Surrogate children have no right to German passport, court rules
By The Local,
The Local [Germany]
| 04. 28. 2011
The court in Berlin ruled that the German embassy in India was within its rights to refuse a passport to the child, born in December, on the grounds that the citizenship of the biological father was irrelevant to the case.
Surrogate motherhood is prohibited in Germany. It is permitted in India. But under both German and Indian law, the legal father of a child born by surrogacy is actually the surrogate mother’s husband.
The biological father in this case was a German man born in 1950. He and his wife applied at the German embassy in India for the child to get a German passport.
The embassy rejected the application because it doubted the child’s German citizenship. The birth certificate from the hospital recorded the German man and his wife as the parents. The place of birth was recorded as an agency that specializes in surrogacy.
German citizenship is normally recorded if one of the parents has it. But the court ruled that doubts about this relationship were grounds for refusing a passport. In this case, the citizenship of the... see more
Related Articles
Adapted from Mitochondrial DNA at
National Human Genome Research Institute
The Guardian reports that “a small number of babies” with DNA from three people have now been born in the UK. The exact number has not been disclosed; it is less than five but more than one. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), the government agency that regulates the process, revealed that much in response to a freedom of information request, and noted in a rather terse statement that...
By Claire Moses, The New York Times | 04.28.2023
A man who has fathered between 550 and 600 children over the past 16 years is not allowed to donate any more sperm to prospective parents, a court in the Netherlands ruled on Friday.
According to The Hague District Court...
By Emma Bubola, The New York Times | 04.18.2023
The couple had dreams of a big family. They would have five children, who would have their father’s mop of curls, his smile and dreamy eyes. They would teach the children how to paint and make pottery and take them...
By Ellen Trachman, Above the Law | 04.05.2023
Jonathan Jacob Meijer, a 41-year-old Dutch musician, may have merely been doing a kind and generous act when he first started donating his sperm to help hopeful parents. But where does generosity become creepy? And when does the creepy...
