Inter-country Surrogacy, Border Controls and the Disconnected Family: The Legal Experiences of UK Commissioning Couples Involved in Inter-Country Surrogacy. Inter-country Surrogacy, Border Controls and the Disconnected Family

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaper

Abstract

This grounded theory study will describe the legal experiences of commissioning
couples involved in inter-country surrogacy arrangements (post birth of the child) in order to understand the extent to which the legal definition of parentage forms part of those experiences. Whilst the law in the UK recognises the parental status of a commissioning father in a traditional surrogacy arrangement (where the unmarried surrogate mother and the commissioning father have a genetic link to the child), the parental status of the mother is not recognised in either a traditional or a gestational surrogacy arrangement (where both the commissioning father and the commissioning mother have a genetic link to the child). Whilst this can be corrected by applying for a Parental Order in family proceedings couples must first obtain entry clearance to bring the child into the UK and the definition of ‘parent’ used for immigration purposes varies from that used for family law purposes. This raises questions about the extent to which parentage should be affected by the method of reproduction and
the sociological and philosophical concept of parentage. The maxim ‘mater est quam gestation demonstrat’ (meaning the mother is demonstrated by gestation) is not approached consistently in the legal interpretation of parentage. The research will take a comparative approach by considering the law on surrogacy in the UK and Europe but using as the main jurisdictional comparator the State of California (chosen by many UK couples as a destination to find a surrogate mother). California recognises the parental status of the commissioning couple at a much earlier stage in the surrogacy process and the case of Johnson v Calvert [1993] recognised that the maxim ‘mater est quam gestation demonstrat’ did not preclude other forms of motherhood.
Original languageEnglish
Publication statusUnpublished - Sept 2013
EventSociety of Legal Scholars PhD Conference - University of Edinburgh Law School, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Duration: 2 Sept 20133 Sept 2013

Conference

ConferenceSociety of Legal Scholars PhD Conference
Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
CityEdinburgh
Period2/09/133/09/13

Cite this