Archive for the ‘donor conception’ Category
Monday, May 14th, 2012
There was press coverage over the weekend about a UK egg donor agency which has been leafleting students at Cambridge University to try and recruit egg donors. The tabloid coverage was yawningly predictable - vulnerable young students being enticed to sell their eggs for £750 by a profit-making fertility business.
As ever, the true story behind the headlines is very different. The agency in question (Altrui) operates legally, helping parents to find egg donors in the face of donor shortages and supplementing the services otherwise exclusively provided by licensed fertility clinics. Let’s not forget that fertility clinics also profit from egg donation, and have done since the birth of IVF.
The story is, as far as the agency goes, just tabloid hot air. But what interests me is why the UK press seems to have such an aversion to students acting as egg donors. Medical students have long acted as sperm donors, and why not as egg donors too? On anyone’s measure, students at Cambridge University are a pretty bright lot, capable of understanding the risks and implications of donating eggs. The maximum allowed payment of £750 for egg donation expenses may seem attractive, but it is not much incentive once you know how much cost, time and effort is involved (the actual out of pocket costs of an egg donation cycle commonly run to this amount), and even if it is an incentive, so what? Wasn’t one of the reasons for the HFEA increasing the payment to egg donors from £250 to £750 last month to encourage more women to donate? Let’s have some honesty about this at least.
What is very important is that anyone considering egg donation fully understands the medical risks and the long term implications of helping to conceive a child who may wish to contact them in 18 years’ time. That is true for all egg donors, but where the donor is younger (which is possibly more likely with students, but not necessarily so) or more likely to be attracted by the headline payment, we have even more of a duty to take care. But no one in the UK would be allowed to donate eggs without counselling, information and clear medical advice about the risks. If students want to help others conceive having gone through this intensive preparation, why should they not make that choice?
Tags: Altrui, Cambridge University, egg donation, HFEA expenses, students
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Tuesday, May 8th, 2012
By Sarah Wood-Heath. This article was first published in Bionews on 8 May 2012 and is reproduced by kind permission of the Progress Educational Trust. PET is a wonderful charity which does crucial work informing debate on assisted conception and genetics. You can donate to PET or subscribe to Bionews by clicking here.
Sarah Wood-Heath, solicitor at Natalie Gamble Associates
There have been a number of high profile cases of late involving disputes within alternative family structures. Primarily these concern fathers or known donors seeking more of a relationship with their child than they originally wished for. However, another interesting and sadly increasing area we are witnessing is the breakdown of relationships in two-mother lesbian parent families.
As with any relationship breakdown, issues to be dealt with include division of the finances, any civil partnership dissolution and with whom any children will live (as well as contact with the non-resident parent). But these types of divorce cases have a more complex dynamic, with difficult legal and social questions arising from the mismatched biological (and often legal) status of the two female parents.
To date there has been very little judicial guidance as to how much weight the family court will place on the importance of being a birth mother in divorce proceedings, and whether in such cases the birth history and biological link should be considered more important than the relationship between the non-birth mother and the child.
Of course every case is unique, but the two main cases so far where the court has considered and explored these issues in principle make for very interesting reading.
The first case was that of Re G [2006] UKHL 43 which involved a difficult dispute about where the children conceived by a lesbian couple through artificial insemination should live following their separation. The High Court and Court of Appeal ruled that the non-birth mother should have primary care of the two children (mainly because the birth mother had behaved badly and removed the children to Cornwall deliberately to obstruct her former partner’s relationship with the children). However, in a landmark judgment the House of Lords ruled that the lower courts had not given sufficient weight to the fact that the birth mother was the biological mother of the children and ordered that the children should continue to live with her. The House of Lords expressly stated that the lower courts had placed too much weight on the behaviour of the birth mother and not enough on the biological basis of her relationship. This was a ‘significant consideration which was of importance’. Being the birth mother is, it seems, significant.
The more recent case of T v B [2010] EWHC 1444 (Fam) involved a lesbian couple who were not civil partners but had lived together for many years and had undergone fertility treatment to conceive a child together. Once the child was born they both undertook the role of parents. Although the law at the time did not recognise the non-birth mother as a legal parent, she sought – and was given by the court – parental responsibility, which meant she had full legal authority to take decisions as a parent and to be involved in her child’s care. Following separation the birth mother applied to the courts for financial provision from the non-birth mother. The court ruled that as the non-birth mother was not a legal parent she had no financial obligation despite the fact that she had to all intents and purposes been a ‘parent’ to them from the very start. The court was somewhat constrained by the wording of the law (and its frustration was evident) but it was clear in this case that whether you were a birth mother or not was deeply significant.
