Dr. Kirsty Horsey:

The Senator asked me whether the pre-birth or post-birth model was better. I agree with Ms Gamble that a pre-birth determination, albeit not too early, would be in the best interests of the child. Research bears that out. It helps with the recognition of the autonomy of all the parties, it can deal with the issue of the parties receiving proper informed consent, and it can deal with the screenings, checks and balances that need to take place prior to the birth of the child. As she stated, it also means that, at birth, the children are born into the right family. This has practical implications. For example, if consent needs to be given in hospital for medical treatment, then the intended parents, who are usually the ones looking after the child, would be able to give that consent to the hospital. Difficulties like this in the period immediately after birth have been raised in my interviews and surveys time and again. It is one of the issues that could be solved.

A pre-birth determination means that the child is not born into a legal limbo and has an identity from the point of birth within the right family. The surrogates and intended parents I have spoken to would prefer everything to be put in place before birth. Of course they would. At the point of birth, there is a newborn baby. Someone is looking after that child and does not want to be filling out forms and worrying about court processes. It seems that many intended parents worry, unjustly in many cases, about that court process because it is a court process, there are forms to be filled in correctly, there are hearings to be had, the surrogate has to be brought back, etc. It increases stress at a time there should be happiness. That comes up a great deal in many of the interviews I have done.

In a nutshell, I agree with Ms Gamble on all of that.