Recognition of surrogate child's genetic mother urgent

how can the actual parents not be considered parents to being with, what a bizarre legal setup.

Presumably thus is really about availing of bio-family oriented inheritance tax-breaks.

It's a dystopian nightmare, rent a womb. Excluding very rare altruistic surrogacy, it's just rich people wanting their cake and eat it.

Despite it being unquestioningly pushed by the media and "celebs" (ugh), the surrogacy thing just seems very off to me.

Because the adoption authority are lazy and useless, all their decision result in the least possible work for them.

Paid surrogacy is baby selling anyway. What else would you call it?

But these women have no choice because our adoption agency has effed up (yes the language is deserved) international adoption in many countries (and they outsource the work where it is still possible) they don't care about baby selling they are just BONE IDLE!!

‘Commercial surrogacy’? They’re not actually selling babies, they’re providing a service for which they are paid. It’s one of the reasons why Ireland has avoided any regulation in the area, because regulation means the State carries a responsibility it really, really doesn’t want, not with the historical, ethical, political and economic baggage involved in regulating surrogacy, either commercial or altruistic.

Like @Yurt2 said earlier - surrogacy is fraught with ethical issues, but from my perspective it’s pretty simple - I have a moral objection to the concept, but I understand the necessity for regulation in order to ensure the rights of the child are upheld by the State. That’s what this case is about, and its timing isn’t coincidental either - pressure has been applied to Government to regulate and legislate for surrogacy for years now.

In that time it’s become an even more complex area of law, because of developments in technology which can create circumstances as seen in this case where, because the genetic mother is not recognised as the child’s mother in Irish law, the child does not have the same rights and protections in Irish law as other children, and there is no legal avenue for them to remedy the situation where the discrimination is considered unfair. From the article -

She said the situation had "now become desperate" and they needed to safeguard their son's parentage as a matter of urgency as his only legal parent is battling a life-threatening illness.

Ms Egan said their son "is genetically 100% our child" and biologically and in every other sense a brother to their first son but they do not have the same rights as he is a legal stranger to her.

Surrogacy is usually an unethical practice. 99% of the time it will be affluent white westerners using a poor woman from a less developed country to produce a child for them.

It is abusing someone in a vulnerable position because they might have no other option to make money.

Will the rich white couple pay for any medical issues that arise later on after the pregnancy?

Wikipedia is hardly the arbiter on such matters! Sure, you can put up any old statements there and pretend they are facts.

In Ireland, the woman who carries the child/ children through pregnancy and gives birth to same is the biological & legal mother. And her name goes on the birth certificate. It's simple concept and rooted in common sense.

I agree with you. I think childless posters are the bulk. I'm all for the concept of surrogacy and understand only too well the pain of not being able to have the family you imagined, however, I do agree that the majority of surrogates are probably only doing so out of economic necessity rather than purely altruistic reasoning.

The hormonal soup as you call it, is responsible for the development. The embryo only exists in the first place due to the genes of the mother and father. The surrogate is put through a cocktail of drugs which effectively put her into menopause so that her reproductive system can then be started up again, as required, and manipulated to support pregnancy. I'm sure the scientific world gladly 'grow' babies in large tubes and dishes if it felt it could ethically get away with it. I'm all

You feel for the genetic mother but at the same time it would be a complete minefield to mess around with the legal definition of a mother in this way. What would happen in future if a donor egg was used for instance? Would the 'genetic mother' then have a claim on any child?

The European Court of Human Rights have made several rulings on this. The rights of the parents are not infringed in any way by the current situation where the genetic father has parentage and the genetic mother has guardianship. It does not impose any limits on the day-to-day lives of the parents. The rights of the child, however, are infringed as the long-term legal relationship with both parents does not exist. This infringement can be effectively remedied by adoption. I understand that some parents would not find this satisfactory, as they want a birth cert with their names on it, but the ECtHR have looked at it as allowing the child to develop their own identity.

The Adoption Authority are failing to act in the best interests of children by not considering applications, although I can understand the reticence to be seen as condoning "baby-buying" given historic adoption issues in this country. (I've put "baby-buying" in quotation marks as it isn't buying the baby, but buying the service of gestating a baby).

The Adoption Authority are failing to act in the best interests of children by not considering applications, although I can understand the reticence to be seen as condoning "baby-buying" given historic adoption issues in this country. (I've put "baby-buying" in quotation marks as it isn't buying the baby, but buying the service of gestating a baby).

