IVF and surrogacy ‘a burden on courts’

‘Judges are increasingly concerned with cases that arise from surrogacy arrangements and IVF’

IVF and surrogacy cases are putting the courts under pressure, a High Court judge has said, as he called for an update to legislation.

At a conference of the Association of Lawyers for Children, the family court judge Mr Justice Macdonald said judges were dealing with more of the cases as family situations became more complex. He also highlighted the growth in disputes between doctors and parents of children who suffer from terminal illnesses, after the highprofile Charlie Gard case earlier this year. He named the issue as one of many new types of cases being ad- dressed by the courts. He said: “Judges, practitioners and professionals are increasingly concerned with cases that arise from surrogacy arrangements between individuals, litigation arising out of IVF treatment, and cases in which a dispute has arisen between a child’s parents and the doctors treating that child about where his or her best interests lie in the context of life-limiting conditions.”