Tag: third party reproduction

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Surrogate pregnancies on rise despite cost hurdles

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6578-000099But the Chicago advertising executive never expected she would have to sell her house, drop out of business school and move back in with her parents to tackle costs associated with hiring the surrogate mother who delivered a healthy baby girl on her behalf earlier this year.

She joins the selective but growing ranks of would-be parents – primarily upscale professionals with ample discretionary cash – turning to gestational surrogates to help them fulfill their dreams of having biologically connected children. This differs from traditional surrogacy, in which the surrogate is the child’s genetic mother.

But the costs faced by people working with gestational surrogates are daunting, with few options outside of creative self-funding or high-priced loans.

“I felt like movie stars do that,” said DiSantis, who despite a six-figure-plus income struggled with expenses that she said ultimately approached $300,000. “I didn’t know what it was or how it worked.” Read full article.

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Surrogate mother had the right to choose

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istock_000017606854xsmall(CNN) — If you can come up with a tale that better illustrates America’s messed-up moral views on abortion, parenting and personal freedom than the story of Crystal Kelley — the surrogate mother who was offered $10,000 by the parents to abort the fetus she was carrying for them — then you’ve got a better imagination than I do.

Let’s run through the story quickly: Kelley had agreed to be a surrogate and was being paid $2,222 a month by the parents for her trouble. But an ultrasound scan of the fetus showed serious abnormalities. Fearing that the child would never lead a normal life — whatever that may be — the parents asked Kelley to abort.

Although the surrogacy agreement contained a clause to this effect, Kelley refused. This is where things became, to put it charitably, unseemly.

The parents offered Kelly an extra $10,000 to terminate the pregnancy. Although she said she was against abortion for religious and moral reasons, Kelley eventually thought she might be able to quash those ethical qualms if the parents paid her $15,000 — $5,000 apparently being the difference between “against” and “fine with it.” The parents refused, and Kelley says she regretted the offer. Read full article.

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Genetic mother of twins wins historic Irish surrogacy case

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Dublin CourtsThe genetic mother of twins born through a surrogate pregnancy has won her court battle to be declared the legal mother on the children’s birth certificates.

In this landmark case the genetic mother defeated the Irish government. In the past Ireland had refused the mother’s demands to be recorded as a parent on the children’s birth certs. The Irish State’s defense for their stance had been the 1937 constitution, which states that the woman who gives birth to the baby is recorded as the mother.

On Tuesday Dublin High Court Justice Henry Abbott said that these 1937 laws governing birth certificates and parentage needed to be updated to reflect the growing use of artificial insemination, embryo implantation, and other fertility techniques.

The genetic mother in question, whose identity is withheld under Irish law, had been declared medically unable to carry her child. Her sister volunteered to serve as a surrogate mother. Read full article.

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Illegal purchase of sperm, eggs and surrogacy services leads to 27 charges against Canadian fertility company and CEO

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reproductive laws CFCFor nine years, the criminal law in Canada has prohibited anyone from buying human eggs or sperm or the services of a surrogate mother.

For just as long, it has been common knowledge in the fertility-treatment field — and easily confirmed by anyone with Internet access — that such commercial transactions routinely take place, conveniently free of enforcement action.

That all changed Friday, with news that an Ontario surrogacy consultant and her company had been charged with 27 offences under both assisted-reproduction legislation and the Criminal Code, capping a groundbreaking, year-long investigation.

The charges laid by RCMP investigators against Leia Picard and her Canadian Fertility Consultants (CFC) in Brighton, Ont. — the firm also has a branch in Comox, B.C. — stunned the thriving assisted-reproduction industry, while also raising questions about whether the neglected legislation itself is even needed. Critics applauded what they considered long-overdue action. Read full article.

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When the Law Says a Parent Isn’t a Parent

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Reproductive battleIt is easy to interpret the popularity of a network television series like “Modern Family” as proof that we have mainstreamed the various and sweeping ways domestic life has reshaped itself over the past two decades. A nation of squares would not embrace a comedy about a badly dressed, middle-aged gay couple raising an adopted Vietnamese baby, we tell ourselves, no matter what they might say in Copenhagen or Berlin.

Gay rights are moving forward; single women now account for 41 percent of all births. Americans build caring families with lovers, friends and neighbors; from one-night stands and anonymous providers of genetic material. And yet, even in a place as progressive as New York, the legal system has been slow to synchronize to these altered realities.

It is hard to imagine anyone experiencing this more viscerally right now than a man named Jonathan Sporn, a 54-year-old pharmaceuticals executive living on the Upper West Side, who in a sense has fallen prey to a system that excessively privileges the conventional family models from which there seems to be a growing exodus. Read full article.

