Money fails to buy Parenthood, legally speaking.

09.06.10

U K fertility lawyers warn that merely paying surrogates huge sums of money for a baby will not make a couple the child’s parents, legally speaking.

Childless couples are travelling as far as India, commissioning children through commercial surrogacy and spending up to 30,000 pounds but the British Law might still refuse to grant these couples parental orders.

British Law prohibits commercial surrogacy and only permits altruistic surrogacy and payments to the surrogates are only to be the tune of expenses which might be “reasonably incurred” by the surrogate to carry the pregnancy to term as per the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990.

However, in popular surrogacy destinations such as India there is an open agreement to make a down payment to the surrogate over and above the medical expenses incurred by her in the duration of her pregnancy.

British Fertility Lawyers warn that by making such payments British couples are clearly flouting British laws and that a court may refuse to authorise such expenses. That could result in the parental order application failing thereby rendering the couple without a parental status under English Law

.Moreover caring for a child that’s not yours is a legal offence under English Law and couples who fail to obtain parental orders aren’t recognised as the child’s legal parents. In these circumstances it would be necessary for such a a couple to intimate social services that they are caring for a child that is not legally theirs.