INTERNATIONAL SURROGACY CASE LAW (Article)

The applicants, A and B, are a same-sex couple living in the UK who sought to start a family through an international surrogacy agency,. On the agency’s advice—intended to “avoid complications” because the surrogacy country (Country Y) did not permit same-sex arrangements—A applied as a single man,. The couple paid a “Premium Package” fee of €64,000, which eventually totaled approximately €71,500,.

The surrogate mother, X, traveled to Northern Cyprus for the embryo transfer but lived in Country Y during the pregnancy,. Due to regional conflict, the birth ultimately took place in Country W—another jurisdiction where LGBT surrogacy is not legal. Crucially, the surrogate was not initially informed that A was part of a same-sex couple, and the intended parents had little control over the location of the birth,. Following Z’s birth in January 2023, A and the surrogate were registered as parents; X subsequently signed a power of attorney allowing A to bring Z to the UK.

The case originated from care proceedings brought by a local authority concerning five children (A, B, C, D, and E) following allegations of physical abuse by their mother. While the plans for the older children were largely settled, the future of the youngest, E, was the primary focus of the dispute. E had spent her entire 19-month life living with her mother in a residential mother-and-baby unit, where the care provided was described as “good” and a “warm and particularly strong relationship” existed between them. Despite this, the local authority applied for a placement order for E’s adoption, citing the unmitigated risks based on the mother’s past abuse of the older siblings.

The case concerned a child, Z, who was the biological son of the applicant father. Z was conceived using the father’s sperm and a donor egg, then carried to birth by an unmarried surrogate mother in the United States. In a previous hearing (Re Z (No 1)), the court had refused the father’s application for a parental order because Section 54 of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act (HFEA) 2008 explicitly required applications to be made by “two people”. Consequently, Z remained a ward of court, as the father could not legally be recognized as his sole parent under the existing surrogacy framework.

The applicants, D (the biological father) and G (the commissioning mother), entered into gestational surrogacy agreements in California in 2006 and 2009,. Their children, A and B, were born in 2006 and 2009 respectively, and the family returned to the UK shortly after each birth using British passports,,. Under Californian law, D and G were the legal parents, but they were entirely unaware that English law required a parental order to secure their status in the UK,.
It was not until 2012, through a newspaper article, that they realised they were not the children’s legal parents under domestic law. By the time they applied for an order in 2014, the children were 8 and 5 years old—well beyond the six-month statutory time limit prescribed by Section 54(3) of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 (HFEA 2008).

The case concerned a child, Z, born in 2014 in Minnesota, USA, via a surrogacy arrangement. The child was conceived using the applicant father’s sperm and an anonymous donor egg. Although a US court had issued a judgment establishing the father’s sole parentage and relieving the surrogate of all legal rights, United Kingdom law still recognized the surrogate as the legal mother. Upon returning to the UK, the father sought a parental order under Section 54 of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 (HFEA 2008) to secure his legal status.

The applicants, AB and CD, are a British same-sex couple who entered into a surrogacy arrangement in India in 2011. Twins, E and F, were born in October 2011; AB was confirmed via DNA as the biological father. The family initially lived in Australia, where they obtained parenting orders, before returning to the UK in 2014.

Upon their return, they faced several legal hurdles: their application for a parental order was made three years after the birth (well beyond the six-month statutory limit), and they were unable to locate the surrogate mother, CT, to obtain her formal consent for the UK proceedings. Furthermore, there was uncertainty regarding whether CT was legally divorced in India at the time of the arrangement.

A British married couple, B and P, entered into a surrogacy arrangement in India using the father’s sperm and a donor egg. Their child, X, was born in December 2011. However, the parents were entirely unaware of the legal requirement to apply for a parental order under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 (HFEA 2008).
By the time X entered the UK and the parents sought legal advice, the six-month statutory time limit mandated by Section 54(3) of the HFEA 2008 had already expired. Consequently, under English law, the biological father had no legal rights, and the Indian surrogate parents remained the child’s legal parents “for all purposes”.

The applicants were a same-sex couple: A, born in Poland, and B, born in the United States. After living together in Tennessee, where their union was not recognized, they moved to England in 2008 to live in a jurisdiction that offered legal protection and tolerance for same-sex families. They settled in the UK, ran a business together, and severed all financial ties with the US.

In 2011, they entered into a surrogacy agreement through a clinic in India. B was the biological father, using an anonymous Indian egg donor. Following the child’s birth in March 2012, they returned to the UK. After initially obtaining an incorrect legal order, they applied for a parental order under Section 54 of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 (HFEA).

The case concerned twin children born in California in July 2012 to two British men, MP and AH,,. The children were conceived via gestational surrogacy using an anonymous egg donor and the sperm of both applicants. The arrangements were facilitated by a California-based commercial organisation.

While the surrogate mother received approximately $17,700 solely for reasonably incurred expenses (such as loss of wages and travel), the applicants paid $48,000 to the agency,,. This agency fee included a profit element of approximately $21,500, featuring contract fees and “gifts” used to expedite the process,,. Although the applicants held legal parentage under Californian law, they required a parental order in the UK to secure their lifelong legal relationship with the children.

The applicants, a husband and wife, had endured a 16-year journey to become parents, involving 15 unsuccessful IVF cycles across the UK, Italy, and Russia. Eventually, they entered into a surrogacy arrangement in Moscow. The child, C, was conceived using the husband’s sperm and an anonymous Russian donor egg, and was carried by a married Russian surrogate.
The applicants paid a global fee of €50,000 to a Russian agency. Of this, the surrogate received approximately £4,324 for expenses and £8,812 in compensation. Following C’s birth in 2012, the applicants cared for the child in Russia for six months before returning to the UK. Under Russian law, the applicants were recognized as the legal parents, while the surrogate and her husband had no parental rights.