Reproductive technologies are leading to more and more complicated family relationships. Now an unnamed woman is set to make history in the UK by acting as a surrogate for her brother and his gay partner – making her both the mother and aunt of the same baby.

The same-sex couple has applied for fertility treatment at the London Women’s Clinic. Dr Kamal Ahuja, the LWC’s scientific director, said its ethics committee was considering the application, along with another by two men who want to have a child, with a female colleague acting as surrogate. These two applications are the first the LWC has received from gay men.

Since April, two men can be named parents on a birth certificate. Special ‘parenting orders’ can be granted to gay men so they are recognised as the legal parents of a child, not the surrogate who gave birth to the baby. The LWC was one of the UK’s first to welcome lesbians for donor insemination. Several hundred babies have been born to same-sex couples since then, and the proportion of gay patients has risen to almost a third from 7%. ~ Daily Mail, Nov 11