A boy with his younger brother. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

ON FEB 8, Mao Qun'an, director general of the department of communications of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, said after a few days of heated national debate, that surrogacy will not be made legal due to moral and social concerns. Beijing News commented on Thursday:

Surrogacy is still controversial, but the discussion should go on. Calls to make surrogacy legal have increased since the family planning policy was changed to allow all couples to have a second child. If the discussion was stopped only because of the sensitiveness of the issue, then problems such as the underground market to meet the demand are likely to become worse.

Even though the discussion hasn't made surrogacy any less controversial, it is important that the issue does not become taboo.

Open and public discussion is the premise for any administrative enforcement of a law aiming to ban or allow surrogacy.

The discussion on surrogacy is not a problem, even though surrogacy is illegal, as such discussions are necessary for society to reach a consensus on an issue.

In the future, if a consensus is reached in favor of surrogacy, then the law can be revised.