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Sperm donors who know parents can apply to see children, court rules

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spermSperm donors who know the parents to whom they have donated can apply for contact with their biological children, a court has ruled. Previously this was not allowed.

Following Thursday’s ruling straight and gay couples who are considering conceiving using a sperm donor they know are being urged to establish the childrearing equivalent of a pre-nuptial agreement – a co-parenting deal.

The case, the first of its kind, involves two lesbian couples who were friends with a gay male couple. All three couples are in civil partnerships. One of the gay men is the biological father of both the children of one of the lesbian couples, the other man is the biological father of one child who is being brought up by the second lesbian couple.

The male couple applied to the family court for contact and residency of their biological children. The women contested the application, saying that this would infringe on their family life, but lost. Under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act same-sex couples are legal parents of children conceived through donated sperm, eggs or embryos in the same way that heterosexual couples are. Read full article.

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India Bars Same-Sex Couples From Using Surrogates

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Officials from India’s government announced that gay couples and single individuals from other countries who wish to start a family are prohibited from using the country’s popular surrogate program, New Delhi Television Limited reports.

India’s surrogacy program is a growing industry. Over the past few years, foreign couples, both gay and straight, have taken advantage of the country’s low-cost and legally simple way to access a surrogate. The new measure, however, not only bars same-sex couples from using the surrogates but also leaves gay couples who already started the process in limbo.

The new rules state that only straight couples who have been married for more than two years can use India’s surrogacy program. Notified by the change from a message on the Indian Home Ministry’s website, fertility clinics and LGBT rights activists termed the move “discriminatory”.

“It’s totally unfair – not only for gay people but for people who are not married who may have been living together for years and for singles,” Mumbai gay rights advocate Nitin Karani said.

“Parenting is everybody’s right and now we’re withdrawing that right,” Dr. Rita Bakshi, who is the head of the International Fertility Centre in New Delhi, said. “These rules are definitely not welcome, definitely restrictive and very discriminatory.” Read full article.

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Kan. case reveals risks with assisted reproduction

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The case of a Kansas sperm donor being sued by the state for child support underscores a confusing patchwork of aging laws that govern assisted reproduction in the United States and often lead to litigation and frustration among would-be parents.

Complex questions about parental responsibility resurfaced late last year, as Kansas officials went after a Topeka man who answered a Craigslist ad from a lesbian couple seeking a sperm donor. Because no doctor was involved in the artificial insemination, the state sought to hold William Marotta financially responsible for the child when the women split up and one of them sought public assistance. A hearing is set for April.

Many states haven’t updated their laws to address the evolution of family structures — such as same-sex families, single women conceiving with donated sperm or artificial inseminations performed without a doctor’s involvement. At-home insemination kits are inexpensive, and obtaining sperm from a friend, or even a donor met over the Internet, allows women to avoid medical costs that generally aren’t covered by insurance. Read full article.

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Should commercial surrogacy be made legal in Britain?

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More and more heterosexual and same-sex couples in Britain are turning to surrogate mothers to help them have a family.

This month, singer Sir Elton John and his civil partner, film producer David Furnish, welcomed their second son into the world.

Both children were born to the same surrogate mother through an agency in California, where commercial surrogacy is legal and surrogates can be paid.

While surrogacy is legal in Britain, it is a criminal offence to pay a surrogate mother more than ‘reasonable expenses’ and it is also illegal to advertise that you are seeking a surrogate mother or willing to act as one.

Couples here wanting to have a baby through surrogacy can travel to somewhere like the US where they can use a professional agency, or they can find a willing surrogate here, often through the help of non-profit organisations which host social events and online forums where surrogates and intended parents can meet. Read full article.

 

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Activists: Topeka sperm donor case opportunity for change

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By Aly Van Dyke

THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL

As divisive as Kansas’ child support claim against a sperm donor to a lesbian couple is, activists on both sides of the issue can agree on a couple of things: first, that the case is an opportunity for change, and second, that its implications reach beyond same sex unions.

Organizations that support gay and lesbian rights say the claim is politically motivated but can be used as an opportunity to give rights to same sex partners.

For conservative groups, it is a chance for Kansas to reinforce its laws protecting traditional marriage. They offered arguments about how same sex parenthood is damaging to the children to such unions and supported the state’s claim against sperm donor William Marotta, 46.

But both sides said the issue currently set before the Shawnee County District Court goes beyond the usual arguments surrounding the legalization of gay marriage in America. It deals with adoption and the relatively untouched issue of artificial insemination — and, as such, has implications for heterosexual couples as well. Read full article.