A couple who illegally paid a surrogate mum to have their baby have been told they can keep the baby, despite breaking the current UK surrogate laws. Currently, couples can only pay ‘reasonable expenses’.
Paying the American surrogate mum from Illinois, where there are no restrictions on payments to a surrogate, an unspecified fee, a High Court family judge backed their situation, meaning the couple get to keep their baby.
The judge believed that the couple were “careful and conscientious” and he felt that in this case, the welfare of the child out weighed the surrogate laws and it was enough to rule the couple as lawful parents.
Although this case could open the floodgates to foreign surrogacies, the judge made it clear that all surrogacy situations should still be policed by the courts.
