Ms Georgina Roberts:

My name is Georgina and I am 24 years old. I was born through altruistic traditional surrogacy in England in 1998, organised through a not-for-profit agency called Childlessness Overcome Through Surrogacy, COTS. My parents tried for children for many years and completed five rounds of IVF with their own gametes and some with donor eggs, none of which was successful. They then joined COTS and their profile was sent to surrogates, who were registered with the agency, and they were selected by Suzanne, my surrogate. Suzanne had one son of her own, aged four years at the time, and had also completed one surrogacy journey for a family in the north of England. I was conceived with ease and my parents were involved throughout the pregnancy. They formed immense trust with Suzanne and when I was born, I was taken home by my parents. My first birth certificate had Suzanne and my dad on it. After a parental order court process, I received a second birth certificate with my mother and father on it. This took over one year to issue, therefore, Suzanne was my legal mother for a whole year of my life.

I have known about my origins for as long as I can remember having been read stories such as my mummy's tummy is broken. I have never felt any sense of pain or grief as a result of being surrogacy born and I am confident in the role of my parents as mum and dad. I feel a sense of warmth that I was born in a situation of love, trust and altruism where one human being did a selfless act to change the life of another. I see my surrogacy family a few times a year and we are looking forward to getting together at my wedding next month.

Being born through surrogacy has its challenges though, and I would like to outline what I perceive these to be. First, the role of the parents is often undermined from birth. When I was born, I went to the neonatal unit and my surrogate and my dad were able to visit as my legal parents. After discussions with the hospital, my surrogate was able to transfer her visiting rights to my mother. However, this undermined my mother's role as my parent from the word go. I believe this damages intended parent's confidence, compounded by having often already been through heartache to achieve a pregnancy through surrogacy. This damage is not in the best interests of the intended parents, IPs, nor the child’s. I believe the IPs should be the legal parents from birth because the child was always intended to be theirs and this is in everybody's best interests. Surrogates do not want to be considered the mother and IPs want to be considered the parents, and this is also important for the child.

It is, however, important that the surrogacy is documented somehow. I believe there could be a way of documenting the surrogate’s involvement on the birth certificate, not as a "parent" but in another format. It should also be documented whether it was gestational or traditional surrogacy, and if any donors were involved. Individuals should always be allowed to see information about their surrogate and genetically related siblings.

Existing children born through surrogacy must have birth certificates issued that include their parents as their legal parents. This is imperative in the provision of emergency healthcare, child benefits and legal family security in cases such as bereavement.

I have been incredibly fortunate to have been afforded the right to know my parents and Suzanne, to whom I am biologically related. I am aware, however, that this is not always the case for individuals. Having the right to know and form a relationship with my surrogate, and half-brothers, and wider family, has brought me a sense of completeness. I have a good relationship with all of my surrogate family, which is something my parents have encouraged. Not having this is something that has been the cause of some significant hurt within other communities, such as with donor-conceived individuals, and I felt this when I presented alongside them at the United Nations.

In the surrogacy community, on the whole people are more open about a child's origins because the lack of pregnancy cannot be hidden from those around. The right to information about my surrogate and wider family has also been important in the provision of my healthcare, owing to some genetic conditions within the family, and is a basic human right. There should be a legal obligation for individuals to be made aware of their origins and have the right to access healthcare records in the same way as any other person could. There should be a centralised way of recording these surrogacy births to ensure that records are kept for future generations and access to information is possible if it is not passed on by family.

I believe that legalising domestic altruistic surrogacy is in the best interests of all parties. This avoids the added complexities with international surrogacy such as nationality and passports. Of course, surrogates should have all expenses covered and should never be out of pocket. That said, all individuals born of international and commercial surrogacy must still have their rights and their legal parenthood protected.

The language around surrogacy is important to me. From my networking, I know it is also important to surrogates and intended parents. The word "mother" should not be used to describe the surrogate in any sense. Words should be thought about carefully in the context of the construction of law, as words hold true power and meaning for everybody.

I thank members for listening. I would be very happy to answer any question or expand on my experiences of being a person born through surrogacy.