When the court are considering cases involving disputes about care arrangements for children, the court has a range of factors it has to take into consideration. These include: the child’s age, sex and background; their physical, emotional, educational needs; the effect of any change in circumstances; their ascertainable wishes and feelings; any harm the child has suffered or is at risk of suffering and how capable each parent is in meeting the child’s needs. The welfare of the child will be the court’s paramount consideration and any decision made by the court will be based on what the court considers to be in the child’s best interests. In practice this gives a lot of flexibility, although it is clear that the court is inclined to place weight on the importance of the biological link with the birth mother. In relation to child maintenance questions, this bias is more institutional, with clear legal rules which make only legal parents (and their spouses) financially responsible.
On 6 April 2009 the law in the UK changed to allow two mothers to be named on the birth certificate, recognising them both as the legal parents and giving them both financial responsibility for their children. It is notable that both of the birth mother vs non-birth mother cases have involved children born before this legal change. Whether or not the new law will give greater weight to the non-birth mother’s position waits to be seen (although this will certainly be the case in relation to financial questions). Things are likely to be muddied further by the increasing blurring of the lines between birth and biological parenthood for lesbian couples. We are certainly seeing more egg swapping cases, where an egg has been taken from the non birth mother, fertilised and then transferred to the birth mother. Where parents in these situations separate, will the birth mother or the biological mother be the one with the upper hand?
Same-sex divorces are undoubtedly legally complex where children are involved. In a dispute over a child within an alternative family structure, an argument often run is the importance of the biological link, and the genetic identity of the child. With changes to the law and even more complex family structures emerging, it will be interesting to see how the court responds.
Tags: arrangements for children, child access, child contact, child custody, child maintenance, child residence, child support, donor conception law, donor insemination, fertility law, fertility lawyer, gay divorce, gay parenting, gay parenting law, gay relationship breakdown, gay separation, lesbian birth mother, lesbian child maintenance, lesbian divorce, lesbian non birth mother, lesbian parenting, lesbian relationship breakdown, lesbian separation, Natalie Gamble Associates, same sex parenting law, Sarah Wood-Heath, sperm donation law
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Monday, April 23rd, 2012
Emma Brockes has written a fabulous major feature for this weekend’s Guardian Weekend magazine on same sex parenting, in which we are proud to be quoted. The piece tells the story of three modern same sex parent families:
Kellen and Patricia, lesbian mums from New York who have a daughter and are now expecting twins, following egg swapping IVF – Patricia is the birth mother but she carried embryos created with Kellen’s eggs.
Will Halm and Marcellin Simard, gay dads to three children age 15, 13 and 10, who pioneered surrogacy as gay dads in California, where they were the first same sex parents to be named on a birth certificate together, and where Will now represents others as a fertility lawyer.
Andrew Solomon and John Habich, gay dads to a truly alternative family structure – a son through surrogacy who they are raising together, and three more children co-parented with two different mothers.
It is a wonderful picture of the realities of modern same sex parenting, with scenarios we are increasingly dealing with for families in the UK too. All the parents involved talk vividly about the challenges and problems they have faced as gay parents – not the playground prejudice and emotional problems many might expect, but losing legal rights when crossing borders, and grappling with obstructive passport authorities. But the biggest problem of all for alternative families remains surrogacy. As Emma says in her article:
There is, in all this, one glaringly unsubtle problem, and that is surrogacy, which as a percentage affects gay men more than any other group. Commercial surrogacy is illegal in the UK, forcing many childless couples to seek help abroad. When they return, the British government is reluctant to endorse an arrangement that undermines public policy. “English law applies its own rules as to who the parents are, irrespective of what happens abroad,” says Natalie Gamble, the country’s leading fertility lawyer. “So even if you’re named as the parent on a US birth certificate, English law will say that the surrogate is the mother and if she’s married, her husband is the father.”
