Natalie Morris | Metro.co.uk | May 13, 2022
Waiting times for nationally-provided fertility treatment in the UK grew from 6 to 15 months after the pandemic. Consequently, the demand for private alternatives grew, which created a competitive marketplace with some clinics turning to deceptive marketing techniques.
Matthew Weaver | The Guardian | May 10, 2022
A couple intending to enter into a surrogacy arrangement in Belarus is facing imprisonment because their travel visa is going to expire, but they cannot leave the country because the wife’s passport is stuck in an administrative backlog in the UK.
Jo Deahl | BBC News | September 22, 2021
Current law in the United Kingdom states that the surrogate is the legal mother when the child is born, and that legal parentage must be transferred through a parental order. Because the law also outlaws surrogacy advertisements, intended parents have turned to social media to find surrogacy matches, especially since non-profit organizations have long waiting lists. Both government officials and those who have started families through surrogacy agree that UK surrogacy law needs to be updated.
Gov.UK | July 23, 2021
This guidance document outlines the surrogacy process in England and Wales and includes resources for choosing a surrogacy organization, writing a surrogacy agreement, and transferring parental rights. The document also discusses legal guidance, medical testing and genetic screening, and psychological counseling for intended parents and surrogates.
Zaina Mahmoud | BioNews | June 28, 2021
Current law in the UK automatically assigns legal motherhood to the surrogate based on gestation. To transfer legal parenthood to the intended parents, at least one parent must be a UK resident and genetically related to the baby. This commentary proposes that future UK surrogacy law reforms follow the legislation in Colorado, USA, which regulates both genetic and gestational surrogacy, requires medical screening of all parties, and recognizes non-traditional family forms.
Dr. Marilyn Crawshaw and Professor Olga van den Akker | BioNews | June 14, 2021
Without international law to protect surrogacy-born children, an affluent few have grown their families through surrogacy for alarming reasons–the Ozturks have 20 babies to execute their dream of a large family, and a single man in Thailand currently has 13 babies out of a “hoped-for” 1000 in order to aid his possible future political election. The article claims that most of these children will not develop attachment to any main caregiver or be able to satisfy their need to know their gestational origins. More safeguarding, parental preparation, and ongoing support needs to be available to meet the psychological, social, and emotional needs of surrogacy-born children. It may be valuable to transfer some practices learned from adoption practices to surrogacy arrangements.
Charlotte Park-Morton | BioNews | June 1, 2021
This commentary discusses two papers calling for change in United Kingdom surrogacy guidelines: the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Surrogacy Report and the Law Commission’s Consultation Paper. The language in the 2020 APPG report is reflective of current legislation, which refers to surrogacy-born children as passive subjects of protection under the law, whereas the 2019 Law Commission’s paper underlines the importance of addressing the children as individuals with rights. Moving forward, surrogacy-born individuals are expected to pressure law reform to focus on children’s access to donor information.
By William Edis QC | Law Pod UK | May 1, 2020
In the UK, compensation for surrogacy is unlawful. However, one woman in the UK sought damages to pay for an arranged surrogacy in the United States after a UK hospital had left her unable to have a child. In this podcast by Law Pod UK, Rosalind English interviews William Edis to talk about the recent Supreme Court ruling. The interviewee makes an argument that commercial surrogacy should continue to be prohibited in the UK.
By Orlando Crowcroft & Marta Rodriguez Martinez | Euronews | April 4, 2020
in this article, a couple navigate travel restrictions after their son was born to a surrogate in Ukraine. With Ukraine’s borders closed, the couple details how they are processing their son’s UK citizenship and other obstacles they faced in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
By Sirin Kale | The Guardian | March 26, 2020
James Washington, his husband Rob, and their 11-day-old baby are stuck in an Airbnb in Portland, Oregon. Under normal circumstances, the Washingtons would have applied for a US passport for their son, taken him home and applied for a legal order to recognize their parentage through the British courts. But as this article covers, COVID-19 travel restrictions have complicated gestational surrogacy arrangements for these parents and many others.