Citizenship after surrogacy

Citizenship after surrogacy examines how ‘heteronormative imaginaries of kinship’ shape the recognition of legal status at birth. Taking international surrogacy as a lens, the book conceptualises the weaponisation of citizenship in the policing of what counts as ‘legitimate’ family life. -- .

Differences in how states regulate surrogacy underpin an international market through which ‘intended parents’ commission a surrogate in another country to have a baby for them. The babies born through these arrangements often enter a legal grey area where their right to citizenship is contested. In this book, Katie Tonkiss examines the acquisition of citizenship after surrogacy, and in so doing addresses fundamental questions about the relationship between kinship, bordering, and what it terms the ‘institutionalised disorder’ of citizenship in an age of assisted reproduction. By engaging with case studies, legal analyses and original research with affected families in Europe and North America, the book subjects to critical scrutiny the heteronormative ideals which continue to shape the recognition of legal identity at birth. In so doing, the book conceptualises the weaponisation of citizenship in the policing of what counts as ‘legitimate’ family life. -- .