Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 19 December 2018

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health

General Scheme of Assisted Human Reproduction Bill 2017: Discussion (Resumed)

9:00 am

Professor Deirdre Madden:

Yes, it is possible and in the longer submission I sent in a number of months ago, I have given examples from California and New Hampshire. I particularly like the example in New Hampshire because it involves judicial pre-authorisation of the surrogacy arrangement in order that there are evaluations, screenings and counselling of all of the parties prior to any medical procedure taking place to make sure that everybody knows what they are about, that everybody knows what the object of this medical procedure is and that everybody knows that it is intended that the intended parents will receive custody. There are home studies of the surrogate and the intending mother and father, there are age requirements, there are requirements on genetic counselling and there are residency requirements. At the initial hearing the judge will validate the surrogacy agreement after meeting with the parties, reviewing the terms and agreements in the arrangement, verifying that all the required counselling sessions and evaluations have occurred before finally determining that everything is ultimately in the best interests of the resulting child. That process takes place at an earlier stage, before the impregnation, embryo transfer or, depending on the state, it can happen during the pregnancy. The birth mother has the right to take all healthcare decisions regarding the pregnancy and the foetus and once parental rights are transferred to the intending parents, they have a duty to support the child from the moment of birth and the child born under surrogacy is always considered the legitimate child of the intending parents. That is a very good model.

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