Brilliant Beginnings’ House of Commons event on surrogacy law reform
Brilliant Beginnings’ surrogacy campaign was launched at the UK Houses of Parliament on Tuesday evening. At a reception co-hosted by our team and John Healey MP, we were joined by the Minister for Equality Jo Swinson and the families and influencers who have supported our campaign to win maternity rights for UK parents through surrogacy.
Speaking together with the Minister and John, we celebrated our success, and launched Brilliant Beginnings’ campaign for a better framework for UK surrogacy. Brilliant Beginnings has been set up, on a non-profit making basis, to show how surrogacy services can be provided in the UK professionally, safely and responsibly, and to campaign for improvement. We want to see law which supports surrogacy, stops pretending that payments for surrogacy are not allowed, and instead focuses on keeping families and surrogates safe with appropriate support from the outset. We want to see intended parents recognised as legal parents much earlier, and an end to the discrimination against single parents. Many parents we work with now go overseas for surrogacy, but we want to make it easier for them to stay in the UK if they want to. At the moment, the UK’s approach to surrogacy is fuelling an international market which can sometimes be unsafe or unethical, and is most certainly expensive.
We have proved with the campaign for maternity leave rights that we can make things change. All those present at the reception contributed to the success of our campaign in different ways, and it shows what a difference we can make if we pull together with courage and persistence.
Find out more about Brilliant Beginnings campaigning and if you want to support us please do get in touch.