Source Irish Times
Parents who have had children by surrogacy are put off returning because of a legal limbo
After tens of thousands of dollars spent on IVF over three years, Jay O’Callaghan and his husband, Aaron O’Bryan, became a family in 2017 when their son, Jake, was born through surrogacy in Toronto, where the couple have lived for seven years.
On Jake’s Canadian birth certificate, both O’Callaghan and O’Bryan are listed as his parents, but under current Irish family law, neither has any legal rights over their son.
In Ireland, the surrogate mother and her husband would be considered Jake’s legal parents, even though she has no biological connection to Jake – a donor egg was used – and relinquished all rights.
