Surrogacy judgment reserved

A Cape Town woman will have to wait a bit longer to hear whether she will be able to conceive a baby after a 13-year battle.

Yesterday, the Pretoria High Court reserved judgment in a challenge to South Africa's surrogacy law, which requires a genetic link from at least one of the commissioning parents.

The woman, 56, and the non-profit Surrogacy Advisory Group have taken Minister of Social Development Bathabile Dlamini to court, arguing that the genetic link requirement is unconstitutional.

Yesterday, advocate Nelly Cassim, for the minister, argued that the rights of any children born as a result of surrogacy would be compromised if the genetic link requirement was removed, and that the children would never know their biological parents and their genetic origins.

Karabo Ngidi, lawyer for the University of Pretoria's Centre for Child Law, argued that the genetic link should remain as a requirement for surrogacy, but that the law should allow for exceptional circumstances if, for instance, a close relative or a long-time friend is willing to donate their gametes.