Surrogacy law under review in New Zealand

 From the U. of Canterbury:

Who are my parents? Why New Zealand’s ‘creaky’ surrogacy laws are overdue for major reform by Debra Wilson, Annick Masselot,  and Martha Ceballos 

"several separate pieces of legislation cover the two types of surrogacy: gestational, where the child is not genetically related to the surrogate parent; and traditional, where the child is genetically related.

The resulting legal confusion is now the subject of a Law Commission review, which proposes significant reform based on the guiding principle that “the best interests of the child should be paramount”.

Right now, that cannot be said of the way surrogate children and their parents are treated under law that even judges have described as “creaky” and “inadequate”.

 ...

Surrogacy is regulated through the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Act, which prohibits commercial surrogacy and requires gestational surrogacy to be approved by an ethics committee.

But that act is silent on the legal parentage of the child, leaving this to be determined by the Status of Children Act. Effectively, the woman who gives birth and her partner (if the partner consents to the assisted reproduction) are the child’s legal parents.

This means the intended parents have no legal rights to the child – even if they are the genetic parents – until they adopt the child under the Adoption Act.

But legal parentage is important. Legal parents transfer citizenship to their children and act on their behalf, such as giving consent to medical treatment or travel."