Surrogacy ban underscored in France

France’s top court refused citizenship for the ten year old twin girls who were born in the US to an American surrogate. The ruling strongly underscored the country’s ban against surrogacy, apparently inside or outside the borders.

The case straddles international law. The top court proclaimed that a California court exceeded its authority by naming the French couple who contracted the surrogacy services the legal parents thus granting French citizenship to the US born babies.

The case shows how slow laws are to follow social trends. Many countries do not recognize the unique circumstances of these births. France refuses to recognize them at all and even outlaws surrogacy within its borders.

The twin girls were born using the father’s sperm and a donor egg. When the US court recognized the French couple as the parents, that action allowed them to put the girls on the French civil registry, a necessary step toward acquiring official documentation like a passport.

A lower court stripped the girls of their citizenship and removed them from the registry when it was informed of the donor egg and US birth. The girls have US citizenship by virtue of their birth in the United States. The French high court, the Court of Cassation, supported the ruling.

The family is appealing to the Court of Human Rights and hope a bill in France’s parliament will take the girls out of the limbo they find themselves in, through no fault of their own.

Source: The New York Times, Sify