Two women can now be named on a birth certificate in Jersey, in a change that allows same-sex couples and those using surrogacy to alter the legal document.
The law came into effect on 24 November and can be applied retrospectively for some couples who had their children by using fertility treatments or surrogates. If donor sperm was used, the mother’s partner (male or female) can be added as the second parent on the child’s birth certificate. If a surrogate is used and consents, she can be removed from the birth certificate in place of the ‘receiving’ parents.
The new rules in Jersey also state that the mother’s husband will “no longer be presumed to be the child’s Father”, and that children born outside of marriage will no longer be classified as ‘illegitimate’.
Recognised as family
One of the first same-sex couples to make use of the new rules were Sarah and Jen. Sarah, who gave birth with fertility treatment, was registered on her son’s certificate, and now her partner Jen whose egg was used, has retroactively been registered as the child’s second parent.
Jen explained: “We are both parents – he is my DNA and he’s my egg – but, because I didn’t carry him, I wasn’t a parent. Now I get to be a parent.”
Same-sex couple April and Lauren have also now changed their child’s birth certificate, commenting: “It means that we are recognised as a family in the law, which sounds like potentially a very small thing, but is a gigantic thing when you haven’t had that luxury.”
Risks to mother and baby
When a lesbian couple have one partner as the birth mother and the other as the egg donor it is called co-IVF. Prof Susan Bewley, emeritus professor of obstetrics and women’s health at King’s College London, said that this practice has “increased dramatically in the UK”.
Prof Bewley co-authored a study which indicated that co-IVF brings “extra risks to mother and baby”.
She said: “It’s important that couples going into the process are aware of potential complications that might happen because the baby is genetically unrelated to the pregnant woman.”
Exploitative
Similar risks are known for surrogacy, with it being reported as three times the risk of severe pregnancy complications.
The UN’s Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) recently called for the worldwide eradication of surrogacy.
Reem Alsalem authored a hard-hitting report on VAWG in the context of surrogacy, calling the practice “exploitative”, “commodifying and objectifying women’s bodies”, and something that needs to be eradicated “in all its forms”.
While surrogacy is legal in the UK, commercial surrogacy is not. However, the global surrogacy market is growing, being valued at $14.4bn in 2023 and expected to rise to $96.6bn by 2033.
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