Should surrogacy be legal?

Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: Should surrogacy be legal?
Position‹2 of 3›: No. Surrogacy should be illegal.
Argument‹5 of 5: Prospective parents should adopt instead

It is immoral to utilise surrogacy when there are so many children in the world without families.

The argument

There are many orphans or children who are living in orphanages because their parents couldn't afford to keep them. People have a moral duty to care for the already existing children in need of a loving caring family rather than making new babies in an already overcrowded world.

Premises

[P1]Many orphans and children already live in orphanages because their parents could not afford to keep them. [P2] People have a moral duty to care for these existing children in need of a loving family. [P3] Making new babies through surrogacy adds to an already overcrowded world instead. [C] Therefore, because prospective parents should adopt instead, surrogacy should be illegal.

Counter-arguments

If there is a moral responsibility to adopt existing children before using surrogacy, it would therefore also be immoral to have children naturally while there are already children in the world living without homes. Additionally, there are many barriers to adoption that make it difficult and it can be psychologically hard on both the birth and adoptive parents, as well as the child itself. To adopt is a huge undertaking.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] There is no reason having children through surrogacy while there are children without homes is any worse than having children naturally.