It’s good to see some positive coverage of surrogacy in the Times after recent negativity. A few weeks ago, Rohan Silva wrote a beautiful piece about his and his wife’s experience of surrogacy in California, and he has now followed up with a comment piece, arguing that UK law on parentage and recognition of surrogacy agreement needs to change. We of course wholeheartedly agree. Our director Natalie is quoted in the piece as follows:
“Our country’s leading surrogacy lawyer Natalie Gamble aptly describes this as “the final indignity”. As she puts it: “After struggling so hard to have a much-loved child, the parents are then legal strangers to their baby at birth”. The negative consequences don’t stop there. Under our outmoded regulations the views of surrogates are disregarded: they’re not allowed to decide that the intended parents should be the lawful guardians; only the courts can make that call. This also creates complications for the surrogate’s spouse, who is forced to assume legal parenthood and financial responsibility for a child that isn’t theirs. Sadly, youngsters suffer as well. In Gamble’s words, babies born via a gestational carrier are “born into a legal black hole because UK law treats them as the children of the wrong person.”
Like Rohan, we are calling for UK law reform which recognises ethical surrogacy arrangements, treats the right people as the child’s legal parents from the outset, and makes UK surrogacy more accessible so fewer parents need to look overseas. Find out more about the campaign for surrogacy law reform.
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