The Irish Parliament has been hearing evidence from a range of expert witnesses on the issue of surrogacy law reform, and Natalie was delighted to be invited as a leading expert on UK law, together with academic lawyer Dr Kirsty Horsey.
After each giving a five minute opening statement, Natalie and Kirsty were questioned by members of the Special Committee on International Surrogacy for more than two hours.
The Committee is deciding whether Ireland should introduce new law to recognise the status of children already born through surrogacy (including international surrogacy), in addition to existing proposals to introduce a new system of parenthood recognition for domestic Irish surrogacy cases. Natalie shared her long experience of surrogacy practice in the UK and internationally, and as always advocated passionately for ethical surrogacy and the rights of families and their children.
Media coverage
Her comments were covered by the Irish Times which said:
UK solicitor Natalie Gamble told the committee that she has worked for 15 years with families created through UK and international surrogacy. She said this has involved dealing with around 1,500 families.
“In my long experience, the overwhelming majority of intended parents are conscientious and want to navigate surrogacy in a responsible way,” she said.
“And the overwhelming majority of surrogates make an informed choice to carry a child to help someone else, never intending for that child to be theirs. Research across decades has shown that surrogacy children are thriving, and that what matters to children is not the number or gender of their parents, but the quality of their parental attachments.
Ms Gamble said that understanding ethical surrogacy was a “complex task” which needed a detailed understanding of how surrogacy works as opposed to “simplistic categorisations”.
Afterwards we received received numerous messages of thanks from Irish parents through surrogacy who had seen the televised session.
Watch Natalie’s evidence in session in full
You can read Natalie’s opening statement to the Committee here, and watch the video of the full Committee session here.
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