The judgment in M (A Child: Leave to Oppose Adoption) illustrates the confusion relating to the requirements which a parent must meet in order to make a last-minute attempt to prevent a child from being adopted.
In 2023, Kettering NHS Trust applied for an anticipatory declaration for a child in utero to be treated with anti-retroviral medication immediately after birth. The respondent, a Romanian woman, was in hospital awaiting the imminent birth of the child. The woman had been opposed to medication of her child but had finally agreed to its administration.
In Re A (2003), HHJ Cobb decided that a child should not be returned to Australia when his mother retained him in the UK against the wishes of his father.
In their recent report on surrogacy, the Law Commissions of England and Wales, and Scotland (LCs), maintained that their recommendations would provide: ‘a robust new system to govern surrogacy, which will work better for children, surrogates and intended parents’. In my critique of the report, I have summarised its recommendations and suggest that they may not fulfil the Commissions’ optimism.