Kyle’s story has featured in a big piece in the Daily Mail, and in the Metro, as well as various other local stories and radio interviews. Well done to Kyle for championing the rights of single dads: we are right behind you!
You can read the Daily Mail feature here, or find out more about surrogacy for single parents from our website.
Natalie has written a comment piece for Bionews criticising the unchallengeable position surrogate mothers are currently given by UK surrogacy law.
The law in the UK has long provided that the woman who gives birth is the legal mother. In surrogacy cases, the intended parents (one or both of whom must be the biological parents) can apply to the family court to have parenthood reassigned to them, but they are entirely dependent on the surrogate and her husband/civil partner giving their consent. If it is withheld, they cannot become the legal parents. Conversely, if the intended parents do not take responsibility, the surrogate has no means of holding them both legally responsible for the life they have created.
Natalie criticises the law as being outdated in a modern age in which surrogacy is becoming more common. Very few arrangements do go wrong (a proportion of roughly 0.02%) and where things run to plan, the current law means that parental responsibility is left in the wrong hands for far too long, contrary to everyone’s wishes and the best interests of the child. In the rare cases where things go wrong, the courts in practice decide care arrangements flexibly on a best interests basis, but legal parentage can remain unresolved forever.
It is time for us to introduce law which deals with surrogacy in a much more sophisticated way, understanding that it is a collaborative process in which the rights and responsibilities of everyone involved – the surrogate, her partner, the intended parents and the child – all need to be carefully balanced. This is what both surrogates and parents want, and what is in the best interests of children born through surrogacy.
You can read Natalie’s comment piece Should surrogate mothers still have an absolute right to change their minds? or find out more about surrogacy law from our website.
Progress Educational Trust, which publishes Bionews, is a wonderful charity which does crucial work informing debate on assisted conception and genetics. You can donate to PET or subscribe to Bionews by clicking here.
A joint claim has been lodged at the High Court challenging the lack of maternity leave rights for families through surrogacy. Surrogacy UK and a mother directly affected are together seeking a declaration from the High Court that the current law is unfair.
The issue is that UK parents who have a child with the help of a surrogate mother do not have rights to time off work to care for their new child, while parents who give birth or who adopt do. As a result, the mother bringing the claim (known only as RKA) was denied maternity leave rights by her employer to care for her newborn child, and was then made redundant while on unpaid leave.
Surrogacy UK, which has brought the claim together with her in its capacity as a leading representative of many UK families, says: “We’ve made this claim as the leading surrogacy organisation in the UK, reflecting our responsibility to promote and protect the interests of our members and all others involved in surrogacy. Put simply, there can be no reason to treat parents of children born via surrogacy any differently from any other parent looking after a new-born. The Government has a responsibility to ensure that all parents have rights to a family life and the best possible start for their child.”
Merry Varney from law firm Leigh Day & Co, who is representing RKA and Surrogacy UK, says: “The Government has a positive obligation under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act to protect surrogate parents to ensure respect for their private and family life and a positive obligation under Article 14 to avoid discrimination.”
The anomaly which denies maternity leave was raised in Parliament earlier this year, when John Healey MP called for equal maternity leave rights for mothers through surrogacy. His constituent Jane Kassim had also been denied maternity leave after her cousin Amy carried her and husband’s twins (read more about what he said here). With the Department of Business Innovation and Skills currently reviewing the law on maternity rights, there is an opportunity to address the problem.
While surrogacy was historically a rare phenomenon which only affected a tiny handful of families, that is no longer the case. The numbers of parental orders (the orders which make parents through surrogacy the legal parents) stood at 138 last year, up from 58 just two years ago.
We at Natalie Gamble Associates have been campaigning to end discrimination against surrogate families for many years. As well as the employment law issues, other problems arise from the fact that it takes so long (often up to a year after the birth) for the parents to win legal recognition. There can be problems with medical consent, not to mention severe difficulties over immigration where children are born through surrogacy abroad. There is also no proper regulation of surrogacy services in the UK, while surrogacy thrives as an industry in many places abroad, driving more and more parents to go abroad. Surrogacy law in the UK desperately needs updating and we hope dealing with the employment discrimination will be just the first step.
For more information see:
Leigh Day and Co press release
Sunday Times article (subscription required)
John Healey MP speaking in Parliament in April
More from our blog about our long campaign to end discrimination in maternity leave rights
More from our website about surrogacy law and why it needs reviewing