A 40-year-old British surrogacy law is being considered for changes that would give a child’s intended parents legal status once the child is born. Currently, the intended parents have to wait at least six weeks after the child’s birth to become the baby’s legal parents.
In reality, that wait is often much longer, and can often be as long as a year. The case has to go through court, which requires waiting, filing papers, and making sure everything is handled and processed correctly, or there could be further delays. When the intended parents do not have legal rights to the child, they cannot make any kind of decisions for their baby, including what medical care their child receives.
Now, that law is being reviewed under the argument that it is not in the best interests of anyone involved in surrogacy and birth arrangements. In addition to the review, there is a call for the creation of a surrogacy register, which would allow children born through surrogacy to trace where they came from when they are older.
Surrogacy has become more common in recent years, but the laws surrounding the practice have not changed. This makes many of those laws obsolete, and they don’t work for the current reproductive landscape. With more modern laws, the best interests of the child will be protected, and the intended parents will also have more protection.
Recommendations were made about any type of for-profit surrogacy and what types of payments could be made to a surrogate, including streamlining the process for UK parents to bring babies home from surrogates in other countries. Additionally, the Commission recommends that surrogates have the right to withdraw their consent for a certain period of time after the birth, but a judge can decide whether this is allowed.
As surrogacy changes and becomes more common in the UK and other countries, the Commission is committed to ensuring that the laws surrounding it reflect what is realistic for modern times.
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