For healthcare professionals
Brilliant Beginnnings guidance on caring for surrogacy teams experiencing miscarriage or stillbirth
Department of Health and Social Care – official government guidance on surrogacy:
- Care in Surrogacy for healthcare professionals.
- The Surrogacy Pathway for families, although chapter 3 covers fertility treatment and chapter 4 covers hospital care.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (UK fertility regulator):
- Chapter 14 of the current Code of Practice gives guidance to fertility clinics on surrogacy treatments
Legal issues:
- Law firm NGA Law provides online guidance on surrogacy law for healthcare professionals
For social workers
CAFCASS (the Child and Family Court Advisory and Support Service) is involved in parental order applications made to the family court in England, and produces useful resources about surrogacy.
Legal issues – Law firm NGA Law provides online guidance on surrogacy law for social workers
Brilliant Beginnings – provides information on talking to children about surrogacy, and links to helpful resources
For employers
Parental leave rules – Chapter 6 of the Department of Health and Social Care’s official surrogacy guidance (The Surrogacy Pathway) deals with parental leave for surrogates and parents where a child is born through surrogacy.
ACAS – gives guidance on the rules and process for claiming adoption leave in surrogacy cases.
Legal issues – Law firm NGA Law provides online guidance on surrogacy law for employers.
For policymakers
Brilliant Beginnings has produced a Parliamentary briefing summarising the current issues with UK surrogacy law
The Law Commission is currently undertaking a review of UK surrogacy law – find out more about the project and their provisional recommendations
The Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) is looking into the possibility of creating an international Convention on parentage and surrogacy to resolve difficulties in relation to cross-border reognition of legal parentage in surrogacy cases (similar to the Conventions it has created for child abduction and intercountry adoption). Find out more about the project.
International Social Service – read more about the work the ISS is doing regarding the protection of children born through international surrogacy.
The United Nations – the Special Rapporteur on the sale and exploitation of children presented a report on surrogacy to the Human Rights Council of the UN in 2018, making a number of recommendations.
Still have questions?
Don’t worry, you are not alone. We are here to help however we can.