Standards applied to every guide and destination page
How we research
Most search results about surrogacy are written by the parties selling it. A source that is also a sales channel is not neutral, so the difference here has to be the bar a claim clears before it appears. That bar is written down so you can hold us to it.
Three evidence levels
Every page declares which level it sits at, in a note under the title. The note says what kind of claim you are reading, not how confident we feel.
- Verified
- Every factual claim in the body traces to a source listed under it. If a sentence cannot be traced, it is not published at that level.
- Framework
- The page teaches a method: what to ask, what to check, how to read a document. It asserts nothing about the outside world, so it needs no citation and cannot be out of date.
- Draft
- Written but not published. You will not encounter a draft on this site: a page appears only once it can stand at one of the two levels above.
What a source record contains
A citation is only useful if you can re-check it. Each source under a page carries six pieces of information.
| The citation line | What you see in the citation. |
|---|---|
| Link | An address that opens. A source behind a login is marked as such. |
| Publisher | The organisation accountable for the statement, not the website that reposted it. |
| Published on | When the publisher says the document was written or last revised. |
| Checked on | The date a person opened the link and read it. This is what ages. |
| What it supports | The specific claim the document backs, so you can check whether it actually does. |
How the check is done, stated plainly: each cited address is opened and read against the sentence it is attached to, using automated research tooling under editorial review, and the date of that check is recorded. Where a page could not be opened, or opened only behind a login, that is noted rather than worked around. No citation is added to make a page look researched.
The last of these carries the most weight on its own, because a citation ages separately from the page using it. A document can still open and still say something while no longer supporting the sentence it was attached to. Checking that pairing is what a review does; re-reading the page alone is not enough.
The rules that change what gets published
No number without a dated source
Cost figures, success rates, waiting times and cycle counts appear only with the organisation that published them, the date, and the method if one is disclosed. Where the only available figure comes from a provider selling the service, the page labels it self-reported and says whether any method is disclosed. If no figure survives that test, the page explains how to find out instead of inventing a range.
Jurisdiction is part of the claim
A rule that holds in one state, province or country is never written as though it holds elsewhere. Destination pages scope each statement to the legal system it comes from, and intended parent eligibility is described only as far as the sourced material goes. Nothing on this site is a legal opinion about your situation.
We do not extrapolate from a legal system to you
Reading that a jurisdiction permits something does not establish that you may use that route, or that your home country will recognise the outcome. Cross-border parentage and documentation are questions for a qualified lawyer in the relevant system, and pages that touch them say so in the body rather than in a footnote.
No rankings, no lists of the best
Providers are not ranked, scored or shortlisted, because a defensible ranking would need audited data on programs, payments and outcomes that does not exist publicly. Where an official body names organisations, we report that naming and what it does and does not mean.
What the signature claims, and what it does not
These pages are signed with the name of the team that writes and maintains them, and each page states that the medical advisory board carries the clinical review. Where an individual reviewer is named, the About page lists that person with their role and a public credential, and the credit is used only after they have completed a review cycle and agreed to it. The review checks what a source says and where it applies; it is not an endorsement of a reader’s own plan.
Not publishing is also a decision
Some subjects have no reliable public source. Rather than paraphrase marketing copy or a forum post, those pages are not published.
Updates, dates and corrections
A page shows the date it was first published and the date of its last substantive change. Refreshing the modification date without changing the content is not an update and does not happen here. Each page also carries a date by which its sources must be re-checked.
If you find a claim that its own source no longer supports, tell us. The fix is either to correct the claim or to remove it while the check is pending.
Independence and money
- These pages are published by the editorial team and reviewed by the medical advisory board, both named on the About page.
- While the site operates independently it takes no paid placement, referral fee or sponsorship. If any commercial relationship is introduced, the affected pages disclose it before the arrangement starts.
- Providers are not paid to be included, and inclusion is not an endorsement.
- Corrections from a named party are handled the same way as corrections from anyone else.
Imagery
Where a page carries a picture, it is a stock photograph chosen for that page’s subject: documents, a courthouse, a bank vault, an airport hall. No picture claims to document anyone’s own surrogacy, no surrogate, intended parent or child appears in one, and no photograph of an identifiable person is used at all. The photographs come from a library whose licence allows commercial use without crediting the photographer, and the source of each is kept on record. On this subject a staged family photograph would either depict something that did not happen or borrow a real family’s circumstances to sell something to a stranger, so the pictures here stay with the documents and the places a decision actually involves.
Policy last revised Oct 26, 2026.