President declares that UK law should give single parents through surrogacy the same rights as couples

Sir James Munby the President of the High Court Family Division has made a formal declaration that UK law discriminates against single parents with children born through surrogacy and is incompatible with their human rights.

Re Z (A Child) (No 2) [2016] EWHC 1191 (Fam) concerns a British biological father of a 21-month-old boy known as ‘Z’ who was born through a US surrogacy arrangement and lives with his single father in the UK. Last September the High Court ruled that it could not grant a UK parental order (the order needed to extinguish the responsibilities of the surrogate and to issue a UK birth certificate for Z) because UK surrogacy law only allows couples and not single parents to apply. The court ruled that the US surrogate who carried Z (who lives in the USA is not his biological mother and has no legal status there) has sole decision-making rights in the UK. Z was made a ward of court.

The President of the Family Division has now declared that the law is incompatible with the father’s and the child’s human rights and...

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