Family Law & Fertility Law Blog | Louisa Ghevaert Associates

Later life parenthood: a fertility and family law perspective

Latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that the number of women over 40 giving birth has risen to record levels in England and Wales. In contrast, fewer than one in 10 women aged between 25 and 30 had a baby last year. This growing trend in later life parenthood is driven by a number of factors and it is likely to intensify as a result of the continued global Covid-19 pandemic. It brings with it a range of complex legal, medical and wider issues.

Direct to consumer genetic testing: a family and fertility law perspective

A decision to undertake a direct to consumer genetic test is a big step. In addition to offering insight into an individual’s health and disease risk, it can help trace a biological parent and biological relatives. In doing so, it can raise complex and challenging legal and wider issues about paternity and maternity, infidelity, the nature of family relationships, birth certificates, financial and inheritance claims and citizenship and nationality.

Why we need fertility and wider law reform part III

There is increasingly a need to implement intelligent fertility and wider law reform and develop new policies and practices. The world around us is changing at pace and we must adapt to a range of powerful and inter-connected factors: declining fertility levels, fallout from the Covid-19 global pandemic, changing geopolitics, intensification of genomic, digital and AI technology revolutions.

The importance of legal parentage

The significance of legal parentage should not be underestimated. Legal parentage establishes a legal parent-child relationship in law and it confers status, as well as various important legal rights and responsibilities. It does not always follow biological parentage or birth registration. Furthermore, the law can be complex, particularly in cases involving assisted conception and modern family forms, and challenging to resolve when disputes arise.

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