Abstract
ABSTRACTThere are few studies on how social workers deal with cases regarding transnational surrogacy. Our study intends to contribute to filling this gap. In Sweden, surrogacy as an assisted reproductive technology method is not permitted. As a result, many prospective parents have turned abroad, mainly to India, for surrogacy. There are no laws regulating surrogacy in Sweden, and difficulties have arisen in establishing legal parenthood when the parents return with the child. This qualitative interview study with social workers found that legal uncertainty and ethical issues surrounded their handling. With no guidelines, the constructions of parenthood will continue to depend on individual social workers’ conflicting views on how to best meet the surrogate mother’s interest and the best interest of the child. Regulation is thus needed to better protect those involved and minimize the contingent aspects of legal handling by individual officials.
Highlights
Social workers at social welfare offices are in a delicate position when faced with the unregulated ‘new’ form of family-making, transnational surrogacy
This paper focuses on Swedish social workers’ perceptions and experience of handling legal parenthood after transnational surrogacy
We aimed to explore how social workers in Sweden view the handling of transnational surrogacy and what issues impact on their decision-making
Summary
Social workers at social welfare offices are in a delicate position when faced with the unregulated ‘new’ form of family-making, transnational surrogacy. Surrogacy challenges the traditional view of family formation since it is a contractual agreement between people wanting a child and a woman who will carry a child to term, and relinquish the child when it is born (Hale, 2013). It conflicts with most Western countries’ rules for decision-making on parenthood: the presumption of motherhood stating that the woman giving birth is the mother, and the presumption of fatherhood declaring that the birth-mother’s husband is the father (William-Jones, 2002). Law is often insufficient for handling matters of legal parenthood when surrogacy is used (Brunet et al, 2013; Permanent Bureau of the Hague, 2012)
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