Earlier this month the French Court of Cassation allowed foreign birth certificates of children born under a surrogacy arrangement to be transcribed in the civil registry in relation to two separate cases of men who fathered children born to a surrogate abroad. The ruling has been positively received in that it strengthens recognition of children born through surrogacy. Previously they were unable to obtain any legal status in France, where surrogacy remains unlawful. However, commentators have pointed out that the decision applies only to cases where the woman acting as a surrogate is registered as the child’s mother. It remains uncertain what would happen if the two commissioning parents were named on the foreign birth certificate.
For more information about surrogacy and children’s rights, read our previous special edition Children in Court CRINmail.
Poland’s parliament has passed the country’s first law to regulate in vitro fertilisation procedures. Assisted reproduction is a divisive issue in the predominantly Catholic country and many previous proposals failed to receive support. Finally last month both houses of parliament approved a proposal which would allow both married and unmarried couples to obtain IVF as a treatment for infertility after 12 months of unsuccessful treatment using other methods. IVF will not be available, however, to single persons or same-sex couples. The bill now needs to be signed into law by the president. Meanwhile, a discrimination complaint against Poland has been lodged in the European Court of Human Rights by a same-sex couple over the State’s refusal to issue a birth certificate which includes two women as parents, raising another sensitive issue for the country.