Source Independent
Proposals to regulate surrogacy run the risk of leaving new parents being handed over a baby in a hospital car park, the Oireachtas health committee has heard.
Dr Deirdre Madden, of the School of Law in Cork, was commenting on the General Scheme of the Assisted Human Reproduction Bill 2017, which plans to legislate for fertility and related treatments.
She said the proposals in relation to surrogacy should be changed.
Parents who are using a surrogate to have a child for them should be given legal rights during pregnancy, she said.
The law proposes it happens after birth.
This could lead to hospitals not allowing the handover of the child by the birth mother to the new parents in the hospital, and there have been reports of this transfer in car parks in some cases in the UK, she said.