Natalie writes for Infertility Network UK magazine: Sperm donors given rights of contact – surely not?

Natalie writes a regular article for the magazine published for UK fertility patients by leading charity Infertility Network UK.  Natalie’s article this quarter discusses sperm donation and the legal rights donors have if they want contact with their genetic offspring.  Read: Sperm donors given rights of contact – surely not?

Infertility Network UK is the UK’s leading national infertility charity, dedicated to supporting everyone affected by infertility and leaders of the National Infertility Awareness Campaign for fair and equitable access to NHS funding for fertility treatment.  You can find out more about the wonderful work I N UK does athttp://www.infertilitynetworkuk.com/ or come and meet them at the Fertility Show, taking place as part of National Infertility Awareness Week 28 October to 3 November.

If you want to know more about lesbian parenting or sperm donation law, there is more information on our website.

NGA at the Alternative Parenting Show 2013

Our team had a great day exhibiting at this year’s Alternative Parenting Show on Saturday.  The popular show – which has been running for 3 years – is held in central London and is often a first port of call for parents looking for information about building families in alternative ways.  We were there representing the leading legal work that Natalie Gamble Associates has done for alternative families over many years, on same sex parenting, international surrogacy and fertility law.  It was great to meet so many parents-to-be with questions about their situations, and to catch up with other leaders in the field, including Stonewall, the London Women’s Clinic, PrideAngel, New Family Social, the Donor Conception Network, and the HFEA.

There was also a lot of interest in our new non profit making sister agency Brilliant Beginnings, with a buzz around the hall and discussion in the seminars about the new option for UK intended parents and the changes Brilliant Beginnings is fighting for.  The seminars (on surrogacy, adoption, donor conception and fertility treatment) were also a great source of information for parents planning families, with various NGA legal cases explained.

There was a really great energy – as always – about alternative families of all shapes and sizes.  Every year the APS makes us reflect on how far we have come since we started working in this field, and how positive the landscape now is for everyone who wants to create a family.  Roll on the APS 2014…

You can see more photos on our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/nataliegambleassociates

There is more information about the law for gay dads, lesbian mums and single mums and single dads on our website.

Natalie speaks at leading conference, with Supreme Court justice Baroness Hale

Natalie was delighted to speak alongside Baroness Hale at a leading conference in London on 20-21 June hosted by academics at the Morgan Centre and gathering leading UK and international experts in donor conception and alternative reproduction.

Baroness Hale of Richmond (first woman Justice of the Supreme Court, and former chair of the committee which drafted the very first HFEA Code of Practice in 1990) gave the conference opening address, speaking about the law for ‘new families’ and how the family courts have sought to uphold the welfare of the child in a range of cases involving donor conception, lesbian parenting and surrogacy.

Natalie, invited to give the response to Lady Hale’s address, shared her practical perspective of the issues affecting non-traditional families on the ground.  She talked about the deficiencies of current UK law on surrogacy, and how important the new legal rights are for same sex parents.  She discussed how complex and divisive known donor disputes can be, and how in practice unequal biological or legal parentage between separating parents can raise temperatures significantly.  But she also noted that many parents conceiving in non-traditional ways do so with enormous care and planning, and stressed that the success stories should be remembered as well as the difficult cases which come to court.

A range of eminent speakers on sociological, international and practical aspects of donor conception then addressed the conference, including leading academics from Manchester and Cambridge University, experienced practitioners at fertility clinics, experts in bioethics and international lawyers from Scandinavia (with Denmark being one of the world’s leading suppliers of donor sperm).  Professor Carol Smart and Dr Petra Nordqvist, who hosted the conference, presented the results of their fascinating research project on donor conception, which has explored the feelings of parents and grandparents in different family forms about the implications of having conceived a child with the help of a donor.

You can read Natalie’s response to Baroness Hale here, or find out more about our campaigning work.  You can also find out more about the Morgan Centre’s research: Relative strangers – a key new study of information sharing and senses of connectedness in donor conceived families.