This can lead to some bizarre situations. In 2008, Gamble’s firm acted for a British couple who had used a surrogacy service in Ukraine. “In Ukraine, the law said they were the parents. But under English law, the Ukrainian surrogate and her husband were the parents. The systems were in direct conflict. The result was that the children had no parents and no nationality. They had no right to stay in Ukraine, and they had no passport to cross any borders. That’s the worst nightmare of international surrogacy.” Gamble persuaded the Home Office to issue the children with discretionary entry clearance, then applied to the high court for a parental order, naming the British couple as legal parents.
We have long campaigned for alternative families, both individually in court, and by arguing hard for changes to the law (including supporting the UK’s legal changes allowing gay dads and lesbian mums to be named on birth certificates together). Why do we do this? Because we believe that parents who love and cherish their children raise wonderful families, no matter what the structure.
With that in mind we want to salute, above all, what Will Halm says about his teenage daughter: “That a test tube baby, from two gay men, is a well-adjusted, smart, polished girl at 15, who is comfortable talking about her family – she is what I would like the world to see. Not the parents who are creating the child, but the children themselves.”
You can read the article in full at http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/apr/20/gay-parenting-emma-brockes
Tags: Andrew Solomon, Californian surrogacy, Co-parenting, commercial surrogacy, donor agreement, donor conception, donor conception law, donor insemination, Emma Brockes, fertility law, fertility lawyer, gay men conception, gay parenting, gay surrogacy law, Guardian, international surrogacy, international surrogacy law, Kelen Mori, law, lesbian, lesbian parenting, Natalie Gamble, Patricia Moreno, same sex parenting law, surrogacy agreements, surrogacy lawyer, The Guardian, Will Halm
Posted in Co-parenting, donor conception, family building, fertility law, gay men surrogacy, international surrogacy, lesbian parenting, Natalie Gamble, Natalie Gamble Associates news, same sex parenting | Comments Off
Friday, March 2nd, 2012
Following her article written for our blog back in August last year, Kriss Fearon from the National Gamete Donation Trust has asked us to post this message about the important research the NGDT is doing about egg and sperm donors’ experiences, and how you can still help:
Results are coming in from the National Gamete Donation Trust’s donor satisfaction survey, which asks egg and sperm donors what it was like to be a donor. We’re using what donors tell us to make positive changes to the way donors are treated. The more answers we get, the stronger the message, so if you’ve been a donor, we really need to hear from you!
Sperm donors told us: they would like more information about the families, help with the goodwill message and that some clinics could provide better donation facilities. Egg donors told us: they would like more support during the donation cycle, clearer information on aftercare and to be reminded it’s OK to ask for pain relief if they need it. Other requests are to make counselling and clinic appointments at times that are easier to arrange around working hours and to give advice on ways of talking about the donation with friends and family.
The survey is running until the beginning of June 2012, so there’s still time for you to reply. If you’ve been a donor, or just thought about it, please take ten minutes to tell us how it went.
Find out more about the National Gamete Donation Trust
Find out more about the law on egg donation and sperm donation from our website
Tags: donor conception, donor conception law, donor insemination, donor satisfaction survey, fertility law, fertility lawyer, fertility treatment, Kriss Fearon, NGDT, sperm donation law, sperm donor law
Posted in donor conception, family building, fertility law | Comments Off
Friday, February 24th, 2012
By Natalie Gamble, Published in BioNews 645
The family court has been making law on known donors, with a number of recent disputes between known sperm donors and lesbian mothers.
In one recent case (reported in BioNews 644), the Court of Appeal is considering whether a gay sperm donor should have a right to regular contact with his biological son, conceived with his ex-wife who lives with a female partner. The adults had agreed verbally at the outset that the same sex couple would be the parents and that the man would not be involved in bringing up the child. The boy’s mothers say they feel ‘bitterness and betrayal’ at his change of heart. The case follows another recent decision by High Court judge Mr Justice Hedley awarding gay dads contact with two donor conceived girls, aged 10 and 6, following a long and bitter legal dispute with the children’s lesbian mothers about their role (1).
What is interesting is the legal framework the court is developing for dealing with these kinds of issues, and how very different they are from traditional mother-father disputes.
How does UK law work?
UK law is, in theory, clear and certain about the parentage of children conceived through assisted reproduction:
The woman who gives birth is the only legal mother, and the egg donor’s claim to motherhood is excluded.
Spouses (and since April 2009 civil partners) who conceive with donated sperm are both legal parents, and the donor is not the legal father.
A sperm donor who donates through a licensed clinic as a donor (and not as a co-parent) is not the legal father, whatever the marital status of the recipient.
