Industry reacts to Olympic sailor Sir Ben Ainslie and wife Georgie welcoming second child via surrogacy

In a recent interview with The Daily Telegraph, Olympic sailor Sir Ben Ainslie and his wife Georgie opened up about their path to parenthood, revealing that they used a surrogate in California to welcome their second child, a son named Fox, born in 2021.

This decision came after years of fertility struggles that Georgie described as a journey “to hell and back.”

The couple, who already had a daughter, Bellatrix, conceived through IVF in 2016, turned to surrogacy after seven additional IVF attempts and three miscarriages. As Georgie explained, when they initially tried for Bellatrix, they had harvested around 30 eggs, ultimately resulting in one viable embryo. Their struggles to conceive a second child led them to try IVF repeatedly, including the final round with a donor egg, but none of these attempts succeeded.

Following these experiences, the couple sought out a surrogacy agency in California, where commercial surrogacy is legal and where they could be matched with a surrogate mother. Sir Ben praised the U.S. system as “so well-regulated,” and expressed hopes that surrogacy could be “professionalised as much as possible.” In contrast, commercial surrogacy is illegal in the UK, where surrogates can only be paid for expenses, not profit.

Despite the joy of eventually welcoming Fox, Sir Ben and Georgie acknowledge the financial burden of their journey, describing the costs as “prohibitive” and amounting to tens of thousands of pounds. They are also mindful of ethical concerns surrounding surrogacy, especially the potential for exploitation of surrogates.

The Ainslies say they chose to share their story to reduce the stigma surrounding surrogacy and to help inform others who may be facing similar challenges.  Natalie Sutherland, Partner at Burgess Mee Family Law, said:

“In the UK, surrogacy is an accepted form of family building and is increasing year on year. As with the Ainslies, surrogacy for heterosexual couples is rarely Plan A and is usually preceded by years of infertility heartache. Surrogacy remains a divisive topic where people have strongly held views about the potential for exploitation.

The Ainslies chose the US (it’s not clarified which State) because surrogacy is “so well-regulated there”. Surrogacy in the US isn’t regulated at the federal level, so it’s up to the individual states as to how they legislate for surrogacy. They chose a state with a pre-birth order system, making them legal parents before the child was born. Despite this, the UK does not recognise their US legal parentage as the surrogate will be considered the legal parent. If she was married, then her spouse would be the second legal parent. The Ainslies will have had to apply for a parental order when they returned to the UK to transfer legal parentage from the surrogate (and any spouse) to them.

The US is the most popular foreign destination for UK intended parents but it comes with a price tag, as acknowledged by the Ainslies who recognise their privilege in being able to access fertility treatment and surrogacy in what many consider the ‘gold standard’ jurisdiction.

Strikingly, the Ainslies are choosing to be open about their surrogacy as they are proud of the journey they have travelled together and want to educate others who may need to use a surrogate to build or expand their family. Their eldest, Bellatrix, conceived via IVF, knows about how Fox was conceived with the help of a ‘tummy mummy’ and we’re told that Fox understands too. Research tells us that it’s better for donor-conceived children to be told the truth about their origins as early as possible.

Fox was conceived using Ben’s sperm and the egg from an anonymous egg donor. Whilst the Ainslies wish to be honest with their children, it will be more difficult for Fox to obtain identifying information about his biological mother as – unlike in the UK where donation is non-anonymous and donor-conceived children have the right to access the HFEA register at 18 to receive identifying information about their donor – there is no such register in the US. Fox could join the Donor Sibling Registry to see if he is connected to siblings conceived from the same egg donor, or he could use a direct-to-consumer DNA test to try to find a match either with the donor directly or from any family member who has also shared their DNA on the relevant website.”

Colin Rogerson, Head of Fertility Law at Mills & Reeve, said that surrogacy is an “increasingly popular” form of assisted reproduction. He continued:

“Whilst surrogacy is legal in the UK, around half of the parental orders made by the Family Court in England and Wales relate to children born through overseas surrogacy arrangements. In my experience aspiring parents go overseas because of the greater availability of surrogates as well as feeling that arrangements are more legally secure, particularly in places like the US.

While surrogacy is becoming more prevalent, it has to be recognised that there is a vocal opposition. Some countries, such as Italy, have recently passed laws which seeks to criminalise Italian citizens (regardless of whether they live in Italy or not) from undertaking surrogacy overseas. Italy isn’t the first country to seek to impose extra territorial criminal sanctions for surrogacy, but when we look at other jurisdictions with restrictive criminalisation approaches we see that they do not work in deterring people from undertaking surrogacy elsewhere. Countries can only regulate surrogacy within their own borders, so it is much better to regulate surrogacy to enable it to be done in an ethical and regulated way at home. This would enable more people to undertake surrogacy at home and help to reduce the instances of worrying surrogacy practices in some countries which have become surrogacy hotspots in the absence of any legal structure.”