Advocates believe surrogacy can aid Jamaica’s declining birthrate
…However, attorney is calling for clear laws to protect women and families
Published:Saturday | March 8, 2025 | 12:08 AMSashana Small/Staff Reporter
As surrogacy gains popularity among Jamaican women seeking a path to motherhood, attorney and surrogacy law consultant Yanique Frederick is stressing the urgent need for legal reform to protect both women and families.
Believing that it can aid Jamaica’s declining birthrate, she contends that the absence of comprehensive legislation governing surrogacy has created uncertainty for intended parents, surrogates, and the children born from these arrangements.
“In Jamaica, the person who gives birth to a child is deemed the mother,” Frederick explained to The Gleaner.
“This results in sometimes lengthy legal processes, such as custody and adoption, to be recognised as the mother of the child born via surrogacy. In comparison, it is not as complicated for fathers whose names are added to the birth certificate at birth.”
As a result, she said, women who have challenges giving birth are reluctant to go that route, because, unlike other countries, the lack of surrogacy laws in Jamaica does not give them automatic claim to the child as the legally recognised mother.
Surrogacy is an assisted reproductive method in which a woman, called the surrogate or gestational carrier, agrees to carry and give birth to a child for another individual or couple.
Dr Kamali Carroll, founder of Jamaica Fertility – a clinic that provides fertility services – and who is also an embryologist at the Hugh Wynter Fertility Management Unit at The University of the West Indies, revealed that gestational surrogacy is practised in Jamaica.
In gestational surrogacy, the woman carrying the foetus is not genetically related to it. In this form of surrogacy, an egg from the biological mother is fertilised with sperm from the father or donor through in vitro fertilisation. The resulting embryo is then implanted in the uterus of the gestational surrogate.
Jamaica records an average of five births from gestational surrogacy each year, Carroll stated. And as awareness around the process grows, so does the interest.
Surrogacy is mainly used by women who have issues carrying a baby to full term, she noted. Mothers who experience complications in previous pregnancies have also chosen to use a surrogate to carry their additional child.
MALES PURSUING SINGLE FATHERHOOD
Dr Carroll said there is also an increase in males who are pursuing fatherhood on their own, and choosing to use the services of a surrogate.
“We don’t talk about it much, but these things are done. It seems taboo when you talk about it, but these are things that are commonly done,” she told The Gleaner.
While altruism is encouraged among surrogates, they are also paid up to US$13,000 for their service. Ideally, these are women who had already given birth, and who, after going through a thorough medical and psychological screening, are deemed fit.
Surrogates are often recruited by the clinics through information sessions, or people who become aware and reach out to the clinics offering their services.
These women are then matched with a commissioning parent, and sign a contract, called a gestational surrogacy agreement. This contract outlines obligations of biological parents and surrogates and details what will occur when the baby is born.
But Frederick believes a contract is insufficient for this kind of affair.
“Coming from that, they would have to complete the custody and adoption process, and have the mother recognised as one of the legal parents,” the lawyer said.
She bemoaned the additional cost, time, and emotional toll that an adaptive process can have on the child’s biological parents.
“The joy of having a child is a once-in-a-lifetime feeling. For every child that a person has, it is different. And when a person gets a baby or they’ve used their eggs, sometimes it’s the last set of eggs that they have left, and then to go through that other gruelling process. It’s hard on them in so many ways,” she said.
POSITIVE IMPACT ON FERTILITY RATE
Emphasising that surrogacy is not only for the rich but for “a lot of people who are ordinary, medium-sized income persons struggling with fibroids, PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome), endometritis…” or complication, Frederick said Jamaica has a duty to address the legal and ethical considerations surrounding surrogacy, through the implementation of legal frameworks for a pre-birth order system or parental orders.
A pre-birth order is a legal document that establishes the intended parents as the legal parents of a child conceived through gestational surrogacy before the child is born, ensuring the surrogate has no legal parental rights.
Countries that have these legal frameworks include Canada, Greece, Georgia, Mexico, Colombia, Ukraine, and some states in the United States.
Frederick noted that having surrogacy laws aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which emphasise gender equality, access to healthcare, and the protection of human rights.
Further, Frederick argues that surrogacy can also have a positive impact on Jamaica’s fertility rate.
The island’s fertility rate was 1.9 in 2023, below the internationally accepted rate of 2.1 for population replacement.
Estimates for 2024 indicate that Jamaica’s birth rate stands at 14.895 births per 1,000, which shows a 1.64 per cent decline from 2023.
“The current legal framework – or lack thereof – has deterred many from pursuing this option (surrogacy), forcing some to seek surrogacy arrangements abroad, often at great financial and emotional cost,” the attorney said.
“I urge policymakers, legal professionals, and advocacy groups to come together to push for legislative change that provides clarity, protection, and opportunity for families and women across Jamaica.”