But known donation situations challenge the simplicity of these black and white rules. Where a donor is known to the family, he or she may be invited to play some kind of role in the child’s upbringing. This happens frequently where solo or lesbian mothers conceive with a known sperm donor. But the nature of the donor’s (or co-parent’s) role can extend across a very broad spectrum from minimal contact to full co-parenting, with a million different shades of grey in between. There is obvious scope for dispute if the adults involved later disagree about the nature of that role.
The court’s approach
The law in these situations is complicated, but any known donor can, as a minimum, ask to apply for rights of contact with the child. The UK family court has incredibly flexible powers and the child’s welfare, rather than the wishes of the adults, is its paramount consideration.
In deciding such cases, the court will typically ask: What was intended at the outset and what is the current reality of the arrangement? What is the purpose of the proposed contact? Will it undermine the main family unit, and particularly the non-biological parent?
The trend of the case law seems to be heading towards drawing a broad distinction between known donation arrangements where the known donor gets limited ‘identity contact’, and co-parenting arrangements where the father has a more significant ‘secondary parenting’ role. However, every case is different and the court is typically concerned not to undermine the integrity of the primary family unit (usually the lesbian mothers). In practice, donors usually get a lot less than they are asking for and they will be disappointed if they expect to be treated simply as traditional separated fathers.
The significance of donor agreements
A key question is the extent to which the court will pay attention to any written donor agreement. Even if not legally binding, will it be given weight by the court? The recent case of the two donor conceived girls gives the strongest indication yet, Mr Justice Hedley noting that ‘the court will be bound to give careful consideration and weight to any such agreement’.
However, what is perhaps most interesting is that not one of the cases yet heard by the court has involved a written donor agreement. This does not surprise me – in my fertility law practice I see how known donor disputes are almost invariably a product of mismatched expectations between those involved, with latent problems present from the very outset. The process of putting something in writing (however that is done) is the best insurance against a dispute, facilitating thorough and honest discussions about the role and status everyone will have.
I have, on one or two occasions, had clients who decided to abandon plans to co-parent after going through this process, deciding on reflection that they were better suited to a different route (usually sperm bank donation for lesbian mums, or surrogacy for gay dads). These are the cases, I am sure, where legal disputes have been narrowly avoided.
Lessons learned
It would be a shame for anyone to think, as a result of these cases, that known donation arrangements are a bad idea or that those entering into them are reckless or foolish. I have over the years seen some wonderfully successful co-parenting arrangements, where children are nurtured with absolute transparency about their genetic heritage and a wealth of love and security from committed parents (usually more than two).
But known donation is not the right path for everyone. Where it goes wrong, it goes horribly wrong. I am sure that these disputed cases will not be the last – we are certainly dealing with more disputes of this kind than we were three or four years ago – and I am pleased that the court is developing a specialist jurisprudence which affords these situations the sensitive approach they deserve. In the meantime, anyone entering into a known donation arrangement would be sensible to pay heed to these cautionary tales, and to take on board the need to plan thoroughly, talk honestly and listen carefully, before they get pregnant.
SOURCES & REFERENCES
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British and Irish Legal Information Institute | 20 December 2011
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Tags: Co-parenting, donor agreement, donor conception, donor conception law, donor insemination, fertility law, fertility lawyer, gay men conception, gay parenting lawyer, Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008, law, lesbian, lesbian parent legal case, lesbian parenting, lesbian parenting lawyer, Natalie Gamble, Parenting Law, preconception agreement, sperm donation law, sperm donor dispute, sperm donor law, sperm donor legal case
Posted in Co-parenting, donor conception, family building, fertility law, lesbian parenting, Natalie Gamble Associates news, Parenting Law, same sex parenting | Comments Off
Friday, February 10th, 2012
The courts are all talking about same sex parenting disputes. The Court of Appeal has this week been hearing from a donor applying for contact with his biological son against a lesbian couple who say they feel “bitterness and betrayal” (the case has not yet been decided but you can read the coverage in the Telegraph here). This follows the decision just a few weeks ago by High Court judge Mr Justice Hedley (in P&L (minors) 2011, available here in full) which dealt with a very long and bitter dispute about the role of gay donor dads to two children (aged 10 and 6) being raised by their lesbian mothers. The courts are feeling their way with what they call new models of alternative parenting, and trying to develop an approach for these types of cases, which are far from traditional family law disputes.
