Dr. Kirsty Horsey:

In response to the first question, if the intended parents acquired automatic legal parenthood at birth and then subsequently something was found to be unethical or wrong in the arrangement, they have legal parenthood. If the surrogate is past the window of opportunity where she has the right to withdraw her consent for them to have legal parenthood, then they would be parents in the same way as anyone else who becomes a parent or parents. We have a Children Act in the UK that protects the welfare of children. Decisions would be made on that basis if a question was raised about the child's welfare. The welfare of children falls within a different area of law to the question of who the child's parent is at the moment of birth.

On the other point, the Senator may be conflating the parental order route and the proposed pathway to parenthood. The proposed pathway to parenthood would only apply to domestic arrangements in the UK, as long as what is currently proposed by the Law Commission includes counselling, criminal records checks, legal advice and all the other things put in place prior to birth. Those parents would automatically become the legal parents at birth, subject to having a genetic link, if that is retained.

For overseas arrangements, which will inevitably still happen, then the pathway would not come into play and it would be a parental order process, in which case you are looking at post-birth checks and balances carried out by a judge on the basis of the parental order application. Thus, there is a different timing of the checks depending on where and how the child is born. Does that make sense?