The Countess signed the following letter, with Women’s Space Ireland, Natural Women’s Council, and Not All Gays, and co-signed by Stop Surrogacy Now UK, and the International Coalition for the Abolition of Surrogate Motherhood.
We write as Irish women, feminist and gay rights organisations, joined by Stop Surrogacy Now UK, and the International Coalition for the Abolition of Surrogate Motherhood (ICASM) to you to voice our concerns as the Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Act 2024 contains no statutory bar preventing a person convicted of offences against children from obtaining a child through surrogacy.
When the then Minister for Health declined amendment No. 15 at Seanad Committee Stage on 20 June 2024, he entrusted that protection to the preconception approval and safety of the child assessment of an Authority whose procedures remain unpublished, under an Act which has not yet fully commenced.
The risks are well- documented: In Farnell & Anor and Chanbua [2016] FCWA 17, the Family Court of Western Australia ruled that a child born to a surrogate mother in Thailand be taken from his mother by a commissioning father who was a convicted child sex offender. This is far from being a singular incident, a case will be before the UK criminal courts in January 2027 to try the UK’s first same-sex attracted male father through surrogacy on charges of sexual abuse and human trafficking.
Other known cases include:
1. 2025 – In Spain, José María Hill Prados, a convicted child sex offender, was linked to the surrogacy company Gestlife..
2. 2024 – In America, Adam King, 39, was arrested and charged with distributing child sexual abuse material shortly before the birth of a child he had commissioned via surrogacy, with intent to harm.
3. 2025 – In Scotland, Cameron Shaw was exposed in online communications allegedly seeking to “buy a baby to abuse,” including asking contacts whether they knew of a “desperate woman” who would “have one for me.”
International Coalition for the Abolition of Surrogate Motherhood (ICASM) c/o at Cité audacieuse 9 Rue de Vaugirard, 75006 Paris – +33 686 42 5944 RNA W931017751 – SIRET 84082258900031
4. 2020 – In Germany, a man reportedly paid €60,000 to a Russian woman to carry a child. The man was convicted of child sexual abuse and possession of a large volume of child sexual abuse material (reported at over 175,000 images). The child was allegedly subjected to repeated abuse at an extremely young age.
5. 2018 – In Norway, a psychiatrist working in social services was found in possession of extensive child sexual abuse material involving violent content. He commissioned twins from India in 2011.
6. 2016 – In Israel, a convicted sex offender obtained custody of a child born via surrogacy in India.
We offer just a few examples, please note this is not a comprehensive list.
Additionally, in 2023 Greek police alleged that a single clinic in Chania exploited 169 foreign women. The Sunday Independent reported on the clinic which had Irish people as clients. The nature of the surrogacy industry is such that those commissioning babies abroad can have no real certainty as to the reality of what pressures or coercion are driving poor women into becoming surrogates only to be parted with their babies at birth. Equally those accepting clients as intending parents of these babies can have no certainty as to their motives and there is always a risk as we are learning of individuals, with or without a criminal record, who would seek a baby in order to abuse him or her.
We remind members that EU Directive 2024/1712, which Ireland remains a part of, names the exploitation of surrogacy as a form of trafficking and the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, in report A/80/158, has called for a binding international instrument prohibiting surrogacy in all its forms.
We therefore ask the Committee whether the Amendment Bill will bar from surrogacy
● any person convicted, in Ireland or abroad, of a sexual offence,
● an offence against a child or trafficking on the basis of Garda vetting and foreign criminal record certificates;
Additionally we ask the Board what the assessment consists in relation to
● the safeguarding of children,
● how it will ensure that no woman abroad was recruited through coercion or the abuse of her vulnerability and
● whether it will publish its members’ declarations of interests.
We ask you please to provide your responses by 14 October 2026 which we hope to publish, given the public interest in this issue which has very far reaching consequences for Irish society.