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Guardian weekend magazine ‘Gay parenting: it’s complicated’

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:

gay parenting 1Kellen 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:

gay parents 2There 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.

gay parenting 3We 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

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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

Egg and sperm donors – how did it go?

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

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Known donation on trial

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

British and Irish Legal Information Institute | 20 December 2011
 

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Posted in Co-parenting, donor conception, family building, fertility law, lesbian parenting, Natalie Gamble Associates news, Parenting Law, same sex parenting | Comments Off

An interesting perspective on the HFEA’s decision from the USA

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/

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HFEA shift on donor payments will make little difference

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.

 

 

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Natalie Gamble speaks at The Alternative Families Show 17 September

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!

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UK Donor Link threatened with closure

Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011

We are dismayed and alarmed by news that funding may be withdrawn from UK Donor Link, an organisation which provides vital support to donor conceived people conceived in the UK before 1991.  Natalie Gamble has written to the Minister of Health Anne Milton to urge her to reconsider the decision, and Natalie’s letter is reproduced below:

Dear Minister

I am writing as a specialist fertility lawyer, responsible for representing many families created through donor conception.  I understand that the public funding provided to UK Donor Link since 2003 may be withdrawn from October, and that as a result UK Donor Link has already had to close its doors to new registrants and is threatened with closure from October.

I urge you to ensure that funding for UK Donor Link continues.  UK Donor Link provides a critical role in the provision of information to donor conceived people, and is the only organisation to offer support to adults conceived with donated eggs or sperm before the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority’s Register of Information was established in August 1991. 

Ensuring that donor conceived people have access to information about their genetic heritage  has been a clear foundation of government policy in relation to donor conception consistently over the past decade.  The policy reflects the growing and universally accepted understanding of the importance of openness and availability of information to donor conceived people, and followed a decision of the High Court as to UK law’s compliance with human rights legislation.

In 2002, the English High Court heard a landmark case (R. (on the application of Rose) v Secretary of State for Health) which established that if donor conceived people were denied rights to access information about their genetic heritage this engaged their human rights under article 8.  Mr Justice Scott Baker held that: 

“Article 8 is engaged both with regard to identifying and non-identifying information, albeit in this case the identity of the donors is not directly sought. What is wanted is non-identifying information and a voluntary contact register. I do emphasise, lest there be any doubt about it, that the fact that Article 8 is engaged is far from saying that there is a breach of it. That question, which may fall to be decided on a further occasion, involves consideration of other matters and may depend on any future action taken by the Secretary of State.”

In response to this case, two things happened: 

1. Parliament changed the law in respect of information about donor conception for people conceived in the UK since 1991 whose information was kept on the HFEA’s Register of Information.  Under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (Disclosure of Donor Information) Regulations 2004/1511 (which came into force on 1 April 2005) newly registered egg and sperm donors had to agree to being identifiable to their offspring once they reached the age of 18; and donors who were already registered (who, other than in limited circumstances, could not continue to donate on an anonymous basis) were given the opportunity to re-register as identifiable.

 2. UK Donor Link was established in 2003, with the support of public funding, in order to enable donor conceived people conceived in the UK before 1991 (whose details were not kept on the HFEA’s Register of Information) to make contact with genetic relatives through DNA testing and other methods of matching.

As a result of these actions, the question of whether the existing law breached article 8 of the Human Rights Act 1998 (justifying a declaration of incompatibility) did not need to be determined by the court.

The action taken by the government was in response to the High Court’s judgment, and represented a clear acknowledgement of the importance of providing access to information for donor conceived people.  The policy encompassed people conceived both before and after 1991 (although acknowledging the different means available for accessing information in each case).  This is inevitable given that, since human rights issues were engaged, they affected people irrespective of the whether they were conceived before or after 1 August 1991.

In 2008, additional steps were taken through the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 (following rigorous Parliamentary debate) which further extended the rights of donor conceived people to information about their genetic heritage.  Section 31 of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 allows all donor conceived people whose details are kept on the HFEA Register of Information to have the opportunity to contact genetic siblings in adulthood, thereby extending access to information on the register.  Section 31ZF of the HFEA 2008 also made explicit provision allowing the HFEA to run or to fund a ‘voluntary contact register’ (in practice UK Donor Link) to support people conceived before 1 August 1991.  This therefore represents a recent Parliamentary endorsement of support for UK Donor Link, at the level of primary legislation.

I know that others have written to you emphasising the importance of UK Donor Link and the excellent work that it does for donor conceived people conceived in the UK before 1 August 1991.  In addition, I urge you to consider the legal context of support for donor conceived people in the UK, and the potential human rights implications of any withdrawal of funding.

Yours sincerely, Natalie Gamble

Further information about donor conception law in the UK is available on our website.

If you would like to add your support and write to the Minister of Health, her details are Anne Milton, Public Health Minister, Department of Health, Richmond House, 79 Whitehall, London SW1A 2NS.

