Something to think about from the blog of Marilyn Stowe. Marilyn Stowe, the senior partner in Stowe Family Law, is one of Britain’s best known divorce lawyers with clients throughout the country, in Europe, the Far East and the USA. This particular blog post caught my attention because many are looking for the cheapest way to start or add to their family....going out of the country might not be the answer no matter where you live.
Do you have a foreign surrogacy experience you would like to share? Please e-mail me at
SurroMatchFL@aol.com and I would be happy to share it with my readers.
Most weeks I watch the award-winning UK TV drama ‘Shameless’. Set in a gritty council estate in inner-city Manchester, the story centres on the dysfunctional Gallagher family headed by Frank whose alcohol and drug problems make life for his offspring tougher than most.
Admittedly it is crude, vulgar and extreme, but I love its comedy - and pathos. It also skillfully tackles serious social issues ranging from interracial relationships, domestic violence, teenage pregnancies, gang violence and homosexuality.
One of the storylines from this week’s episode centred upon a couple who were struggling to conceive because the husband was infertile. The wife was seeking a ‘sperm donation’ from one of the local lads - the chosen one oblivious to the real reason behind the cumly housewife’s sexual advances.
It was “shameless” viewing, at first the motive of the woman was deliberately left unclear, so it was very clever - was she an alley cat or even a kind of prostitute, living in a rough downtrodden part of Manchester? She seemed that way at first, but then the message became clear, as the husband interrupted her having sex with one of the lads. The husband humiliatingly apologised and left them to it. It was sad and very moving.
As with many themes on the programme, it delivered a powerful and serious message of desperation and poverty - and the lengths some couples are forced to go to have a child, if they haven’t got the money to do anything else.
But not everyone is willing or able to have sex with a stranger in order to achieve their dream of starting a family.
Some couples are so desperate they are prepared to travel around the world, take lengthy periods off work, stay in foreign countries with alien cultures and language and spend large sums of money.
This week I read the case of X and Y (Foreign Surrogacy) (2008)EWHC 3030 - of an English couple in which the wife was infertile.
The pair had tried a number of different options to no avail and so had been advised to investigate foreign surrogacy. Choosing Ukraine because of its high-quality medical facilities, good English skills and a supportive administration, the couple travelled to the country and entered into a respected surrogacy programme.
Using IVF treatment with the husband’s sperm and an anonymous donor egg, the couple chose a Ukrainian mother to be the surrogate. The lady was to have her expenses covered which amounted to enough to cover a deposit on a flat.
When twins were born they were handed over to the English couple and under Ukrainian law, because the English husband and wife had commissioned the children, they were treated as the children’s parents.
English law is very different as the couple then discovered to their horror. In England, a married woman and her husband are automatically treated as the parents of a child. Thus in English law, the Ukrainian surrogate mother and her own husband were the legal parents of the children. The English couple had no right to bring the twins into the country even though the husband was their father.
Moreover the child itself was considered ‘stateless’. English law recognised it as Ukrainian, whereas Ukrainian law recognised it as English.
What did they do?
- They had to obtain “discretionary leave” from the immigration authorities, to bring the children into the country, after the husband had produced DNA tests to prove his parenting of the children. Ironically, had the husband not been married, he would have been legally entitled to immediately bring his children into the country.
- The couple had to jointly apply for a “parental order” under s30 of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. Once such an order has been made, it acts like an adoption order, and the English couple became the parents of the children. Ironically, had the couple not been married, this route would not yet have been available to them or to same sex couples as s54 of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 is yet to be brought into force.
The process was made more difficult because they had made a payment of £23k to the Ukrainian mother in order to provide her with a deposit for a flat for her own family. English law does not permit payment for surrogacy which exceeds reasonable expenses. The Court decided the English couple had been acting in good faith in their dealings with the mother and in all the circumstances granted the order.
So all eventually went well.
But beware:
- There is a non extendable time limit of six months for prospective surrogate parents to apply for a parental order.
