Three High Court judgments warn of risky surrogacy practices in Cyprus and urge intended parents to exercise caution

Surrogacy is a lifeline for families unable to conceive on their own. For some queer and same-sex couples, single parents and people with fertility issues, it may be their only realistic pathway to parenthood. Surrogacy restrictions at home drive many to look overseas.  As we know at NGA, international surrogacy can be – and usually is – a positive experience for all involved, based on foundations of legality, trust and good-faith. But like anything that spans borders and involves both complex human emotions and commercial interests, there is risk of international surrogacy being managed unethically and/or illegally.

Three important recent High Court judgments have highlighted these risks, each involving multi-jurisdictional surrogacy arrangements originating in Cyprus. These cases highlight the rare but serious problems that can arise when international surrogacy operates outside proper legal frameworks. The sharp judicial warnings which they have prompted are a powerful call to action for prospective parents to think carefully, seek UK legal advice and ask the right questions.

In Re Z (Foreign Surrogacy) [2024] a British same-sex couple ended up in a chaotic international surrogacy situation after their agency (SurrogateBaby) based in Cyprus found them a surrogate from another country in which same-sex surrogacy was not permitted. Treatment took place at a clinic in Northern Cyprus and the birth ultimately took place in a third country where same-sex surrogacy was also not legal. The parents were encouraged by their agency to mislead the authorities, and the surrogate was not told until after the birth that the parents were in a same-sex relationship. Mrs Justice Theis in her judgment criticised the parents for their ‘lack of due diligence’ and ‘abdication of the most basic responsibility’ to ensure that the arrangement they were entering into was lawful and their surrogate and child’s welfare was protected, describing them as ‘extremely naïve’. She also importantly set out a list of 16 key questions which every intended parent should ask before engaging in an international surrogacy arrangement, including what countries the different parts of the process will take place in, whether the surrogacy arrangement is permitted in the country of birth, whether they will be recognised as the parents, whether their surrogate is fully informed and consenting, the role of the agency, the plan for resolving nationality and immigration and retaining information for their future child. She shone a light on the legal and moral implications of multi-jurisdictional surrogacy arrangements and noted that the couple had ‘turned a blind eye’ to the risks of their actions.

Similarly, in Re Z (Unlawful Foreign Surrogacy) [2025], Sir Andrew McFarlane (the President of the High Court Family Division) heard a case involving a same-sex female couple who had conceived two children through separate surrogacy arrangements involving anonymous surrogates from Ukraine, having engaged an (unnamed) agency in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (where both surrogacy and same-sex parenting is not permitted). The children were born in Northern Cyprus into dubious legal circumstances, without clear documentation (the parents were encouraged to deceive the authorities) and stateless (with no right to nationality anywhere in the world). The Home Office refused the children entry to the UK, and it took four years to obtain visas to enable the parents to bring their children home with them to the UK. The President expressed his concern that all four women involved had been ‘exploited for commercial gain by those running this unlawful operation’, although also criticised the parents as being ‘entirely self-centred’ and having put their children in a ‘precarious’ position. He warned that any would-be parents considering similar surrogacy arrangements were being put ‘on notice’ that the court may refuse orders.  He said: “Put bluntly, anyone seeking to achieve the introduction of a child into their family by following in the footsteps of these applicants should think again”.

Finally, X v W [2025] involved a single father who had engaged a clinic in Northern Cyprus (Dogus IVF Centre) and an agency registered in Israel (Fullsuccess Medical Consulting Limited) which the father had connected with at an exhibition event. The agency recruited a surrogate from Kyrgyzstan who travelled to Northern Cyprus for treatment and ultimately gave birth in Moldova (the father having originally been told the birth would take place in the Czech Republic but this having proved impossible as the surrogate was not eligible for a visa). Two weeks before the birth the father was told that surrogacy was not permissible in Moldova and that he should pretend to be the surrogate’s partner and not disclose the surrogacy to the authorities. Considering the public policy issues, Mrs Justice Theis described the father as ‘extremely naïve’ and criticised him for not having been clear about where his child would be born and what the legal framework was. She also criticised the clinic and agency from having ‘acted in a way that was far from transparent’. She said: “What took place in this surrogacy arrangement, with the seemingly reckless disregard of the cross jurisdiction implications of the arrangement, overseen by two essentially commercial organisations, causes the court enormous concern.”

These cases are not the norm for international surrogacy, and we would caution any intended parents considering similar arrangements to take great care. Any surrogacy arrangement which involves an agency in one country recruiting surrogates from another and then moving them across jurisdictions for treatment, pregnancy and birth involves a high risk of complexity, illegality and potential exploitation. Intended parents should take time to research, plan and seek advice from legal professionals both in the UK and the country where the surrogacy will take place who can offer objectivity and help them consider the risks and ethics of what is being proposed. As Mrs Justice Theis made clear (Re Z [2024]) “the need to take expert legal advice before entering into the arrangements cannot be emphasised strongly enough”.

But the onus cannot just fall on prospective parents and those advising them. Governments also need to enable ethical, legal and safe surrogacy pathways so that intended parents are not driven into these kinds of unregulated spaces. The landscape for surrogacy can feel bleak for intended parents unable to afford safe legal surrogacy in the USA, and these stories of recklessness and naviety, unethical agency practices and legal shortcuts are all born of desperation and lack of access to better options. In the UK, the government must urgently create a better framework for ethical surrogacy to make it more accessible at home.

It is also important to emphasise, to both intended parents and policymakers that these sorts of multi-jurisdictional illegal surrogacy arrangements are neither common nor well-established practice. In our long experience of international surrogacy over more than 15 years, they are a new phenomenon, driven mainly by the sudden unmet demand for surrogacy in Europe caused by the Ukraine war. Such cases (predominantly originating out of Cyprus) represent a tiny fraction of the global surrogacy landscape and they are not the norm for international surrogacy. Although these cases have been reported by High Court judges to highlight the dangers, hundreds of other international surrogacy cases are now being heard by the High Court every year, the overwhelming majority going unreported because High Court judges are satisfied that they are well planned and unproblematic, with legal processes properly followed in the country of birth, surrogates informed and consenting and the welfare of children protected. Surrogacy is not, as its opponents would say, inherently exploitative, but we must all be vigilant to ensure that it is managed both ethically and legally to help create much-wanted families in a positive way.