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 to open up the system to unmarried and gay couples (who will be able to apply for parental orders from 6 April 2010). As a result of these changes, the government is now reviewing the detail of how the court process works.
As well as looking at some of the technical detail of surrogacy law, this gives us a welcome opportunity to highlight the wider problems with UK surrogacy law, which is outdated and in dire need of a more fundamental overhaul. If you are affected by these issues, please do join our campaign and respond to the consultation before it closes on 23 November.
Read our article ‘Moving surrogacy law forward?‘ in Bionews (dated 3 November 2009).
More information about why surrogacy law needs reviewing from our website.
To respond to the consultation, visit the Department of Health website page.