Ruling on overseas surrogacy an “important victory”

A judge’s ruling on overseas surrogacy, which has been hailed as “groundbreaking”, was descibred as an “important victory” for those with surrogate children.

The ruling saw a couple become the legal parents of their adult son in the UK. He was born in the US in 1998, where they were already his legal parents.

This ruling is the first of its kind, according to solicitor Jade Quirke, who says that such a ruling has never been made before.

It is said that the couple only recently realised they were not the legal parents of their son under English law, prompting them to make an application for a parental order – in the knowledge such an order had never been granted to an adult.

The judge in the case, Mrs Justice Theis, said she had never before been asked to consider making a parental order in the case of somebody “who is now an adult”.

Quirke hopes the ruling may provoke others to make an application to obtain the legal parenthood of their children. She said:

‘This ruling is an important victory for parents of children born through surrogacy, especially in cases that have taken place overseas historically and where legal parenthood has not been resolved here in the UK.

The brave decision of Mr and Mrs X to proceed with a parental order application for their child, despite the fact no such order had ever been granted in relation to an adult child, has yielded a ground-breaking result which has come as an enormous relief to their family.

The hope is that this ruling will raise greater awareness of the importance of resolving legal parenthood following historic surrogacy and give confidence and encouragement to others who are in a similar position to [the parents in this case] to urgently consider their legal position to ensure that their family unit is legally secure.

In all likelihood, there are many parents in the UK who for one reason or another have not secured parental orders for their children over the years.

What this ruling shows is that the law can accommodate differences in parents’ circumstances, in order to put the welfare and security of children and families first.”

This comes as surrogacy statistics last year showed that Parental Orders have increased four-fold in the last ten years in England and Wales in a sign that England and Wales are becoming a preferred choice of venue for surrogacy on an altruistic basis.

The Law Commission is currently undertaking an independent review of surrogacy in England and Wales, and this is expected to conclude this year.