Having advised many same sex parents (both at the planning stages and those who end up in dispute) we see some wonderfully successful co-parenting arrangements. But where they go wrong, they go horribly wrong. What is interesting, though, is that parents always seem to fall into one camp or the other. I can honestly say that none of the clients we have advised at the planning stage has ever come back for legal representation later. Equally, not one of the clients we have represented in disputes took legal advice at the outset.
So here are our tips on how to make your co-parenting or known donation arrangement a successful one, and how to avoid ending up in court:
Talk, talk, talk (and more importantly listen, listen, listen)
Don’t rush into trying to conceive. Get to know each other, have honest conversations about the roles you will have and how much involvement you all want. Be as clear as you can about your expectations and be honest with each other and yourselves. If things don’t feel right, have the courage to walk away. There are always other options. You could find another donor or co-parent, or choose unknown donation (as mums) or surrogacy (as dads) if what you really want is parental autonomy.
Understand what roles you will all have
Justice Hedley was keen to “stress the importance of agreeing the future roles of the parties before the first child is born“. And this fits with our experience. Almost all the cases we have seen which have ended up in dispute are ultimately about status. Is the biological dad a father or a donor? Are you equal co-parents, or primary and secondary parents, or parents with another adult role model? Make sure you talk about how you see yourselves and each other, as well as the day to day practicalities of managing your child’s care.
Understand how the law works
The law on parentage is complicated, and who will be the legal parents (and what goes on the birth certificate) depends on the facts, including how you conceive and the birth mother’s marital status. There may be all sorts of different options, both for choosing who the legal parents are and for giving some parental status to the other co-parents if you want to, and problems can often arise where parents have expectations (for example about what goes on the birth certificate) which can’t be met. Take legal advice, or check out the free information on our website about this.
Put in place a written agreement
Donor agreements (or preconception agreements) may not (strictly) be legally binding, but they are incredibly useful. I have always advised parents that putting something in writing helps with the planning, facilitates honest conversations and sets a framework which everyone will feel morally bound by, giving clarity and transparency and setting a really strong foundation.
However, it now seems they may be more legally binding than we previously thought. Although the issue is still untested (the parents in P&L did not have a written agreement, which I suppose comes back to my point that it is not the parents with properly prepared legal agreements who end up in court) the case suggests that the court will pay attention if there is one. Mr Justice Hedley said, in the strongest indication yet, that “the court will be bound to give careful consideration and weight to any such agreement“.
There is no standard format for a donor or co-parenting agreement, but having something which is accurate and personal to you (and prepared with a solid understanding of how the law applies in your particular circumstances) will be much more helpful than any standard pro forma.
If you need help with planning a co-parenting or known donation arrangement, or if you need representation in a dispute, feel free to contact us.
Tags: Co-parenting, dispute, donor conception law, donor insemination, fertility law, fertility lawyer, gay men conception, gay parenting, gay surrogacy law, known donor, legal advice donor conception, lesbian parenting, lesbian parents, preconception agreement, same sex parenting law, sperm donation law, sperm donor law, surrogacy lawyer
Posted in Co-parenting, donor conception, family building, fertility law, gay men surrogacy, lesbian parenting, Natalie Gamble Associates news, Parenting Law, same sex parenting | Comments Off
Monday, October 31st, 2011
Natalie and Helen were delighted to attend the American Bar Association’s Family and Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) conference in Las Vegas (26-29 October 2011). The conference brought together the world’s leading experts in assisted reproduction and surrogacy law, with lawyers from many US states (where laws vary enormously), Germany, Italy, Canada, Australia, the Ukraine, India, Brazil and Greece. Natalie was invited to speak about English law at a packed session, and was proud to represent the UK alongside leading fertility law experts from Germany, Italy, Australia and Canada.
The ABA conference comes at a key time, with the Hague Conference putting surrogacy on its agenda for international regulation, as well as increasing numbers of clients crossing borders for surrogacy and ART. We were thrilled to meet so many professionals who, like us, understand and care passionately about helping people build families successfully. It was abundantly clear that surrogacy lawyers across the globe need to play a key role, both in helping parents get the best legal protection and recognition possible (while national laws are so disastrously mismatched), and in advocating more widely at an international level as a voice for those conceiving in alternative ways.
Thank you to the American Bar Association for hosting such an inspiring international conference, which we know will be just the first step in building a strong international community of advocates for alternative families.
