Celebrating surrogacy and raising awareness

National Surrogacy Week (5-11 August) is back again and celebrating surrogacy in the UK. This valuable week helps to raise national awareness of an important and emotive subject.

Surrogacy offers an amazing opportunity of parenthood for those unable to achieve or sustain a pregnancy. It is important that all parties involved understand the legal processes around surrogacy to ensure that the legal parenthood of any child matches the intended parenthood.

In my work advising on the legal processes, I find that surrogacy is still misunderstood.  For example many people are unaware that even if they are named as parents on the birth certificates of a child born abroad they may not automatically be recognised as the legal parents of their child in the UK. Parents will need to obtain a parental order in order for their parenthood to be recognised.

There are strict rules about applying for a parental order, which include rules about payments made to the surrogate, the child’s home and domicile. Those involved in the process should ensure that they understand these before embarking on the process to ensure that they will meet the requirements for a parental order.

Those that have children through surrogacy abroad should obtain immigration advice to ensure that their child can travel to the UK as soon as possible following the birth.