It will likely put pressure on surrogacy industries in the US and Canada and emerging “hubs” in Argentina, Mexico, and Uganda.
The Washington Post | June 29, 2023
Lower costs motivate some prospective parents to seek out surrogates in Mexico, but the lack of regulation for foreigners makes the practice precarious.
El País | April 3, 2023
Because surrogacy in the United States–the most popular destination– is so expensive, more couples from countries where surrogacy is illegal are turning to Mexico to find surrogates. But the industry’s lack of regulation leaves surrogates vulnerable to exploitation.
CNBC | March 7, 2023
With more intended parents interested in surrogacy––largely from wealthier Western countries––comes more demand for surrogates. Women in countries including Georgia and Mexico are drawn to surrogacy because of the financial compensation, but risks of exploitation–particularly in a largely unregulated industry– remain.
Abril Castro Prieto | WorldCrunch | November 3, 2022
Abril Castro Prieto from Mexico illustrates the effects of racism and colonialism on the reproductive technology industry and shares her personal experience with reciprocal IVF (mis-translated from original Spanish into the English version as “surrogacy”). When choosing an anonymous sperm donor, her doctor assumed she would opt for a white donor, i.e. expecting she would want to “improve the race.”
Emily Green | Vice | October 28, 2022
Increasing demand among U.S. couples for cheaper surrogacy options has contributed to a surrogacy boom in Mexico. Mexican women are signing up to be surrogates, but the lack of regulations to oversee it leave surrogates vulnerable to exploitation.
Deseos
By GIRE Mexico | 2017
GIRE, a Mexico-based organization that has studied, documented, published, and advocated on international recently released a documentary on the practice in 2017. “Deseos” or “Longing” follows Mirna, a divorced gestational mother with three of her own and shines a critical light on the lack of regulation around surrogacy in Mexico.
Visit GIRE’s website and read the organization’s latest report on surrogacy in Mexico. In it, GIRE offers a comprehensive overview of the current status of surrogacy, the scope of the debate around the practice, legal frameworks, cases, and recommendations. The last includes, for example:
As Mexican State Limits Surrogacy, Global System is Further Strained
By Victoria Burnett | The New York Times | March 23, 2017
Legal in the Mexican state of Tabasco since 1997, international commercial surrogacy is now under fire in the country.
This article tracks changes to the law – restricting Mexican gestational mothers from carrying children for foreigners – with analysis of how the new policy will be implemented. It follows gestational mothers, for whom surrogacy is a vital source of income, in a state with the highest unemployment rate in the country, as well as intended parents locked in legal battle with authorities that are stalling on birth certificates after the new restriction was enforced.
With this development, Mexico is the next (fallen) chip in the global practice of international commercial surrogacy.
Mexico Resists Becoming Next Reproductive Tourism “Paradise”
by Isabel Reviejo | Latin American Herald Tribune | April 14, 2016
Excerpt:
This piece explores the role of Mexico as “the next niche” for international commercial surrogacy. It describes the scope of current law and legal loopholes, as well as attempts by the state to regulate the practice.
Surrogacy Boom in Mexico Brings Tales of Missing Money and Stolen Eggs
By Jo Tuckman | The Guardian | Sept. 25, 2014
Excerpt:
Five days after her caesarean section, Nancy boarded a night bus in the southern Mexican city of Villahermosa and made the 10-hour journey back to her home in the capital. Instead of a baby, she nursed a wad of bills buried in a blue handbag she never let out of her sight.
The cash was the final instalment of her 150,000-peso (£7,000) fee to be a surrogate mother for a gay couple from San Francisco. After a traumatic year that included being all but abandoned by the agency supposedly looking after her, and being falsely accused of demanding additional cash to hand over the baby, Nancy was not so sure it had been worth it. “I just wanted to get my money, go home, rest and forget about it all,” said the 24-year-old, sitting in her tiny apartment in a poor barrio of Mexico City. “And now the money is all gone.”
Nancy’s story says much about the southern Mexican state of Tabasco’s emergence as the world’s most dynamic new centre of international surrogacy, fuelled by the tightening of restrictions in other countries such as India and Thailand.
This article follows gestational mothers and intended parents in Mexico, providing important insights into their lives, the contexts that frame their decisions, and their experiences within surrogacy arrangements and after. In light of closer scrutiny and tighter regulation, it also reveals the chameleon-like nature of the clinics and agencies in between. Mexico Surrogacy, one featured agency, for example, is reportedly set up like a charity that receives “donations” from intended parents which is then passed on to gestational mothers in the form of “aid.”
