Old Dilemmas, New Controversies: Children in International Adoption and Global Surrogacy

Over the past decades, the movement of children across borders has become a global phenomenon of family formation. International adoption of children has acquired a tradition with (often) humanitarian connotations, in which vulnerable children from impoverished countries are ‘rescued’ and in their best interest, placed with adoptive parents in wealthy countries. Whilst in intercountry adoption there is no intention to ‘create a baby’ as the adoptive child already exists, increasingly children are created through surrogacy arrangements across the globe, a process driven by the commissioning parents.
The aim of the presentation is to draw parallels between the burgeoning field of surrogacy and the long-standing field of adoption, with a focus on children’s development and children’s rights, highlighting what surrogacy can learn from adoption. The presentation draws on research findings on the outcomes of international adoption and its impact on various aspects of adopted children’s development – including issues of cultural and self-identity identity development - and focuses on the challenges for surrogacy field to make use of lessons from intercountry adoption research. The relevance of further research and messages for both policy and practice will be highlighted.