Partner Michael Gregory argues that the Law Commission’s recommendations should have gone further in encouraging intended parents to seek surrogacy arrangements in the UK.
Michael’s comments were published in The Times, 6 April 2023, and can be read here.
Michael commented that the legal commissions’ recommendations could have gone further to have “encouraged more intended parents to consider UK-based surrogacy arrangements rather than continue to look overseas.”
Regarding the right of surrogate mothers to withdraw consent on legal parenthood being retained under the proposed reforms, he said that “this will only continue to compound the uncertainty intended parents with UK-based surrogacy arrangements face and will only seek to encourage intended parents to go abroad where surrogacy agreements are legally recognised and can be enforced.”
Commenting on the financial arrangements of surrogacy, Michael pointed out that “the intended parent will have to account under the new proposals for every single penny that they pay to their surrogate against a backdrop of a strict expenditure list. What they can and can’t pay for will be scrutinised. There could even be criminal sanctions for those intended parents that pay more to their surrogate. This is a backward step as to what is happening on the ground at present.”
