By Isaac Christopher Lubogo
In an era where science trespasses into the sacred architecture of creation, we are now confronted with a haunting question: What happens when a child is born with no biological or gestational link to those who consented to their birth? This is no longer the domain of science fiction. It is the lived reality of a couple that travelled to India for assisted reproduction, only to return with children who bear neither their blood nor their race. DNA confirmed the tragic absurdity—neither the mother nor father is genetically related to the children they sought.
What are these children then? Ghosts of scientific error? Legal orphans in a system unprepared to name them? Or innocent victims abandoned by both biology and law?
This is the modern crisis of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART)—a crisis not of capacity, but of meaning. The law, traditionally tethered to bloodlines, legitimacy, and intent, now finds itself gasping in unfamiliar terrain. Family law was constructed around the presumption that biology and intent would usually align. ART brutally severs that presumption.
In this particular case, we see the collapse of three fundamental legal pillars:
1. Biological Parentage – DNA has always been a powerful arbiter of truth. But when the truth reveals no link whatsoever to the commissioning parents, the legal identity of the child is thrown into a dark void. The law, lacking statutory imagination, offers no clarity.
2. Gestational Link – Traditionally, even when egg or sperm donors are involved, the mother who carries the child is presumed legally and morally bound. Here, even gestation has been outsourced or botched, leaving the intended mother unable to claim maternity. Whose child is it, then?
3. Contractual Intent – Consent to ART procedures was given—but to what exactly? To parent the children of strangers unknowingly? Did the couple consent to mere birth or to parentage? Consent loses its moral and legal grounding when it is built on deception or misrepresentation.
This legal and ethical ambiguity exposes the unpreparedness of our legal systems to address technological anomalies. Where is the remedy? Who bears responsibility? Is it the fertility clinic? The surrogate agency? The regulatory authority? Or is it the State, for failing to legislate timely and clearly on the matter?
Even more troubling is the fate of the children themselves. Born of error. Unclaimed by those who willed their existence. Not connected to any biological lineage. In a world obsessed with heritage, race, and blood, these children become invisible citizens—loved by none, claimed by no one, and protected by no law.
We are now witnessing the rise of a new legal category: “the biologically unplaceable child.” These are children that exist because of science, but float untethered in the moral and legal imagination of society.
The deeper philosophical question then arises: Is parentage a matter of biology, intention, or responsibility? And if none of the three is clearly present, what are we left with? A vacuum—cold, bureaucratic, and deadly.
In capitalist biomedical markets like India’s fertility industry, where embryos are often treated as commodities, such incidents expose the dangers of unregulated reproductive tourism. Technology here becomes a weapon of disenchantment—unleashing children into a world where neither womb nor name can protect them.
This is not just a legal crisis—it is a civilizational one.
We must ask: Do children have a right to belonging? Does every child deserve not just a home but an identity? Or shall we continue to play genetic roulette with their lives and leave the fallout to social workers and courtrooms?
As long as ART remains governed by a patchwork of ethical assumptions and contractual ambiguity, such tragic cases will multiply. What we urgently need is a jurisprudence of belonging—one that sees beyond DNA and gestation, and that anchors parenthood in truthful intent, ethical oversight, and state-backed protection for the voiceless victims of scientific mishap.
In the end, we must return to the timeless truth captured in African philosophy: “A child is never born into nothingness; it is born into a community.” The law must now rise to ensure that community is never lost, even when biology fails.
So the question is what happens when Science Outpaces Sovereignty?
In the haunting case of a Ugandan couple returning from India with children genetically unrelated to either parent, we are not merely witnessing a medical mishap—we are confronting the full weight of a continental crisis. This incident is no anomaly; it is a mirror reflecting the legal, ethical, and infrastructural unpreparedness of Uganda and Africa at large in the face of rapidly advancing Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART).
Africa, in her yearning for solutions beyond her borders, has opened herself to technological dependence without jurisprudential defense. The implications of this are devastating—not just for the families involved, but for the continent’s autonomy, dignity, and legal sovereignty.
I. The Legal Vacuum in Uganda and the African Region
Uganda, like most African countries, has no comprehensive legal framework to regulate ART. The existing laws—primarily the Children Act, the Constitution, and ad hoc judicial pronouncements—were designed around natural conception and do not anticipate the displacement of gestational and genetic parenthood.
Key Legal Gaps:
No ART legislation: There is no statute governing sperm/egg donation, surrogacy, embryo transfer, or cross-border reproductive care.
No framework for parentage in ART cases: Courts rely on outdated biological assumptions, with no statutory guidance on gestational carriers, donors, or post-birth disputes.
No regulatory body: Uganda lacks a statutory regulatory authority equivalent to the UK’s HFEA (Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority) or India’s ART Regulatory Bill, leaving clinics and agencies unchecked.