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NGDT wants to hear donors’ voices

Tuesday, August 16th, 2011

The National Gamete Donation Trust (NGDT) are running a Donor Satisfaction Survey on the back of some poor feedback from prospective egg and sperm donors.  They asked for our support to get the issues addressed, and Kriss Fearon from the NGDT has written the following article for our blog.  If you are a donor, please do take part in the NGDT survey and have your voice heard: 

What would you think if you approached someone asking if you could donate a large and very personal gift, and your message was ignored, or answered weeks or months later? If, when you went to see them to talk about the gift, they left you waiting and with the distinct impression they didn’t think the gift was important? Would you carry on trying – or assume they weren’t interested, and go somewhere else?

This is the experience some egg and sperm donors have when they approach a clinic.  

The NGDT works with donors on a daily basis and hears directly from them about their experience of donation. Too often the feedback is not good, and yet some small changes in the way donors are treated could produce some big improvements. 

To carry weight with the people who can make a difference, the Trust needs to prove that changes are necessary. That’s why we are running a survey: to gather evidence of what works and what doesn’t work. This will be the basis for making recommendations on how to treat donors through the whole process of donation, from information-gathering at the beginning to sharing the outcome at the end of the cycle. 

The NGDT are targeting donors at two stages: first, as enquirers, and second, after a donor has completed their donation cycle. It’s important that donors are treated with respect; it’s also important that those who enquire but do not donate are treated well. People think really carefully before they make that first enquiry. It’s often prompted by the infertility of a close friend or family member, so there’s a big emotional investment. The minimum they should receive for this unpaid act of generosity is to be treated courteously.  

Why does this matter? For the same reason that poor service matters anywhere else: reputation. Donors talk to their friends and family, who in turn share with their friendship groups. They talk to the media. And, most importantly, prospective donors trust current donors to give them an honest picture of what to expect. The longer-term impact of one person’s bad experience can deter others from ever looking into it. Good donor care is good practice, but it is also an essential recruitment tool.

When you’ve known people with fertility problems finally achieve their much loved and hoped-for child, it is hard to understand why the people whose precious gift made such a difference are sometimes treated so disappointingly. That must change. 

http://ngdt.co.uk/donor-satisfaction-survey 

For more information about the National Gamete Donation Trust, visit their website at http://www.ngdt.co.uk/

There is also more information about the law for egg and sperm donors on our website.

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Going solo: fertility treatment options and the law for women starting a family on their own

Friday, April 2nd, 2010

Published in BioNews 551, 29 March 2010

It’s tough to get life sorted as a modern woman. Education, work and finances now commonly take women well into their thirties before they decide to start a family, and not everyone manages to find the right partner by the time they get there. It is perhaps not surprising that increasing numbers of women are making the decision to start a family independently. ‘Solo’ mothers (as distinct from single mothers) are those who make a positive decision to go it alone and to conceive without a partner – but as well as the social and financial implications of this choice, there are a number of legal implications which all solo mothers in the UK ought to give careful consideration to.

One option for solo mothers is to conceive through sperm donation at a licensed clinic. The sperm is screened, tested and quarantined, ensuring the safety of mother and child and the quality of the sperm. A range of treatments are available, including intra-uterine insemination (IUI) and IVF (in vitro fertilisation) and potentially even treatment with donor eggs, depending on the woman’s age and medical history, and assessed with medical guidance from the clinic involved.

One of the biggest longer term advantages for many solo mothers is the parental autonomy and legal clarity this option brings: the status and responsibilities of the donor are excluded by law, and in practice there is no other parent to manage. Of course, this has its downside too, and it is important for a solo mum to ensure she will have all the practical support she will need as chief carer and breadwinner, and to make careful provision in her will to ensure her child is fully protected if anything happens to her.

Children conceived through sperm donation at licensed clinics in the UK now have the right to find out the donor’s identity (and possibly to make contact with genetic half siblings) once they reach the age of 18, which means that their genetic heritage is available to them if they wish to find out more. For many solo mother families, this offers a good balance: parental autonomy for mum during childhood, but the option for the child to contact the donor and siblings in later life.

In years gone by, it was difficult for single women to obtain treatment with donor sperm at a licensed clinic. Until 2009, the law provided that fertility clinics had to consider the welfare of a child before offering treatment, ‘including the need of the child for a father’ – for many years many clinics interpreted this as a bar on treating single women. Clinical practice evolved over time to a more flexible approach, and in 2009 the law was updated so that clinics now have to consider the child’s need for ‘supportive parenting’. This was explicitly worded to be more inclusive of single women (and lesbian couples) and means that single women should now not have any difficulty accessing licensed treatment, albeit that donor sperm may be in short supply in some places and that treatment may need to be privately funded.

Another option is known donation or co-parenting. Some solo mothers ‘team up’ with a man who is willing to act as a known donor or co-parent, often gay or single. Every situation is different, and the range of involvement from the biological father after conception can stretch from none to full shared parenting. Different treatment options are also available, including natural conception, artificial insemination at home and IUI or IVF at a licensed clinic.

