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  • Surrogacy is one of the main, newly emerging aspects of family law.

  • Although the scientific technology has been there for quite some time

  • the law has been quite slow generally to catch up.

  • So it is not always as straightforward as people would think

  • especially if there's international aspects.

  • A surrogacy arrangement is quite complex legally

  • and it is one area of law in which there is no substitute for early advice.

  • Simply to make sure that you can follow

  • and put in place all of the necessary arrangements to ensure that

  • you then become the child's legal parents

  • further down the line because if those steps aren't followed

  • and if the necessary safegaurds are not put in place it can mean

  • that the commissioning parents are not able to take legal parenthood

  • of the child and obviously that creates long-term problems.

  • In English law a surrogacy arrangement isn't legally binding and it's not legally enforceable

  • and any form of commercial surrogacy is illegal

  • and is treated, obviously, as a criminal activity. That's not the case in some other

  • countries and whilst it is quite common to go over to other countries because

  • there is a greater supply of

  • willing surrogates it's very important to ensure that any arrangement that takes

  • place abroad is not going to fall foul

  • of regulations and laws here because that means it won't then

  • be recognised and then placed for a parental order

  • as people would hope. People often don't realise that the

  • common sense basis that you would assume would be the arrangements

  • or in fact the scientific parenthood, genetic material,

  • often don't translate to who is the legal parent.

  • So depending where the child's been born and where the arrangements have been made

  • you can have a situation whereby a child has, for example, no legal parents or

  • for example four legal parents and often the legal parenthood doesn't follow what

  • you would necessarily expect

  • in terms of who's been involved and who's genetic material's been used

  • and thats the classic example of why it is so important to get advice early on

  • so that you know where you stand

  • and also then what steps you need to take in order to make sure that you are the

  • child's legal parents for the rest of their childhood.

Surrogacy is one of the main, newly emerging aspects of family law.

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