PET PET
  • My Account
  • Subscribe
Become a Friend Donate
  • About Us
    • People
    • Press Office
    • Our History
  • Get Involved
    • Become a Friend of PET
    • Volunteer
    • Campaigns
    • Writing Scheme
    • Partnership and Sponsorship
    • Advertise with Us
  • Donate
    • Become a Friend of PET
  • BioNews
    • News
    • Comment
    • Reviews
    • Elsewhere
    • Topics
    • Glossary
    • Newsletters
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Previous Events
  • Engagement
    • Policy and Projects
      • Resources
    • Education
  • Jobs & Opportunities
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
    • People
    • Press Office
    • Our History
  • Get Involved
    • Become a Friend of PET
    • Volunteer
    • Campaigns
    • Writing Scheme
    • Partnership and Sponsorship
    • Advertise with Us
  • Donate
    • Become a Friend of PET
  • BioNews
    • News
    • Comment
    • Reviews
    • Elsewhere
    • Topics
    • Glossary
    • Newsletters
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Previous Events
  • Engagement
    • Policy and Projects
      • Resources
    • Education
  • Jobs & Opportunities
  • Contact Us
  • My Account
  • Subscribe
  • Privacy Statement
  • Advertising Policy
  • Thanks and Acknowledgements
PETBioNewsNewsIndian-born surrogate twins accorded French civil status despite ban on surrogacy

BioNews

Indian-born surrogate twins accorded French civil status despite ban on surrogacy

Published 31 January 2013 posted in News and appears in BioNews 647

Author

James Brooks

Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
CC0 1.0
Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.

The Court of Appeal in Rennes, France, has upheld an earlier decision to accord civil status — similar to nationality — to twins carried by a surrogate mother in India for a French couple...

The Court of Appeal in Rennes, France, has upheld an earlier decision to accord civil status - similar to nationality - to twins carried by a surrogate mother in India for a French couple.

The decision is in marked contrast to that arrived at in a separate case less than a year ago by the French Supreme Court (reported in BioNews 604). There, twins born via a surrogate mother in the US were denied civil status. Surrogacy is illegal in France and the Supreme Court's decision further confirmed that surrogacy agreements made abroad would not be recognised.

But the Court of Appeal in Rennes arrived at a different interpretation of the law. In a statement explaining their decision, the judges said that although they could not validate the surrogacy agreement, they could nonetheless accord civil status to the children as they would be acting in accordance with article 47 of the French civil code. Article 47 stipulates that 'any act of civil status for French or foreign citizens made in a foreign country and written on the relevant documents should be upheld'.

Lawyers acting for the commissioning parents in last year's Supreme Court case had invoked article 47, but to no avail.

Caroline Mécary, the lawyer acting for the parents in the current case, said that the Court of Appeal's statement represented 'considerable progress when one considers the elements that certain tribunals feel obliged to include [in their judgments] despite the request they are considering being only concerned with an act of civil status'.

She added her approval that the decision 'was free of value judgments' and in the best interests of the children.

The decision upholds the judgment of the local civil court in Nantes in March 2011 where judges referenced the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to insist that the interests of the children should be paramount in such cases.

For the parents of the twins, who have remained anonymous, the legal wrangling may not yet be over. The French director of public prosecutions could still take the case to the Supreme Court. Any decision to do so had not been announced at time of going to press.

Related Articles

Image by Dr Christina Weis. © Christina Weis
Image by Dr Christina Weis. © Christina Weis
News
4 July 2014 • 2 minutes read

France to recognise children born via surrogates abroad

by James Brooks

France will no longer deny citizenship to children born via surrogates to French parents overseas, Minister for Families Laurence Rossignol confirmed, after a decision at the European Court of Human Rights...

Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
CC0 1.0
Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
News
9 May 2014 • 2 minutes read

French judge blocks lesbian couple's adoption of baby conceived via IVF

by Jess Ware

A French court has ruled that a woman may not adopt a child her partner conceived using fertility treatment abroad. The decision has sparked outrage from equal rights activists...

Image by Dr Christina Weis. © Christina Weis
Image by Dr Christina Weis. © Christina Weis
News
7 March 2013 • 3 minutes read

Ireland: Genetic mother wins surrogacy case

by Ruth Retassie

The Irish High Court has ruled in a landmark case that a woman who is the genetic mother of twins born through a surrogate can be recognised as the legal mother of the children....

