Law Commission of England Consultation on Surrogacy

The English Law Commission has published a consultation document on the law of surrogacy.

From the description of the project:

"Surrogacy is where a woman – the surrogate – bears a child on behalf of someone else or a couple, who intend to become the child’s parents.|

"As society changes, surrogacy is becoming more common – the number of children born this way could be 10 times higher than it was a decade ago."

"In the UK, surrogacy is governed by the Surrogacy Arrangements Act 1985 and certain provisions of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008."

"But there are significant problems with the law. Currently, intended parents have to wait until the child has been born and then apply to court to become the child’s parents. The process can take many months to complete and doesn’t reflect the reality of the child’s family life, and affects the intended parents’ ability to take decisions about the child in their care (...)"

"In the paper, we make provisional proposals to improve surrogacy laws so they better support the child, surrogates and intended parents. Key proposals include:

• Creating a new surrogacy pathway that will allow, in many cases, the intended parents to be the legal parents of the child from the moment of birth.
• Introducing specific regulation for surrogacy arrangements and safeguards such as counselling and independent legal advice. This should reduce risk of arrangements breaking down.
• Allowing international surrogacy arrangements to be recognised here, on a country-by-country basis."

Th consultation period ends in September 2019.