A handmaid’s tale? Support for surrogacy reform: experimental evidence from Britain

Abstract

Aspiring parents who are unable to have biological children increasingly rely on gestational surrogacy. This practice, while long-standing, remains controversial. Despite domestic prohibitions, several states are considering liberalising access to the process. Surrogacy regulations are complex. Debates on potential reforms are often multidimensional and raise issues about, among other features, access to bodily agency, economic compensation and exploitation, and transnational trafficking. This article leverages a pre-registered conjoint experiment in Britain, where surrogacy reforms are actively being pursued, to identify which regulatory features can garner public support. The results indicate higher levels of public support for reforms that offer moderate financial compensation, facilitate access for non-heterosexual couples, permit overseas surrogacy arrangements, require legally binding guardianship transfers from birth and have cross-party backing. Subgroup analysis shows minimal gender-based differences but some large differences based on respondents’ sexuality, identity and partisanship.