Laws needed to cover surrogate parenting, senator claims

Legislation is urgently needed to deal with the issue of surrogate parenting, Senator Mary Henry has claimed. This follows reports of an Irish gay couple parenting triplets through a surrogate mother in California.

Dr Henry, an Independent senator and medical doctor, said a number of Irish couples were already using surrogacy and "pretending otherwise is getting us nowhere". She said that "some have spoken openly about using surrogacy, including one couple who are certainly household names".

"It is not just a question of gay couples but of all people who have children through surrogacy." Technology was already 10 times ahead of ethics and legislation on this issue, said Dr Henry, who three years ago introduced a Bill in the Seanad, which failed, on surrogate parenting.

Describing the situation as "very worrying", she said people were very quick to criticise Californian legislation "when we have no legislation at all".

The Irish couple brought the six-week-old children - two boys and a girl - back to Dublin last week. They are understood to have used an agency to meet the surrogate mother. One of the two men fathered the children with the woman through in vitro fertilisation, according to reports.

Dr Henry said surrogate children could not be adopted because money changed hands, and the mother's only rights were as a guardian. The legislation the Independent senator produced called for surrogacy contracts to be null and void, so there would be no payments apart from expenses.

Successive governments had sat on their hands on this issue, she claimed. She said a commission dealing with assisted reproduction was established three years ago but had not yet reported.

Fine Gael's health spokesman, Mr Gay Mitchell, has confirmed he will formally ask the Oireachtas Committee on Health to call in the Department of Health to deal with the issue of surrogate parenting.

Mr Mitchell said that "ethical and regulatory guidelines in this area are weak, if not non-existent. When compared to the rigorous procedures in place for adoptions, and especially foreign adoptions, this apparent weakness in guidelines or regulations raises many questions.

"My immediate concern in raising this matter is not about the sexuality of the male couple who recently brought triplets home to Dublin, though that is an issue which deserves reflection and calm consideration. Rather, my concern is for the need to ensure that adequate checks and balances are in place."