Last week’s episode of BBC’s Holby City included a storyline involving a surrogate mother who gave birth to a baby prematurely at 27 weeks. We were delighted to advise the programme’s producers on the legal accuracy of the story and to help settle the script, and are...
From The Independent, Thursday 20 May 2010 At 37, Lulu le Vay found herself single, infertile and craving a child. She decided to try surrogacy – but discovered that only stable couples need apply One evening last September I was sitting in my consultant’s office...
By Denis Campbell, health correspondent. Published in the Guardian, Monday 5 April 2010 Childless couples who acquire a baby using a surrogate mother abroad risk not being recognised as its parents in Britain if they flout British law by paying fees, fertility lawyers...
The last piece of the government’s flagship Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 came into force today, completing the first major overhaul of the UK’s fertility laws in twenty years. The HFE Bill is a major piece of government legislation which has updated the...
By Robin McKie, science editor, The Observer, Sunday 28 March 2010 Changes to legislation will recognise growing trend for same-sex couples to become parents, say campaigners. Gay male couples will be able to use a fast-track route to become the legal parents of...
Back in October, our clients Melanie and Robert Gladwin succeeded in winning a last minute change to the law on embryo storage, allowing them (and other prospective parents like them) to keep their precious frozen embryos. Their campaign included a petition presented...
Parents through surrogacy must apply to court for a ‘parental order’ after their child is born, making them the legal parents and extinguishing the status of their surrogate mother. Under the current law only married couples can apply, but Parliament decided last year...
The London Evening Standard has covered the lack of rights to maternity leave for mothers who have a child through surrogacy, and Natalie Gamble is quoted (read the Evening Standard article ‘Women who use surrogates in fight to claim maternity leave’). This is just...
Natalie has written a comment piece in this week's Bionews about the Department of Health's consulation on updates to the parental order regulations. Explaining what is in the proposed new regulations, the article looks at the parental order system as a whole and...
Since 1991 UK fertility clinics have had a legal duty to consider the 'need for a father' of any child who may be born as a result of treatment. In an in-depth article for Reproductive Biomedicine Online, Natalie examines the origins of that legal requirement, how it...