Surrogacy in Kenya: Promise or Peril?

The Kenyan Senate is currently considering submissions on the Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill, a landmark piece of legislation that will, among other things, regulate the practice of surrogacy. At first glance, surrogacy appears to be a compassionate solution for couples who cannot conceive naturally. But beneath the surface lies a web of ethical, legal, and human rights dilemmas that demand sober reflection.

Take the story of Joyce and John. Married and expectant with their first child, their joy turned to tragedy when Joyce suffered a medical emergency late in pregnancy. To save her life, and despite the baby dying, doctors had to remove her uterus. Though her ovaries remained healthy and John’s sperm viable, the couple was left infertile. For them, surrogacy offered hope: another woman could carry their biological child, created in a lab from Joyce’s eggs and John’s sperm. In theory, this arrangement preserves genetic parenthood while offering a path to family. In practice, however, it raises troubling questions.

Surrogacy is not simply a medical procedure; it is a social contract fraught with risks. Egg harvesting requires powerful drugs that can endanger women’s health. Embryos are created in laboratories, selected, frozen, and sometimes discarded — decisions that reduce human life to a matter of quality control. Surrogates may form emotional bonds with the children they carry, while intended parents may reject babies born with disabilities. And in the shadows of this industry lurk exploitative practices: “surrogacy stables” where impoverished women are paid meager sums to bear children for wealthy clients, while middlemen pocket the profits.

The commercialization of surrogacy turns women’s bodies into rental spaces and children into commodities. Even more complex are cases involving same-sex couples, anonymous donors, or disputes over custody. What happens when a surrogate refuses to surrender the child? Or when siblings unknowingly meet and marry because donor identities were concealed? These are not hypothetical scenarios — they are real consequences of unregulated reproductive technology.

Globally, alarm bells are ringing. Reem Alsalem, the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, has called for the abolition of surrogacy altogether, warning that it strips women and children of dignity and equality while fueling exploitation. Kenya must decide whether it will embrace surrogacy as a regulated medical practice or recognize it as a slippery slope toward commodification and abuse.

The Senate’s deliberations are not just about science or law; they are about values. Do we want a society where parenthood is engineered in laboratories and wombs are leased like property? Or do we want to protect the most vulnerable — women and preborn children — from being reduced to transactions? Kenya must tread carefully.