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21 Med. L. Int'l 3 (2021)

handle is hein.journals/medclint21 and id is 1 raw text is: MEDICAL LAW Article INTERNATIONAL The ECtHR's first advisory opinion: Implications for cross-border surrogacy involving male intended parents Medical Law International 2021, Vol. 21(1) 3-18 ŠThe Author(s) 2021 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/09685332211002592 journals.sagepub.com/home/mli OSAGE Lydia Bracken University of Limerick, Ireland Abstract This article examines the content and scope of the European Court of Human Rights's first advisory opinion as regards the practice of cross-border surrogacy in Europe. While the advisory opinion concerns the recognition of the legal parentage of an intended mother, this article considers whether the reasoning could be applied to male couples who avail of surrogacy. It is argued that the non-genetically related intended father in the male couple is in a directly comparable position to the non-genetically related intended mother in the opposite-sex couple for the purpose of legal parentage following surrogacy. Keywords Advisory opinion, ECtHR, male couple, cross-border surrogacy Received 2 December 2020; Revised 2 December 2020; Accepted 23 February 2021 Introduction In its first-ever advisory opinion issued under Article 1 of Protocol No. 16 to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) found that the right to respect for private life of a child born abroad through gestational surrogacy demanded that a mechanism should exist to allow the child's relationship with their intended mother to be recognised under domestic law where Corresponding author: Lydia Bracken, School of Law, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland. Email: lydia.bracken@ul.ie