Wombs Across Borders: Reproductive Tourism and the Dilemma of Stateless Children

Jaya, Akshita Diskhit

Abstract: A result of the development of assisted reproductive technology and the varied legal landscape for surrogacy across the world, is cross-border surrogacy- often called reproductive tourism. Intended parents are increasingly travelling to jurisdictions with more tolerant or affordable surrogacy laws and regulations, leaving behind children born by surrogacy with competing national laws regarding parenthood, nationality, surrogacy. The most serious consequence of this legal discrepancy is statelessness: when a child has no legal citizenship. With a doctrinal and socio-legal approach, this paper explores the development of the law on surrogacy in India as well as in other jurisdictions, the landmark cases of Baby Manji Yamada v. Union of India and Jan Balaz v. Anand Municipality, and the international legal framework on nationality and statelessness, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Verona Principles. It claims that the right to a nationality of a child, under the international human rights law, is violated by the lack of harmonised rules and principles on parentage and citizenship in cross-border surrogacy and suggests the international legal harmonisation of rules on parentage and citizenship, the implementation of emergency documentation procedures and child-centred measures to prevent no child from being rendered stateless by factors outside their control.

Keywords: Surrogacy; Reproductive Tourism; Statelessness; Citizenship; Children's Rights

How to Cite?: Jaya, Akshita Diskhit, "Wombs Across Borders: Reproductive Tourism and the Dilemma of Stateless Children", Volume 15 Issue 9, September 2026, International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR), Pages: 1-5, https://www.ijsr.net/getabstract.php?paperid=SR26831165155, DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.21275/SR26831165155

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