24 September 2025
The British Fertility Society Creating Modern Families Day took place on 23 September 2025 in London as part of BFS Study Week. It delivered an excellent multi-disciplinary training programme that was well attended by fertility clinicians, embryologists, nurses, counsellors and other fertility professionals. Louisa Ghevaert was delighted to be invited back as a speaker to give a surrogacy law update and take part in a lively question and answer panel addressing complex fertility and family law issues in practice.
Images: Louisa Ghevaert, CEO & Founder, Louisa Ghevaert Associates, Grace Fletcher Account Manager Born Donor Bank, Sarah Norcross Director Progress Educational Trust
The BFS Creating Modern Families Day 2025 started with video presentations giving fertility patient and donor perspectives by Rhona Brown (patient) and Anupa Roper (egg donor). Hayley King then delivered a session giving perspectives of a donor conceived person who has also used a donor to create her own family. This was followed by Dr Alka Prakash’s session which looked at treating single women and same sex female couples at UK fertility clinics. Dr Carole Gilling-Smith’s session went on to discuss egg and embryo donation pathways for modern family building.
Images: Dr Alka Prakash Consultant in Reproductive Medicine and Clinical lead st Cambridge IVF, Dr Carole Gilling-Smith CEO Founder and Medical Director of the Agora Group, James Lawford Davies of LDMH Partners
This was followed by two legal lectures, the first of which was provided by James Lawford Davies covering regulation and legal aspects when using donor gametes. Louisa Ghevaert then delivered a surrogacy law update which discussed recent trends and numbers of people undertaking surrogacy in England and Wales. It also looked at surrogacy law reform in the UK. Additionally, it covered developments in domestic (UK) surrogacy case law. This included recent surrogacy case law rulings in the English Family Court, including medical complications during a surrogate pregnancy and serious injury giving birth and posthumous conception and surrogacy.
Image: Louisa Ghevaert, CEO & Founder, Louisa Ghevaert Associates
Danya Harris then provided an insightful session which looked at the challenges and solutions following the opening of the HFEA Donor Register in 2023, which now enables qualifying donor conceived individuals to obtain identifying information about their donor. The afternoon session started with a lively Question and Answer panel where James, Louisa and Danya answered a range of legal questions relating to clinical practice, fertility treatment delivery, donor conception, surrogacy, posthumous conception and modern family building.
Images: Danya Harris Donor Information Manager at the Human Fertilisation & Embryology Authority, James Lawford Davies of LDMH Partners and Louisa Ghevaert CEO & Founder Louisa Ghevaert Associates
James Barrett, a Consultant and expert in Cross Gender Identity, gave an informative presentation on fertility preservation for trans individuals and related fertility treatment issues. This was followed by Claire Rutherford’s, Clinic Director at Care Fertility, session which looked at supporting cross-border reproductive care. Caroline Spencer then led a session explaining the role of counselling in contemporary family creation. Professor Vasanti Jadva’s session presented recent longitudinal research findings about outcomes for families formed through surrogacy and assisted conception. This was followed by Anya Siza’s session which looked at the realities of adoption.
Images: James Barrett Consultant and expert in Cross Gender Identity, Claire Rutherford Clinic Director at Care Fertility
The BFS Modern Families day 2025 concluded with a session sponsored by IBSA which looked at the impact of Adenomyosis on fertility treatment by Dr Pedro Melo Senior Clinical Research Fellow in Women’s and Reproductive Health and Honorary Consultant Gynaecologist and Subspecialist in Reproductive Medicine. Thank you to the British Fertility Society for a highly informative and varied training programme and the opportunity to discuss best practices in delivering fertility treatment and modern family creation.
Images: Dr Ippokratis Sarris Consultant in Reproductive Medicine and the Director of King’s Fertility, Louisa Ghevaert CEO & Founder Louisa Ghevaert Associates, Jo Elliott Fertility Key Account Manager at Gideon Richter
Need a Fertility, Surrogacy, Donor Conception, Posthumous Conception or Modern Family Lawyer?
Fertility treatment, donor conception, surrogacy, posthumous conception and modern family formation creates complex issues from a legal and practical perspective.This makes it important to put in place effective legal strategies to effectively plan preconception and fertility, pregnancy, birth, family life during and after death.
To find out more about fertility treatment law click here.
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If you need advisory, consultancy or legal assistance to put in place effective strategies to manage preconception, fertility treatment and global family building, pregnancy, birth and family life contact Louisa Ghevaert by email louisa@louisaghevaertassociates.co.uk or telephone +44 (0)20 7965 8399.
Images: Louisa Ghevaert, CEO & Founder, Louisa Ghevaert Associates
