Agency ends when the surrogacy contract begins: Lived experience, power and law‑making

The AAWAA Women’s Advocate · Apr 23, 2026 · 12m

Emma and Megan unpack their recent evidence to the NSW Legislative Council inquiry on ‘fertility support’ and surrogacy. Drawing on AAWAA’s anchoring arguments, they explain why Parliament’s role is to guard women and children, not steward a fertility market; why surrogacy is structurally exploitative even when framed as ‘helping families’; and why lived experience alone cannot decide questions of law and policy. They explore the dangers of an arms race of competing stories, the state’s duties under international law, and what it really means to say that some markets – including surrogacy –…