Back in July 2025, the CBC submitted a response to the initial national consultation on surrogacy reform through the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) inquiry. In that submission, we warned that weakening safeguards would expose women and children to ethical, social, and human-rights harms.

This week, Western Australia passed its new surrogacy bill — and many of the very risks we flagged now stand on the legislative doorstep.

What’s Changed — and Why It Matters

The new legislation makes several dramatic shifts:

  • Surrogate mothers may now be as young as 18, rather than the previously proposed minimum age of 25.
  • Surrogates no longer need to have given birth before, eliminating a basic safeguard that ensured they understood the physical and emotional realities of pregnancy and relinquishment.
  • Proposed protections were rejected, including:
    • reinstating the 25-year-old minimum age,
    • requiring prior childbirth,
    • requiring criminal-history checks for intended parents.

As a result, an 18-year-old — potentially still in high school and with no experience of pregnancy — can now carry a baby to term and be legally required to surrender that child at birth. Her first experience of motherhood may be one of loss, with lifelong psychological implications.

WA’s new law seems to place ease of access over the welfare of young women and children.

The Risk of Exploitation — Especially for Young, Vulnerable Women

One of the core ethical dangers: turning surrogacy into a more “available” service for anyone 18 and over risks opening the door to exploitation, especially socio-economically vulnerable young women who may not fully grasp the physical, emotional and long-term implications of surrogacy.

What we feared in our July submission — that surrogacy could become even more about convenience or coercion — is now more likely. Without prior-pregnancy or maturity safeguards, the burden of carrying and surrendering a child may fall disproportionately on those least able to protect their own interests.

Furthermore, with the removal of pre-conception protections (like prior-birth requirements), the decision to act as a surrogate can become more transactional, potentially increasing pressure on women to consent before fully understanding the lifelong nature of surrogacy and relinquishment.

Moreover, without requirements like background checks or stricter safeguards for intending parents (a concern raised by some critics), there is the risk that surrogacy becomes a route for people with problematic histories to “obtain” children. 

Compounding this is the lack of comprehensive community consultation. The bill moved forward without a broad public draft or extensive stakeholder input, meaning many of these risks were never fully debated in public or scrutinised. 

Weakening Oversight — From Thoughtful Reform to Risky Shortcut

The ALRC’s own Issues Paper emphasized the importance of harmonized national regulation and rigorous oversight before surrogacy arrangements begin. WA’s new law heads in the opposite direction.

The bill abolishes the Reproductive Technology Council — the previous oversight body — and replaces it with an advisory board that may meet only once a year. In practice, this shifts oversight from a preventative model to a reactive one.

Instead of thorough pre-conception screening, the new system leans heavily on counselling after conception and Court orders after birth. This approach all but guarantees that problems will be addressed only once harm has already occurred.

Oversight structures exist to prevent exploitation, not to manage its consequences.

We Remain Steadfast 

With the passage of the Surrogacy Act 2025, WA has undeniably expanded access to surrogacy and reproductive services, but at what cost? 

Removing safeguards around age and prior childbirth, weakening oversight, and lowering barriers exponentially raises the risk of exploitation, emotional harm, and commodification — especially for young women who may not fully appreciate the lifelong weight of surrogacy.

We should not underestimate the possible ripple effects: psychological trauma for birth-mothers who regret surrendering their child; identity and heritage issues for children born through surrogacy in loosely regulated systems; inequality and coercion risks for socio-economically vulnerable women; and the social and ethical consequences of transforming reproduction into a marketplace.

This bill removes critical protections. It opens doors without adequate guardrails. And it treats human life and motherhood as a transaction.

We are deeply disappointed by the outcome of this legislation, but we are not deterred. We will continue to call for reforms that truly protect women and children. We will not remain silent as the consequences of this bill begin to unfold.

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