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Linda Jones
Partner and Head of Family Law, Rugby
We’re here to guide you through every stage of your life
Simon Craddock
Partner and Head of Family Banbury
Surrogacy Law and Parental Orders
Creating a life and becoming a parent through surrogacy is amazing!
This can be achieved by using your egg and sperm which are fertilised outside the womb and implanted into a surrogate mother, inseminating the surrogate mother’s egg with your sperm or by using egg donors and anonymous sperm.
Commercial surrogacy in England is illegal. The surrogate mother is only permitted to be paid expenses related to having the baby. If you are thinking of or have entered into a surrogacy arrangement abroad, it is extremely important that you take legal advice in that Country as well as in England, in relation to the legality of the surrogacy and any immigration implications because you will want to bring baby home soon after the birth.
Whichever way you go about it, under English law, the surrogate mother is the legal parent, even if there is no genetic link to the child. If she is married, then her husband or civil partner is regarded the second parent of the child.
It is important that an application for a Parental Order is made so that you are recognised as the child's legal parents and have parental responsibility for your child. Parental responsibility means having all the rights, duties, powers, responsibilities which by law a parent has in order to make appropriate decisions in relation to the upbringing of a child, such as decisions in respect of education, medical treatment and religion.
A Parental Order application can be made by two applicants who are married, civil partners or living as partners in an enduring family relationship and single parents (provided they have contributed their own gametes) and:
If you do not satisfy the requirements, then there are alternatives to obtaining a Parental Order which can give you parental responsibility for your child.
Please contact our expert in Surrogacy and Children law, Kim Lehal, who will happily go through all of the options available to you and guide you through the process from start to finish so that you can focus on taking care of baby!
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