New Zealand’s Justice Minister has said that the country’s surrogacy laws need to be updated as soon as possible and are discriminatory to parents
Kiri Allan said in a statement: “Surrogacy has become an established method of forming a family for people unable to carry a child themselves. However, the laws that apply to surrogacy are outdated and need to change.”
Parents must adopt a child born by surrogacy under the 70-year-old adoption laws.
The new laws have been proposed by the Labour Government’s MP Tamati Coffey and are currently being reviewed by the Parliamentary Health Committee.
The committee is considering introducing a new process to determine legal parentship rather than by adoption, establishing a surrogacy birth register, clarifying payments relating to surrogacy, and accommodating international surrogacy arrangements.
Although the bill was introduced in May 2022, it is unlikely it will be introduced by the time of the election in October 2023.
Fertility New Zealand board member Juanita Copeland said she was heartened that the legislation was being pushed through.
She said: “There has long been a need for greater clarity and protection for everyone involved in surrogacy and this bill will provide that. It will make it easier for people to build the family they have always dreamed of while honouring the tremendous gift that surrogacy is.”
Tamati Coffey is a father through surrogacy and is set to retire at the next election.
