News item | 6/30/2023 | 13:15
Surrogacy is regulated by law in the Netherlands. To date, there is no specific arrangement for parenting after surrogacy. At the proposal of Minister Weerwind for Legal Protection, the Council of Ministers has approved a bill that will change this.
Careful surrogacy
Parents now often have to go through long and uncertain procedures before they can formally become the parents of the child. This creates uncertainty for the child, the surrogate mother and the prospective parents. With this bill, the minister wants to make arrangements for careful surrogacy. If the new regulation comes into effect, a court can decide before conception that the intended parents are the legal parents of the child from birth. There will also be a register containing information about the surrogacy process, so that the child can later view information about, for example, the agreements made between the surrogate mother and prospective parents. It is also laid down what prospective parents may pay for the surrogate mother – for example, maternity clothes – and how high the amount of the compensation may be.
Minister Weerwind: “First of all, with this law we ensure that children born from surrogacy get off to a good start from a legal point of view. In this way, both surrogate mother and prospective parents know where they stand. With a legal arrangement for surrogacy, we provide prospective parents with a clear framework so that they know what to look out for and what is important. It is up to prospective parents to make responsible choices in the interest of their future child.”
Journey abroad
Intended parents who follow a surrogacy program abroad can also fall back on this law. If comparable conditions set for the program in the Netherlands are met, parenthood can be recognized immediately, just as for prospective parents who have completed the program in the Netherlands.
The condition that such a surrogacy process must meet, for example, is that a judicial test has been involved. The child must also have a genetic link with at least one of the intended parents. Furthermore, prospective parents must have been informed.
The bill will then be discussed by the House of Representatives and the Senate.