- The surrogate mother and her husband have an absolute power of veto on the order. If they choose to withhold their consent, (perhaps for commercial gain) the parental order cannot be obtained.
This case is well worth a read by any couple considering surrogacy as a way round their infertility problem. They need to think about the minefield of the current law before, not after they enter into what the judge described as their “entirely innocent voyage of discovery”
My final point is that the judge made it clear he could not imagine why a parental order would ever be refused by the Court in the interests of a child’s welfare. He thought the last real opportunity to consider the commerciality of the surrogacy arrangement, and grant or deny temporary leave for a child to enter the country, would be by the immigration authorities.
How scary is that?
Infertility Answers, Inc.~Information about Reproductive Technology
http://infertilityanswers.org/
Most weeks I watch the award-winning UK TV drama ‘Shameless’. Set in a gritty council estate in inner-city Manchester, the story centres on the dysfunctional Gallagher family headed by Frank whose alcohol and drug problems make life for his offspring tougher than most.
Admittedly it is crude, vulgar and extreme, but I love its comedy - and pathos. It also skillfully tackles serious social issues ranging from interracial relationships, domestic violence, teenage pregnancies, gang violence and homosexuality.
One of the storylines from this week’s episode centred upon a couple who were struggling to conceive because the husband was infertile. The wife was seeking a ‘sperm donation’ from one of the local lads - the chosen one oblivious to the real reason behind the cumly housewife’s sexual advances.
It was “shameless” viewing, at first the motive of the woman was deliberately left unclear, so it was very clever - was she an alley cat or even a kind of prostitute, living in a rough downtrodden part of Manchester? She seemed that way at first, but then the message became clear, as the husband interrupted her having sex with one of the lads. The husband humiliatingly apologised and left them to it. It was sad and very moving.
As with many themes on the programme, it delivered a powerful and serious message of desperation and poverty - and the lengths some couples are forced to go to have a child, if they haven’t got the money to do anything else.
But not everyone is willing or able to have sex with a stranger in order to achieve their dream of starting a family.
Some couples are so desperate they are prepared to travel around the world, take lengthy periods off work, stay in foreign countries with alien cultures and language and spend large sums of money.
This week I read the case of X and Y (Foreign Surrogacy) (2008)EWHC 3030 - of an English couple in which the wife was infertile.
The pair had tried a number of different options to no avail and so had been advised to investigate foreign surrogacy. Choosing Ukraine because of its high-quality medical facilities, good English skills and a supportive administration, the couple travelled to the country and entered into a respected surrogacy programme.
Using IVF treatment with the husband’s sperm and an anonymous donor egg, the couple chose a Ukrainian mother to be the surrogate. The lady was to have her expenses covered which amounted to enough to cover a deposit on a flat.
When twins were born they were handed over to the English couple and under Ukrainian law, because the English husband and wife had commissioned the children, they were treated as the children’s parents.
English law is very different as the couple then discovered to their horror. In England, a married woman and her husband are automatically treated as the parents of a child. Thus in English law, the Ukrainian surrogate mother and her own husband were the legal parents of the children. The English couple had no right to bring the twins into the country even though the husband was their father.
Moreover the child itself was considered ‘stateless’. English law recognised it as Ukrainian, whereas Ukrainian law recognised it as English.
What did they do?
The process was made more difficult because they had made a payment of £23k to the Ukrainian mother in order to provide her with a deposit for a flat for her own family. English law does not permit payment for surrogacy which exceeds reasonable expenses. The Court decided the English couple had been acting in good faith in their dealings with the mother and in all the circumstances granted the order.
So all eventually went well.
But beware:
This case is well worth a read by any couple considering surrogacy as a way round their infertility problem. They need to think about the minefield of the current law before, not after they enter into what the judge described as their “entirely innocent voyage of discovery”
My final point is that the judge made it clear he could not imagine why a parental order would ever be refused by the Court in the interests of a child’s welfare. He thought the last real opportunity to consider the commerciality of the surrogacy arrangement, and grant or deny temporary leave for a child to enter the country, would be by the immigration authorities.
How scary is that?