A Monash expert is available to comment on the Parentage (Surrogacy) Amendment Bill which was introduced into the ACT Parliament on Tuesday 31 October.
Dr Ronli Sifris, Deputy Director, Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, Associate Professor, Monash Faculty of Law
Contact details: +61 3 9903 4840 or [email protected]
Read more of Dr Sifris’ commentary at Monash Lens
The following comments can be attributed to Dr Sifris:
“On Tuesday, 31 October, the Parentage (Surrogacy) Amendment Bill 2023 was introduced into the ACT Parliament. The Bill purports to address existing gaps and better align the ACT’s surrogacy laws with other Australian jurisdictions. It also purports to improve access to altruistic surrogacy arrangements in the ACT by removing unnecessary and discriminatory barriers.
“The Bill will replace the term ‘substitute parent’ with ‘intended parent’, allows single people to become parents through surrogacy, removes the requirement for at least one intended parent to be ‘a genetic parent of the child’ born through surrogacy, allows the surrogate to use her own eggs, and removes restrictions on advertising for surrogacy arrangements.
“The Bill also opens the door to allowing intended parents of children born through compensated surrogacy arrangements to be recognised as the legal parents – but they must show that the child will otherwise suffer a ‘pressing disadvantage’. It remains to be seen how this will be interpreted.
“While the Bill expands the definition of a ‘reasonable expense’ that the surrogate can be reimbursed, the prohibition on compensated surrogacy remains in place and the offence of compensated surrogacy remains one of extra-territorial operation.”
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