More information about international surrogacy law is available on our website and in particular check out our area for non-UK advisors and US attorneys.
Tags: Californian surrogacy, commercial surrogacy, donor conception law, embryo law, fertility law, fertility lawyer, fertility treatment, gay men conception, gay parenting, gay surrogacy law, international surrogacy, international surrogacy law, IVF, law, Natalie Gamble, sperm donation law, surrogacy law
Posted in donor conception, family building, fertility law, gay men surrogacy, international surrogacy, Natalie Gamble, Natalie Gamble Associates news, same sex parenting, Uncategorized | Comments Off
Friday, October 21st, 2011
We thought some of you may be interested in this response to the HFEA’s decision from Julie Shapiro in the USA, who writes an excellent blog on assisted reproduction law at http://julieshapiro.wordpress.com/
And The Right Price Is……..$1200
My last post was triggered in part by the then-impending announcement by the HFEA of adjustments to the monies provided to those who provide gametes in the UK. Yesterday’s Guardian reports the result of the HFEA’s deliberations: Egg donors will now receive compensation in the amount of 750 pounds (which is about $1200.)
It’s interesting to think about what the HFEA was trying to do here and it seems to me that the way it’s talked about is fundamentally different from how I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve been talking about simple economics–if you offer more money, you get more sellers. Here the government is fixing a price and trying to strike the right price to increase supply adequately. The alternative–which exists in the US–is largely unregulated market where the ordinary laws of supply and demand set prices.
But the HFEA (and others quoted in the argument) see this quite differently. They talk about trying to balance between altruism (which is the right reason to provide gametes) and more base motives–like financial greed or need. From this perspective, you don’t want to offer too much money or you’ll get people acting for the wrong reason. But you don’t want to deter the altruistic, since there are real hardships to providing gametes. Consider this quote:
Professor Lisa Jardine, the HFEA’s chairman, denied that the £750 payment would induce people to donate eggs purely for money. “I find it very hard to see the £750 as an inducement,” she said. “I think it is a fair reflection of the effort and the time and the discomfort and the pain of some of it. I can’t see any room there for inducement.”
The concern about motives morphs into something slightly different later in the article:
Clare Lewis-Jones, chief executive of Infertility Network UK, said: “We hope that today’s announcement to increase the payment to donors will help encourage more people to become donors. The balance between coercing people to donate by offering large sums of money, and paying enough to ensure donors are compensated for their expenses and the wonderful gift they are giving is a fine one.”
The concern raised here–coercion–is one that resurfaces in other quotes.
Laura Witjens, chair of the National Gamete Donation Trust (NGDT), said: “No amount of money will ever repay what an egg donor does to help childless couples. This priceless gift changes lives and donors truly do it to help others. The NGDT believes that altruistic motives should remain at the core of donation and that payment, although intended as an expression of gratitude, should never facilitate coercion.
Now it seems to me that everyone agrees that altruism is good and is what they want to encourage. But the countervailing concern seems to shift from bad motives (doing it for the money) to coercion and ”coercion” seems an odd concept here. Frankly, offering a lot of money for something doesn’t fit my general idea of coercion. But I suppose the connection is that if you offer a lot of money and if women need money, then women will be compelled to take the offered money. Thus, economic need is the instrument by which coercion becomes effective. I think this rather strains the meaning of the language.
Apart from this, there’s a problem with the HFEA thinking. Most of what I’ve read suggests that most women who become gamete donors–like most women who become surrogates–do so for mixed motives. It’s pretty rare to see the wealthy in either group–which suggests that people who do not need money choose not to do these things. But the women who provide eggs or become surrogates do seem (generally speaking) to be motivated in part by altruism as well as by an interest in the compensation.
This suggests to me that the HFEA’s careful balancing is based on a false assumption–that one acts for altruism or one acts for money but not for both. If most women have mixed motivations then what becomes of the balancing? When motivations are mixed no line can be drawn between altruism and financial need/desire. And there’s no way of measuring whether you’ve done it right. In time we will be able to tell how much the increased compensation affects the supply of eggs, but I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to tell
http://julieshapiro.wordpress.com/
Tags: commercial surrogacy, donor conception, donor conception law, donor insemination, fertility law, fertility lawyer, fertility treatment, Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act
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Thursday, October 20th, 2011
The HFEA announced yesterday that, after an extensive public consultation and review, the system for paying egg and sperm donors in the UK is changing. Instead of donors being paid out of pocket expenses plus an allowance for loss of earnings of up to £250, egg donors will now be paid a blanket £750 per cycle, and sperm donors £35 per visit.
