Natalie gave evidence to the Irish Parliament Special Committee on International Surrogacy, April 2022.

The Irish Parliament has been hearing evidence from a range of expert witnesses on the issue of surrogacy law reform, and Natalie was delighted to be invited as a leading expert on UK law, together with academic lawyer Dr Kirsty Horsey. After each giving a five minute opening statement, Natalie and Kirsty were questioned by members of the Special Committee on International Surrogacy for more than two hours.

The Committee is deciding whether Ireland should introduce new law to recognise the status of children already born through surrogacy (including international surrogacy), in addition to existing proposals to introduce a new system of parenthood recognition for domestic Irish surrogacy cases. Natalie shared her long experience of surrogacy practice in the UK and internationally, and as always advocated passionately for ethical surrogacy and the rights of families and their children. Her comments were covered by the Irish Times and she received afterwards received numerous messages of thanks from Irish parents through surrogacy who had seen the televised session.

You can read Natalie’s opening statement to the Committee here, and watch the video of the full Committee session here.

Find out more about our campaigning work to support and promote ethical surrogacy at Brilliant Beginnings.