{"id":332412,"date":"2025-06-12T14:45:39","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T19:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=332412"},"modified":"2025-06-12T08:12:25","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T13:12:25","slug":"elderly-uk-exploiting-loophole-children-surrogates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/elderly-uk-exploiting-loophole-children-surrogates\/","title":{"rendered":"Elderly people in the UK are exploiting a loophole to have children by surrogates"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

The ethical pitfalls of surrogacy are on stark display in the United Kingdom (UK), where some elderly retirees are now having children via surrogates.<\/p>\n

KEY TAKEAWAYS:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
    \n
  • Elderly couples in the UK are increasingly turning to surrogacy outside the country to have children, who may be orphaned before they reach adulthood.<\/li>\n
  • Surrogacy often involves the purchase of an economically disadvantaged woman’s womb (and possibly even her egg) by a wealthy couple or individual who desire to have a child.<\/li>\n
  • Anti-surrogacy groups have called the decision to award parental rights to the elderly couples “unethical” and an “appalling loophole” that allows people to skirt the UK’s “domestic ban on commercial surrogacy practices.”<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    THE DETAILS:<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    A husband and wife, both 72, recently won a court battle<\/a> to become the legal parents of a 14-month-old boy born through surrogacy in California using the husband’s sperm and a donor egg. This is despite an acknowledgement from Mrs. Justice Knowles that the couple will be 82 when the boy begins secondary school and nearly 90 (if they live that long) when he reaches adulthood.<\/p>\n

    \u201cThey have begun parenting at a time in their lives when, despite their current good health, it is foreseeable that their health will decline and that one or both of them will become seriously incapacitated or die before B reaches his majority,\u201d said the Justice.<\/p>\n

    Yet because there is no one else to care for him, Justice Knowles still gave her permission, and even used the case as a de facto encouragement for others to follow suit, calling it an \u201cimportant welfare issue” and claiming it “offers some advice for those who may, in future, engage in a foreign or other surrogacy arrangement.”<\/p>\n