There was much discussion yesterday about the new payment to egg donors of £750 and whether this would encourage women to donate eggs for the money who wouldn’t otherwise have done so.
However, if we understand the HFEA’s press release correctly, this seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding. The new figure of £750 does not seem to be an increase on the existing £250 cap, but rather a change of how the system works. Women used to be able to claim their actual (unlimited) out of pocket expenses plus an allowance of £250 to represent (nominally) loss of earnings. They can now claim £750 to cover everything, no matter what their actual expenses are. In practice we know that expenses during an egg donation process can mount up very quickly, covering things like travel, drugs, the cost of scans and blood tests at a local hospital, childcare and time off work for consultations, counselling, scans and egg collection. It’s not an easy or an inexpensive process. The HFEA’s new rule therefore may not mean more money for donors, just a simpler way of dealing with expenses. We think the change is less significant than it sounds, and will make little difference to donors or recipients in practice.
However, if nothing else, we hope that all this discussion about donation in the media will encourage donors to come forward. Working with both donors and recipients, we know how much the donation process involves and we know what a life changing difference donation makes to people’s lives. We salute all the donors in the UK who go through this to help others become families and we hope they know how very much they are appreciated.
There is more information about donation in the UK on our website.
Tags: donor conception, donor conception law, donor insemination, fertility law, fertility lawyer, fertility treatment, HFEA donation review, IVF, law, Natalie Gamble, sperm donation law, sperm donor law
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Wednesday, September 21st, 2011
Natalie Gamble was joined by hundreds of prospective parents at the Alternative Families Show in Covent Garden last Saturday where she was a key note speaker. The event, in its second year, showcased every aspect of conceiving by alternative methods and was tremendously well attended. Under the banner of the London Women’s Clinic, Natalie outlined the legal implications of surrogacy and donor conception and the numbers attending the talk underline the fact that this is no longer just an option for the few but is now very much in the mainstream of our culture.
One of the key issues raised was in relation to the need for a parental order and the often complex (and expensive) process that a family may need to undergo when opting for International Surrogacy. Our advice is always to look at your options for pursuing an arrangement in the UK first – it is a myth that surrogacy is illegal here. Following a domestic arrangement, and assuming that you stick within the criteria, intended parents can expect a relatively straightforward (and inexpensive) parental order process. In terms of pursuing an international arrangement it is vital to obtain a parental order once back in the UK as both parents will lack ‘parental responsibility’ (and therefore the authority needed to make decisions on behalf of their child here in the UK) and at least one (if not both parents) will lack status as the legal parent. There is a strict 6 month deadline (beginning on the child’s date of birth) during which a parental order can be applied for and if this is missed intended parents will lose the opportunity for this bespoke legal solution forever. Getting legal help with this can range from help from behind the scenes all the way to full representation – depending on budget and what you feel comfortable dealing with. We always recommend that those planning surrogacy get initial advice, as this alone could save you in the long term.
Another hot topic at the show was in relation to donor and co-parenting agreements where singles/couples/groups are considering the best approach and whether to have something in writing. Our advice would be that, although not strictly legally binding, agreements are often extremely valuable in the setting up of such arrangements. They provide an excellent opportunity to air (and hopefully iron out) the underlying issues and intentions of everyone involved. If a dispute does arise in the future the court may well give any such agreement weight as part of its exercise to establish exactly what everyone’s intentions were at the outset. In our experience, those that have gone into their donor/co-parenting arrangements carefully and have considered all the possibilities at any early stage, such as through the medium of an agreement, do not encounter significant difficulties later on.
The Alternative Families Show was an outstanding event and we look forward to next year!
Tags: Co-parenting, donor conception, donor conception law, fertility law, international surrogacy, parenting, UK surrogacy
Posted in Co-parenting, donor conception, family building, fertility law, international surrogacy, UK surrogacy | Comments Off
There was press coverage over the weekend about a UK egg donor agency which has been leafleting students at Cambridge University to try and recruit egg donors. The tabloid coverage was yawningly predictable - vulnerable young students being enticed to sell their eggs for £750 by a profit-making fertility business.
