Do you have children born through international surrogacy aged 8 or over? Can you help their voices be heard in future law reform?

Brilliant Beginnings is delighted to be supporting the new phase of the Children’s Voices in Surrogacy Law project, which will focus on the views of children born through international surrogacy.

What is Children’s Voices in Surrogacy Law (CVSL)?

Children’s voices are often missing from the debates around the ethics and regulation of surrogacy, and the CVSL research project, being undertaken by Professor Kirsty Horsey (University of Kent), Dr Katherine Wade (University of Bristol) and Dr Zaina Mahmoud (University of Liverpool), aims to let them be heard.

CVSL is a longstanding project which has attracted wide interest, cited by the Law Commission in their UK law reform proposals, and a subject of discussion at the International Surrogacy Forum conference in Copenhagen in 2023.

Why the focus on international surrogacy?

Phases one and two of the project exclusively involved children born through UK surrogacy, children of UK surrogates and UK schoolchildren who had no prior involvement in surrogacy. The researchers have not yet heard from any children born through international surrogacy and want to do so.

Brilliant Beginnings has supported the Children’s Voices in Surrogacy Law project from the outset, but we are particularly keen to help the voices of children born through international surrogacy to be included in the project. We know that so many UK parents are driven overseas for surrogacy because of the challenges in the UK, and that more children are now born to UK parents each year through international surrogacy than surrogacy in the UK, making this a critical part of the wider picture.

We know it may be challenging for the researchers to find children born through international surrogacy who are aged 8 and over to contribute. As the only UK non-profit surrogacy organisation to have supported international surrogacy arrangements since 2013, and working closely alongside our sister organisation NGA Law which has been involved in international surrogacy going all the way back to the very first case in 2007-8, we are keen to do what we can to help.

Was your child born through international surrogacy before 2016 and can you help?

Find out more about the project and how to get involved at Get involved | Children’s Voices in Surrogacy Law (bristol.ac.uk)