They’re not though, because without any kind of legal framework for surrogacy, either domestic or international, the Adoption Authority are perfectly within their right not to consider registration or applications for adoption by intending parents of children who are the product of surrogacy arrangements, either domestic or international. There was alright a case last year where the Adoption Authority were required to recognise the adoption of a child born through surrogacy in another jurisdiction, in spite of their objections on the basis of the payments involved -

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/campaigners-hail-gay-couples-wins-in-surrogacy-cases-0skgxcc6s

The decisions of the ECHR permit member states to provide for their own domestic arrangements regarding surrogacy, but regarding international surrogacy, it complicates matters somewhat that member states are obligated to provide for children born of international surrogacy arrangements, but Ireland has no legal framework for this in place at the moment, which leads to circumstances like those outlined for the family in the opening post, as well as other circumstances which people may well take for granted -

As a party to both the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the ECHR, Ireland is legally obliged to comply with at least this minimum obligation. It should be noted that the ECHR decisions have led to courts in prohibitionist States such as France and Germany adapting their jurisprudence to allow for a pathway to parentage for intending parents engaged in international surrogacy arrangements.11 Therefore, since blanket prohibition is not an option, the focus must shift from whether regulation should be pursued to what form of regulation is optimal from a children’s rights perspective. In this regard, it is worth noting that Ireland’s failure to regulate surrogacy to date has had negative consequences for Irish families who have engaged in both domestic and international surrogacy arrangements. Children and parents have been left in vulnerable legal positions for lengthy periods of time due to the failure of the Oireachtas to legislate to address their status. As noted by O’Donnell J in the Irish Supreme Court in 2014:

“The absence of legislation does not mean an absence of assisted reproduction; rather it means an absence of regulation ... it is surely most clearly and profoundly wrong from the point of children born through an unregulated process into a world where their status may be determined by happenstance, and where simple events such as registration for schools, attendance at a doctor, consent to medical treatment, acquisition of a passport and even joining sports teams may involve complications, embarrassment and the necessity for prior consultation with lawyers resulting in necessarily inconclusive advice. This Court in clear and forceful terms drew attention to the absence of regulation in its decision in Roche v Roche [in 2010] ... The need for legislation is even more urgent today.”

https://assets.gov.ie/130886/e66b52d7-9d3e-4bb4-b35d-cf67f9eea9fa.pdf

It’s not the responsibility of the Adoption Authority to clean up the State’s mess (God knows they have their hands full already with cleaning up the previous mess made by the State), and it appears that the State is taking a different approach anyway; instead of recognising intending parents through the adoption process, they’ll be recognised by a completely separate authority set up specifically for the purposes of registering and regulating surrogacy in Ireland -

https://data.oireachtas.ie/ie/oireachtas/bill/2022/29/eng/initiated/b2922d.pdf

Only problem with the bill is that it still doesn’t include any provisions for recognition, regulation or registration of children who are the product of international surrogacy arrangements -

https://www.finegael.ie/international-surrogacy-must-form-part-of-health-ministers-bill-seery-kearney/

Dunno what they’re at, if I’m being honest 🙄

If you’ll forgive me, and I don’t mean to be rude to you, but it’s difficult to understand how you meant no offence by passing judgement on other posters who don’t share your opinion regarding surrogacy. It has nothing to do with whether or not anyone has children, and as @Yurt2 pointed out - your estimation that the bulk of people who are passing judgment on people are childless posters who don’t understand the desire to have children, is a bit… odd 😒

I’m opposed to surrogacy on the grounds that it encourages the commodification of humanity. Anyone’s desires, however strong they may be, do not overcome that obligation not to put a price on humanity. The law shouldn’t sanction any activity which violates that ethical constraint on human behaviour. We can’t determine laws in other jurisdictions, but we can determine laws in our own, and that’s why recognition of children born via surrogacy as deserving of equal protection in Irish law is necessary, without necessarily permitting surrogacy itself.

For context, if it helps your understanding - I have one child, I wanted many more, but for reasons I don’t feel it’s necessary to divulge, it didn’t happen. I could easily afford to have availed of surrogacy, one of the lads in work recently celebrated the birth of their seventh child, and that does remind me of my own desires to have had a large family, but that desire can never overcome my objections to commodifying humanity to fulfil my own desires just because I can afford to do it, and I know there are people willing to facilitate my desires, both as an altruistic endeavour, and in return for monetary compensation.

Just because someone is willing to do something, doesn’t mean the law should exist to facilitate their desire to do it either. It’s not just about creating exceptions in Irish law for people who have the means to be able to avail of surrogacy, it’s about ensuring that Irish law doesn’t encourage the commodification of humanity and pass it off as recognition of individuals autonomy, as the UN appears to have done -

https://www.genethique.org/250-womens-human-rights-organisations-call-for-surrogacy-ban-by-un/?lang=en

Brian Dowling and his husband iirc