Sarah Jefford OAM is honoured to be have been awarded a Churchill Fellowship from the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust. Sarah will head overseas in 2025, to research best practice surrogacy frameworks to inform law reform in Australia.

More than 1,000 applications are received by the Trust each year, and 103 Fellowships were awarded in 2024. Sarah was grateful for support for her application from Judge Harland of the Family Court and Federal Circuit Court of Australia, and surrogacy counsellor Narelle Dickinson – herself also a Churchill Fellow.

The Trust’s purpose – to learn globally and inspire locally – is delivered via the Churchill Fellowship, offering Australians life-changing opportunities to travel overseas and learn more about an issue that they are passionate about. The Trust was established in 1965 following the death of Sir Winston Churchill and was formed with the principal objective of perpetuating and honouring Sir Winston’s memory.

To complete the Churchill Fellowship, Sarah will travel around the world and learn from experts, lawyers, academics, law makers, industry professionals, intended parents and surrogates about international surrogacy frameworks and campaigns for change. Sarah’s travel will include the International Surrogacy Forum in Cape Town, South Africa in March 2025, then London, Ireland, Canada and the United States of America. Sarah is excited to visit Puerto Rico for the Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorneys conference, and will finish the trip by attending the Society of Ethics in Egg Donation and Surrogacy (SEEDS) conference in the USA in May.

Sarah hopes her project will raise awareness and accessibility for surrogacy in Australia, and reduce the need for Australians to engage in international surrogacy.

Surrogacy in Australia is altruistic. We know there are only about 130-150 surrogacy births across Australia, and more than 300 babies born overseas for Australian intended parents each year. There are many risks in cross-border surrogacy, particularly in countries where it is poorly regulated. So why is it so difficult in Australia, and easier for many intended parents to head overseas? And what can we do to make it more accessible and affordable to engage in surrogacy in Australia? How can we help surrogates and intended parents find each other via professionally supported ethical services? Should surrogates be compensated? Sarah’s Churchill Fellowship project hopes to find some answers.

Are you a surrogacy professional, researcher or law maker and open to be interviewed by Sarah as part of the Churchill Fellowship? You are welcome to reach out, we’d love to chat!

Sarah has published a book, More Than Just a Baby: A Guide to Surrogacy for Intended Parents and Surrogates, the only guide to surrogacy in Australia.