Implication: Without legal clarity, parents are left exposed, children unprotected, and foreign clinics unaccountable.
II. The Globalization of the Womb: African Dependence on Foreign Fertility Markets
India, Ukraine, and the United States have become fertility hubs for African elites. In 2021 alone, over 200 Ugandans sought ART services abroad, a number that has since risen steadily (Ministry of Health, Uganda, 2023 report).
Why?
Lack of local ART infrastructure
Religious conservatism that stigmatizes local access
Perception of higher success rates abroad
Absence of donor banks or legal surrogacy in Uganda
But foreign ART comes at a price—not just financially (ranging from $15,000 to $70,000 per cycle), but legally and ethically. Foreign clinics are not bound by Ugandan law, and consent, error, or fraud are governed by jurisdictions thousands of kilometers away.
In the case cited above, the couple returned with children of a different race—who not only biologically belong to unknown parents but also legally belong nowhere. The Ugandan legal system is not designed to process this kind of anomaly.
III. Reproductive Colonialism: A Neo-Imperial Exploitation?
The outsourcing of fertility by Africans to foreign countries echoes the new face of biomedical colonialism. Instead of missionaries and gunboats, we now have embryos and contracts.
Consider:
Clinics in India often lack transparency in donor identity, fertilization process, and embryo handling.
Errors—like swapping embryos or implanting the wrong set—are rarely prosecutable in African courts.
Africans are treated as “foreign clients,” not protected citizens.
What then is the status of a child born through error in India but abandoned by legal and biological parentage in Uganda? Such a child risks becoming a stateless legal anomaly—a “nowhere child” whose very existence tests the limits of African jurisprudence.
IV. Cultural and Philosophical Disorientation
African societies have traditionally valued lineage, clan identity, and ancestral belonging. ART disrupts this entirely:
Totem systems are eroded.
Clans cannot trace bloodlines.
Children conceived without knowledge of their ancestry may unknowingly breach taboos on marriage and burial.
As philosopher Kwame Gyekye argued, African identity is relational—not individualistic. If ART creates children whose origins are hidden or unknown, we are severing a child from their ontological identity. No amount of love or intention can restore that link unless the legal system provides transparent, traceable frameworks.
V. Proposed Pathways for Uganda and Africa
1. Enact a National ART and Surrogacy Law
Uganda must pass comprehensive legislation clearly defining:
Who can be a parent under ART
Rights of donors and surrogates
Cross-border ART protections and responsibilities
Regulatory oversight body
2. Establish a Fertility Regulatory Authority (FRA)
Modeled after the UK’s HFEA or South Africa’s National Health Research Ethics Council (NHREC), this body would license, audit, and enforce ethical standards.
3. Develop Regional ART Protocols
Through the African Union and EAC, harmonized protocols should be created to govern ART procedures, protect citizens abroad, and ensure legal recognition of ART-born children across borders.
4. Launch Local Donor Banks and ART Centers
Reduce dependence on foreign markets by encouraging medically and legally sound ART centers on the continent.
5. Educate Traditional Leaders and Faith Institutions
Integrate ART education into cultural and religious institutions to overcome stigmatization and inform communities of the legal and ethical frameworks.
VI. Conclusion: Between Womb and Law, Who Will Speak for the Child?
The Ugandan couple’s tragedy is not just personal—it is prophetic. It warns of a future where children become collateral damage in a transaction between science and hope, and where law remains a mute observer to a crisis it does not yet understand.
Africa must not only participate in the global technological revolution—it must shape it with law, culture, and ethics. Otherwise, we risk birthing generations who are biologically abandoned, legally invisible, and spiritually disconnected from the continent they call home.
If we do not legislate boldly now, we shall continue exporting our most sacred act—creation itself—to nations whose legal imagination ends at the clinic door. And that, to echo Nyerere, is not sovereignty—it is surrender.
Isaac Christopher Lubogo
Legal Scholar and Philosopher of Justice
4 August 2025
References (Harvard style):
Ministry of Health Uganda (2023). Annual Health Sector Performance Report 2022/2023. Kampala: MoH.
Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), UK. (2022). Code of Practice. London: HFEA.
Gyekye, K. (1997). Tradition and Modernity: Philosophical Reflections on the African Experience. Oxford University Press.
Charo, R. A. (2018). “Reproductive Tourism: Legal and Ethical Implications.” New England Journal of Medicine, 379(8), pp. 703–705.
Ghosh, S. (2021). Surrogacy in India: Legal and Ethical Dimensions. Delhi: Oxford India Press.
Isaac Christopher Lubogo
3rd August 2025
Advocate, Legal Philosopher, and Jurist of the Unborn