A British couple who won the legal right to pay a “commercial” rate to a surrogate mother in the US have said that the act was their last chance to have a child - and disclosed that the woman is now "firmly part of our family".
In a rare legal case, a senior family court judge allowed the couple to keep their newborn child, even though they had payed more than the “reasonable expenses” permitted under English law to the birth mother in Illinois.
Speaking publicly for the first time about their decision, the couple said they had suffered years of fruitless fertility treatment, several miscarriages and had no choice but to seek help abroad.
Their case is one of only three such arrangements ever to have emerged. It attracted condemnation from Christian lawyers, who warned that allowing surrogate mothers to make a profit turned children into “commodities”.
Other family law experts and childless couples said the High Court was right to put the needs of the child first and called for reforms to allow commercial surrogacy in the UK.
In a statement to The Daily Telegraph, the couple, who cannot be named for legal reasons, expressed their joy at their newborn child, who is known only as “L”.
“We entered into this surrogacy arrangement after a great deal of thought and research, having exhausted all our other options for having a family, and following years of fertility treatment and several miscarriages," they said.
“Our surrogate is a wonderful person who is now very firmly part of our family and will be part of our – and our child’s – lives going forwards. She gave us the most incredible life-changing gift which we will be ever grateful for.”
An estimated 70 children each year are born to surrogate mothers in Britain but hundreds of couples are thought to be so desperate that they are travelling abroad to countries such as India and the USA, where costs can be £25,000 or more.
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