A LANDMARK CASE in the Supreme Court this week saw the status quo remain in place – that the genetic mother of a child born to a surrogate could not appear on its birth certificate.
According to Ireland’s current laws, genetics only counts when it comes to fatherhood, not motherhood.
To be a legal mother, the child must be born out of your body.
It seems like an unbelievable position for the court to take but the Chief Justice underlined that she had no other option. It was not the job of the courts to create a “golden rule” for motherhood. It was up to the lawmakers of the country. She basically told the big wigs in Leinster House to pull the finger out on this one and come up with some legislation on surrogacy.
As a solicitor for one of the sisters involved in the case said outside the court, “Surrogacy is happening… These aren’t the only family involved in this particular kind of case.”
And there are potentially hundreds more who will need legal clarity in the near future.
As a visiting fertility specialist told an audience at a same-sex parenting seminar held in Dublin’s city centre this week, “there is a global revolution happening and Ireland is just entering it”.
Dr Brandon Bankowski of Oregon Reproductive Medicine was one of a number of experts to speak
to more than 50 same-sex couples on Wednesday evening in the Westbury Hotel.
He was addressing those couples as ones who had “made the first step… to dream of becoming parents”.
Continue Reading at The Journal.
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