Image by Bill Sanderson via the Wellcome Collection, © Wellcome Trust Ltd 1990. Depicts Laocoön and his family (from Greek and Roman mythology) entwined in coils of DNA.
Image by Bill Sanderson via the Wellcome Collection, © Wellcome Trust Ltd 1990. Depicts Laocoön and his family entwined in coils of DNA (based on the figure of Laocoön from Greek and Roman mythology).
News
6 March 2013 • 2 minutes read

France: donor anonymity holds firm in court case

by James Brooks

A French court has effectively reaffirmed the country's policy of gamete donor anonymity by rejecting a donor-conceived woman's demand for information on her biological father...

Image by Dr Christina Weis. © Christina Weis
Image by Dr Christina Weis. © Christina Weis
Comment
5 March 2013 • 5 minutes read

The Indian surrogacy industry — and why we need to reform UK surrogacy law

by Natalie Gamble

Indian surrogacy is a hot media topic, with several stories over the past week about couples being stuck in India waiting for British passports for their biological children. As far as we are concerned, this isn't really news — it is the shared experience of every British parent who has had a child through surrogacy in India, and something we deal with on a daily basis....

Image by Dr Christina Weis. © Christina Weis
Image by Dr Christina Weis. © Christina Weis
News
29 October 2012 • 1 minute read

Legal case brings France's surrogacy laws into focus

by Nisha Satkunarajah

France's highest court has denied French citizenship to 10-year-old twins born to a French couple using a surrogate in the USA, reaffirming the country's ban on surrogacy...

Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
CC0 1.0
Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
Comment
4 July 2011 • 3 minutes read

IVF, donor conception and surrogacy: Is progressive global regulation possible?

by Louisa Ghevaert

Assisted reproduction in the form of IVF, donor conception and surrogacy is challenging global attitudes towards medical science and is presenting a unique global regulatory challenge....

Image by Peter Artymiuk via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts the shadow of a DNA double helix, on a background that shows the fluorescent banding of the output from a DNA sequencing machine.
CC BY 4.0
Image by Peter Artymiuk via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts the shadow of a DNA double helix, on a background that shows the fluorescent banding of the sequencing output from an automated DNA sequencing machine.
Comment
30 March 2010 • 3 minutes read

Bioethics à la Française: the new French bioethics laws

by Professor Donna Dickenson

'Certain countries in Europe, France in particular, are trying to resist the ultra-liberal individualist ideology of the reproductive market. It's too bad that some other countries have maintained a conspiracy of silence on that subject.' ...

Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
CC0 1.0
Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
News
9 June 2009 • 1 minute read

French woman has baby amid ethical scandal

by BioNews

A French woman has given birth to a baby boy at the age of 62, making her the world's third oldest new mother. The baby was conceived using an egg donated from a younger American woman and fertilised with the sperm of the French woman's handicapped brother, aged 52. The...

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

« US health institute launches genetic test database

Data-Label The UK's Leading Supplier Of Medical Labels & Asset Labels

RetiringDentist.co.uk The UK's Leading M&A Company.
easyfundraising
amazon

This month in BioNews

  • Popular
  • Recent
13 June 2022 • 2 minutes read

Drop in diversity of blood stem cells leads to old-age health issues

27 June 2022 • 2 minutes read

UK report reveals public attitudes to fertility, genomics and embryo research

27 June 2022 • 2 minutes read

Shortage of sperm donors despite men willing to donate

27 June 2022 • 2 minutes read

North East London CCG proposes offering three funded IVF cycles

27 June 2022 • 2 minutes read

Fibrosis drugs reverse ovarian ageing in mice

27 June 2022 • 2 minutes read

Gene implicated in motor neurone diseases discovered

Subscribe to BioNews and other PET updates for free.

Subscribe
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
  • RSS
Wellcome
Website redevelopment supported by Wellcome.

Website by Impact Media Impact Media

  • Privacy Statement
  • Advertising Policy
  • Thanks and Acknowledgements

© 1992 - 2022 Progress Educational Trust. All rights reserved.

Limited company registered in England and Wales no 07405980 • Registered charity no 1139856

Subscribe to BioNews and other PET updates for free.

Subscribe
PET PET

PET is an independent charity that improves choices for people affected by infertility and genetic conditions.

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
  • RSS
Wellcome
Website redevelopment supported by Wellcome.

Navigation

  • About Us
  • Get Involved
  • Donate
  • BioNews
  • Events
  • Engagement
  • Jobs & Opportunities
  • Contact Us

BioNews

  • News
  • Comment
  • Reviews
  • Elsewhere
  • Topics
  • Glossary
  • Newsletters

Other

  • My Account
  • Subscribe

Website by Impact Media Impact Media

  • Privacy Statement
  • Advertising Policy
  • Thanks and Acknowledgements

© 1992 - 2022 Progress Educational Trust. All rights reserved.

Limited company registered in England and Wales no 07405980 • Registered charity no 1139856