Two laboratories closed in China over suspected surrogacy
In China, two laboratories were closed in Changsha, Hunan province, and Wuhan, Hubei province, which, according to authorities and an activist, may be linked to the illegal use of assisted reproductive technologies and surrogacy. In Changsha, six people were detained after a report about a potentially illegal laboratory, while eight were detained in Wuhan.
As the South China Morning Post reports, Wuhan police are investigating the case and said they would strictly punish illegal activities. According to the state-run Xinhua news agency, reports in Changsha concerned a laboratory that illegally used assisted reproductive technologies.
Activist’s claims
According to social media posts, reports about both laboratories were provided by an anti-human trafficking activist using the pseudonym Shangguan Zhengyi. He said that he worked undercover for eight months and found that the laboratory in Changsha was operated by a surrogacy agency.
The activist also claimed that the laboratory in Wuhan was equipped with an operating room and an embryo incubator. According to him, the doctor who performed operations at the facility was from the Hubei Provincial Maternal and Child Health Hospital. These claims by the activist have not been confirmed by the results of an official investigation.
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Legal regulation and demand
Chinese authorities state that surrogacy in any form is prohibited. Assisted reproductive technologies may be used only by authorized medical institutions, for married couples with infertility and solely for medical purposes. Medical institutions that use such technologies for surrogacy may be fined or held criminally liable.
Lawyer Xia Ying of the Beijing law firm BZW noted that the current rules primarily regulate the activities of medical institutions, and there is no separate criminal offense for surrogacy. Therefore, participants in such schemes may be charged with other offenses, including illegal medical practice, human trafficking, fraud, or violations of personal data handling rules.
In May 2025, media reported the exposure of two illegal agencies in Changsha. Local authorities then fined them more than 130 million yuan and suspended the certificates of the doctors and nurses involved. According to China’s National Health Commission, infertility-related conditions affected approximately 7–10% of the country’s population in 2021.
