The Surrogacy Arrangements Act 1985

Abstract

Surrogacy is the act of a woman bearing a child for another person/couple who are unable to carry a child themselves. Sometimes this can be the only way for people to have a child genetically and therefore is commonly used. This process is governed by The Surrogacy Arrangements Act 1985 and some provisions of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990-2008. This is an area of law which has provoked controversy and is in need of being critically examined. The Law Commission have identified possible issues surrounding the law on surrogacy, these include, how the law is regulated, the exploitation of surrogates and parental orders. Until parental orders are granted, which is not done until six weeks after the birth of the child, the parents are not permitted to make any medical decisions about their child. The Law Commission have looked into these areas in the Law Commissions 13th programme of law reform. As a group, we have researched into these areas but also expanded our research to see what happens if the surrogate mother or parents die, if the surrogate mother changes her mind and wants to keep the child and if the parents refuse the child/abortion rights.