Chile could become one of the few countries in Latin America to expressly prohibit surrogacy. The Family Commission of the Chamber of Deputies unanimously approved a bill that seeks to eradicate this practice, considering it contrary to human dignity and a form of commodification of the woman’s body and the unborn child.
Rare cross-party support
The initiative was approved in general with nine votes in favor, from deputies of the left, center, and right, a consensus uncommon in the current Chilean political landscape. The bill starts from a clear diagnosis: surrogacy is not a neutral assisted reproduction technique, but a practice that turns motherhood into a contractual object and the child into the result of a commercial agreement.
This cross-party support has been interpreted as an explicit recognition that surrogacy raises fundamental ethical and legal problems that transcend ideological differences.
Motherhood is not for rent: nullity of contracts
One of the central points of the bill is the declaration of nullity by operation of law of surrogacy contracts. The proposal also establishes that maternal filiation is determined exclusively by birth, closing the door to any legal recognition of private agreements that seek to transfer motherhood.
With this provision, the legislation seeks to reaffirm a basic principle: motherhood cannot be the object of assignment, purchase, or rental, and the bond between mother and child cannot be subordinated to contracts.
Crimes and criminal penalties
The initiative typifies as a crime the intermediation, promotion, organization, and commercialization of surrogacy. The contemplated penalties include fines and deprivation of liberty, especially in cases where the exploitation of women’s vulnerability or the participation of health professionals is verified.
Likewise, the bill incorporates preventive measures in the health and adoption spheres. Among them, the transfer of eggs for reproductive purposes linked to surrogacy is prohibited, and adoption by persons or couples who have participated in such agreements is prevented, thus avoiding adoption becoming an indirect way to legitimize the practice.
Next processing in Parliament
After its approval in committee, the bill must be debated and voted on by the Chamber of Deputies in the coming months. If it passes this stage, it will go to the Senate, where it will continue its legislative processing.
The parliamentary debate will have its counterpart in the argument that surrogacy has been presented in some circles as an expression of “reproductive rights,” against a growing critical current that denounces its ethical and social implications.
A debate with international echo
The Chilean debate is also inserted into a broader international context. Pope Leo XIV explicitly addressed the issue on January 9, 2026, when addressing the Diplomatic Corps, denouncing that surrogacy turns gestation into a negotiable service and violates the dignity of both the child—reduced to a product—and the mother, whose body and maternal vocation are instrumentalized.
The situation in Latin America
In most Latin American countries, surrogacy is not legally regulated. Only the Mexican states of Tabasco and Sinaloa contemplate it in their civil codes, while Brazil and Uruguay allow it in a very restricted manner. In the opposite sense, the Mexican states of San Luis Potosí and Querétaro are the only ones that prohibit it explicitly.
If the initiative prospers, Chile would join this small group, adopting a clear position against a practice increasingly questioned for its impact on human dignity and the very conception of the family.