Natalie and Heidi have written for the latest edition of The Review about an important new Supreme Court decision on surrogacy.
The case of Whittington Hospital NHS Trust v XX [2020] UKSC 14 involved a negligence claim brought by a woman who sought compensation to fund surrogacy in the USA after a series of medical failures left her unable to carry a pregnancy. The Supreme Court was asked to rule on whether she should be compensated for surrogacy in the USA (where professionally-arranged and compensated surrogacy is the norm) or only for surrogacy in the UK (which seeks to restrict what agencies and surrogates can be paid).
The Supreme Court ruled that times have moved on and it is no longer against UK public policy for someone from the UK to engage in an international commercial surrogacy arrangement, provided that the country has a well-established system which properly safeguards the interests of all involved. Indeed, doing so was understandable given the limitations of the UK legal framework and the claimant therefore should be compensated for the costs of surrogacy in the USA.
Natalie and Heidi discuss the significance of this Supreme Court decision and how it may impact on the Law Commission’s current review of UK surrogacy law.
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