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Papers to note: parliamentary report on altruistic surrogacy

Wed May 27 2009

The New South Wales Parliament's Standing Committee on Law and Justice has published its final report on 'altruistic surrogacy'. The background to the inquiry is contained in the executive summary, which notes that:

There is limited regulation of the practice of surrogacy in NSW. The Assisted Reproductive Technology Act 2007 (NSW), when it commences, will prohibit commercial surrogacy, make surrogacy agreements legally void and unenforceable, and require assisted reproductive technology (ART) clinics to store genetic information relating to conceptions in a central register. Other pieces of legislation that impact on the practice of surrogacy include the Status of Children Act 1996 (NSW), under which there is a presumption of parentage in relation to children born through a ‘fertilisation procedure’ in favour of the birth mother, and the Adoption Act 2000 (NSW), through which intending parents in a surrogacy arrangement may apply to adopt the child born through the arrangement and thereby become recognised as the legal parents of the child.

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The NSW Attorney General and Minister for Justice, the Hon John Hatzistergos MLC, referred this inquiry to the Standing Committee on Law and Justice on 22 July 2008. The terms of reference require the Committee to inquire into the role, if any, that the NSW Government should play in regulating altruistic surrogacy arrangements in NSW, the criteria that should be applied to parties to the arrangement, the legal rights and responsibilities of parties to the arrangement, including the child to be born through the arrangement, any legislative changes necessary to clarify the legal status of the child, and the interplay between state and federal legislation related to surrogacy.

View the committee's report >

27 May 2009

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