It is important in such situations to think through and manage the longer term and legal issues from the outset. Unless conception occurs at a licensed clinic, the donor will be the child’s legal father and will be both legally and financially responsible for the child. If conception occurs at a licensed clinic, it may be possible to register the donor with the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) and thereby exclude his parental status, but care needs to be taken (and it may be necessary to put in place additional legal documentation) if he intends to have ongoing parental involvement after the birth. It is a common misconception that known donors to single women always have their legal status excluded if they donate through a licensed clinic.

Where there is a clear intent that the donor will be known and treated as the child’s father, both sides should be clear about the legal issues before going ahead. The decision as to whether the father is named on the birth certificate is significant as this will dictate how much decision-making power the father has in his child’s upbringing. It is also important to think through the issue of financial responsibility and how this will be managed, as well as the intention for sharing care in practice both in the early months and in the longer term. In many cases, it is appropriate to put in place a donor or co-parenting agreement to cover these sorts of issues, to provide clarity and to help flush out any potential problems before they arise. An agreement does not bind the family court – since the parents cannot stop the court doing what it thinks is in a child’s best interests – but it will be taken into account if a dispute does arise.

It is important to take care if the solo mum conceives while she is still legally married or in a civil partnership. Problems can arise for women who make the decision to start a family on their way out of a marriage or civil partnership, and are keen to get going as soon as possible before their divorce/dissolution is finalised. The law provides that any child artificially conceived by a married woman or one in a civil partnership (and this includes home insemination) will be treated as the legal child of her husband or civil partner. In most cases this is the opposite of what is intended, making it critical to take legal advice before conception.

Women are increasingly making reproductive choices independently, typically in their thirties and forties and often simply to avoid missing out on motherhood before it is too late. The decision is often one which has been made over a considerable period of time, with care, thought and courage. Such women have more complex issues to grapple with than many other fertility patients, both in their conception choices and their longer term parenting issues, and it is important for them to consider the options and the law carefully from the very start.

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Posted in donor conception, family building, fertility law, Natalie Gamble | Comments Off

The art of baby making

Monday, January 11th, 2010

Deciding that the time is right to build a family is a defining moment in your life. However, unfortunately this is all too often just the start of a long and difficult journey to parenthood, fraught with many potential problems and pitfalls along the way. Whether you are a single gay man or woman or in a relationship, there is a definite art to building a family and making babies.

The problems

For prospective same-sex parents the obvious biological difficulties create major hurdles to overcome in the baby making process. Decisions inevitably have to be made about sourcing anonymous or known donor sperm, donor eggs, surrogacy or the merits of co-parenting. The wrong decision at the outset can lead to all manner of problems further down the line.

Many people are often short of time, lack peace of mind about their choice or feel overwhelmed by the different options for creating a family. Issues of, timing, cost, treatment and general logistics can lead to knee jerk decisions, wasted time and money, legal complications and a lot of heartache.

Take for example John, a successful marketing consultant, who’s always wanted a family of his own and feels the time is right to get started. What are his options as a single gay man? He could adopt, co-parent with a female friend, consider surrogacy in the UK or abroad or get himself a partner with children. However, there is so much to get to grips with in terms of understanding the fertility sector as a whole, knowing the fertility treatment options and tackling the often complex underlying legal issues. John simply doesn’t know where to start and he doesn’t want to mess things up. His concerns often keep him awake at night and are stopping him from taking the plunge.

Solutions

John should be encouraged to know that he isn’t alone in his wish to build a family and there is good quality of advice and information out there if he knows where to look. Once he appreciates the bigger picture and takes more control, family building and baby making becomes easier. So, what are some of the basics John should think about?

Navigating the fertility and parenting sector

John would benefit enormously from a greater understanding of how the law works. John needs to get clear in his own mind whether he wants parental autonomy or whether he would be happy to share parenting and if so the degree of his involvement on a day to day basis.

John then needs to think about the practicalities of achieving his goal. He will need to understand better the wide range of services available in the fertility and parenting sector. These include UK licensed fertility clinics, the issues surrounding informal conception, the role of the not-for-profit organisations in the UK including Infertility Network UK, Donor Conception Network, COTS, Surrogacy UK, the British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF), the framework surrounding fertility treatment in the UK and options if he were to build a family abroad.

If John decides that conception is the way to go, understanding the basic different fertility treatment options is key. It may be stating the obvious, but no one is born knowing the difference between IVF, IUI, ICSI, straight or host surrogacy, and it makes sense to take a little time to explore these at the outset. This can help John to gather more information and medical help and support with better efficiency.

Underlying legal issues

John shouldn’t be fooled into thinking that everything will be straightforward legally. Building a family through assisted conception often creates a legal minefield. The law isn’t always logical and he really does need to understand the legal basics, including legal parenthood, parental responsibility, issues of citizenship and the importance of family-proofing his Will.

Having a family is no longer the preserve of straight couples. Time have changed and with recent improvements to the law there are now more options than ever to build a family and become a parent. You just need to know how to go about it in the right way.

For more information on our family building service see our website.

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Posted in Co-parenting, donor conception, family building, gay men surrogacy, international surrogacy, UK surrogacy | Comments Off

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