Back in October 2009, Louisa Ghevaert was invited to speak to the American Bar Association’s Family Fall Conference in Montreal and give an English law perspective on international surrogacy arrangements. Read her published account in The Review, the journal of the Association of Family Lawyers (Resolution) with a membership of 5,500.
US assisted reproduction attorneys were keen to get to grips with English surrogacy law as it applies to British people thinking about building their family through surrogacy in the US and the legal pitfalls they face navigating a safe legal path home to the UK after the birth of their surrogate born child.
US assisted reproduction lawyers expressed concerns that British parents may breach British immigration control by travelling home using their surrogate born child’s US passport. They expressed further concern that US court orders recognising British intended parents as legal parents are not automatically recognised in England and Wales and that British intended parents could in certain circumstances commit a criminal offence in caring for their surrogate born child in the UK if they failed to apply for a parental order to be legally recognised as parents.
For more information about international surrogacy and the legal issues surrounding this visit our international surrogacy pages.