In the latest episode of Law Pod UK, Rosalind English talks to William Edis QC of 1 Crown Office Row about the recent Supreme Court ruling on whether damages can be claimed against the NHS in respect of a commercial surrogacy arrangement in California, following the admitted negligence of a hospital in the UK rendering the respondent unable to bear a child. See his post on that ruling here.
Commercial surrogacy agreements (where the surrogate makes a profit for bearing the commissioning mother’s child) are against the law in this country. But it is not illegal to travel, so those with the means to do so can go to another jurisdiction where such arrangements are common practice.
An interesting legal conundrum arose where a woman sought damages for such an arranged surrogacy in the States where a UK hospital, by its own admitted negligence, had rendered her unable to have a child.
Here are the relevant laws and cases referred to in the podcast episode:
- Surrogacy Arrangements Act 1985
- Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, section 27; Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008, section 33
- Briody v St Helens [2001]
- XX v Whittington Hospital NHS Trust [2018] EWCA Civ 2832
- Whittington Hospital NHS Trust (Appellant) v XX (Respondent) [2020] UKSC 14
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