Black Friday meant good luck for many children born through surrogacy – and their parents
Friday the 13th, Black Friday, is normally a day of doom and gloom- when things go wrong. However, Black Friday, 13 December 2024 was a good day for many children born through surrogacy – and their parents.
On that date, the Family Law Regulations 1984 (Cth) were replaced by the Family Law Regulations 2024 (Cth), the usual reaction to which would be a yawn.
However, a technical change in the new Regulations has meant that the parentage of many children born overseas through surrogacy has now been rendered certain.
Section 69R of the Family Law Act was long seen as a dead letter for children born overseas. It sets out that a person named on a birth certificate is presumed to be a parent of the child- if the birth certificate issued under an Australian state or territory law- or that of a prescribed overseas jurisdiction. The problem was that no overseas jurisdiction was every prescribed.
Until 13th December 2024. On that day, many countries were prescribed. Therefore, when children have been born there and have a birth certificate issued there, the people named on the birth certificate as their parents are presumed to be their parents under Australian law. Many of these countries are where Australians have undertaken surrogacy:
Surrogacy destination
- Brazil
- Canada – all except Quebec
- Colombia
- Denmark
- Greece
- Guatemala
- India
- Ireland
- Israel
- Kazakhstan
- Kenya
- Kyrgyzstan
- Mexico
- New Zealand
- South Africa
- Sri Lanka
- Ukraine
- United Kingdom
- United States of America
In my view, the changes apply to children born both before and after 13 December 2024.
