Thailand: Commercial Surrogacy Ban Gains Support

New York Times, December 1, 2014

Associated Press – The interim Parliament has given initial approval to a bill banning commercial surrogacy, the practice of hiring a woman to carry a fetus to term, a lawmaker said Friday. Thailand was rocked by surrogacy scandals this year, including the case of an Australian couple who took home a healthy baby girl born from a Thai surrogate mother but left behind her twin brother who had Down syndrome, and a case involving a Japanese man who fathered at least 16 babies with Thai surrogates.

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India to have new surrogacy law soon

November 16, 2014 – FirstPost.com

New Delhi, Nov 16 (IANS) Much in the news for all the wrong reasons, surrogacy in India will soon be a regulated sector with the government bringing in a law to govern all aspects of the process like compensation, age and consent of the surrogate mother.

“The final draft bill is now lying with the law ministry and, after being cleared, will be presented before the cabinet for approval,” V.M. Katoch, secretary, department of health research under the health ministry, told IANS.

Surrogacy is a method of reproduction where a woman – the surrogate – agrees to carry a pregnancy to term for a fee.

A study backed by the United Nations in July 2012 estimated that surrogacy is a more than $400 million business a year in India, with over 3,000 fertility clinics across the country.

India now has only the guidelines the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) released in 2002.

In Oct 2008, the Supreme Court ruled that “commercial surrogacy is legal and an industry in India”, making it a legally protected and viable option for international couples.

Named the Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Bill, 2013, it seeks to address issues like how many pregnancies can be allowed for a surrogate mother, the age of the mother and due compensation to be paid to her.

“The issues addressed in the bill are compensation, informed consent and health of the women involved,” Katoch said.

He said that the bill might also provide a punishment framework for violators.

It has been cleared after rounds of discussions with various ministries and could be passed as early as the winter session of parliament in November-December, said Katoch, who is also the ICMR chief.

The bill will also provide a framework for letting foreigners use Indian surrogate mothers.

Surrogacy in India has always been a controversial subject with activists blaming foreigners for exploiting poor women.

In 2012, an Australian couple left behind one of the twins born to an Indian surrogate mother because they could not afford to bring up two children back home.

Earlier in 2010, a German couple, Jan Balaz and Susan Lohle, had to wait for two years before they could take their twin babies home.

Their twin sons, Nikolas and Leonard, were trapped in a citizenship limbo ever since an Indian surrogate mother gave birth to them in February 2008.

The boys were refused passports by their parents’ homeland because German nationality is determined by the birth mother. The issue was finally settled after a prolonged court battle.

Centre for Social Research Director Ranjana Kumari told IANS: “Surrogate motherhood has grown exponentially in India to become part of a thriving globalized industry.

However, it raises difficult ethical, philosophical and social issues”.

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in In the News / International / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Gay Men Creating Families Through Surrogacy

villageq.com by on November 17, 2014

On Sunday, November 2nd, Men Having Babies hosted its 10th annual workshop in New York City in an effort to bring together prospective parents, service providers, and experts on the subject of surrogacy. I spoke with a number of participants and attendees who agreed that surrogacy is becoming a more accessible and normative option for gay men looking to start families. Still, surrogacy in the United States presents the kind of obstacles Odysseus faced on his return to Ithaca after the fall of Troy. Men Having Babies tries to take the Sirens and Cyclops out of the equation by hosting these surrogacy workshops, which prove to be an oasis of information and resources. The gods were definitely with everyone that day, providing a safer passage on rocky seas.

“We started 15 years ago. It was literally just a handful of men at The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center who really wanted to gather as much information as we could,” explained Anthony Brown, Chairman of the board at Men Having Babies. “We invited service providers in and basically anybody who could answer the questions that we had. We did it in the form of monthly workshops which we still have the 2nd Wednesday of every month, 6:30-8PM here at the JCC (in New York City), and people can also go online at menhavingbabies.org to events, workshops for information on the whole schedule.”

While surrogacy provides an option for infertile straight couples, Men Having Babies structures panels and break-out sessions specifically for gay men. The speakers at the conference dealt with many of the issues gay men face on their surrogacy journey. Costs are very high. Surrogacy laws and LGBT discrimination laws vary from state to state and can be prohibitive. Surrogacy is unregulated, which means that participants are vulnerable to unethical practices. Fortunately, the prospective parents at Men Having Babies workshop benefit from the knowledge and experience of those who have gone down this path previously and were able to speak to the issues at hand.

THE PRICE TAG

Adding up the cost of egg donors, surrogates, agency fees, legal costs, and trips to visit surrogates, a couple could face a bill close to $150,000, not to mention the emotional costs that accompany the process. Finding the right surrogate and negotiating the kind of relationship a couple wants to have with her can be tricky not to mention the reality of failed transfers or failed pregnancies.

International surrogacy is much less expensive at about one-third of the cost of domestic surrogacy. However, while the financial stresses may be alleviated, some agencies may not act as ethically as others, exploiting poor women for their own economic gain. It is important for prospective parents to do their homework in sourcing agencies who work with surrogates who are financially stable.

I spoke with Ralph, a New Jersey father of three via two different surrogates in the United States. He said, “Neither of our surrogates needed the money. They were solidly middle class. They wanted to do it, and that was important to us. In general, the better agencies wouldn’t allow a woman to come into the program if it was a life and death situation for her.”

Men Having Babies, which is a nonprofit organization, recognized the economic barrier of surrogacy and started a financial relief service, Gay Parent Assistance Program (GPAP). Funding comes from surrogacy agencies that contribute to the GPAP program. Those agencies then receive discounts on the fees to participate in Men Having Babies events. Agencies benefit from partnering with Men Having Babies seminars in major markets such as New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Tel Aviv, and Brussels.

THE WILD WEST AND NO SHERIFF IN TOWN

A major obstacle for egg donors, surrogates, and gay men is that surrogacy is unregulated in the United States. There is no licensing body, and there are no requirements requiring agencies to know anything about the law or psychology or insurance or anything else that may support or protect parties from embarking on this journey. Because surrogacy laws are handled at the state level, there is no opportunity for the federal government to enforce laws to protect surrogates and hopeful parents. Recommendations and track records are important factors when shopping for providers.

Egg donors and surrogates face a significant amount of risk if they do not have sufficient support. There are no requirements to educate women about the physical tolls that result from donating eggs and carrying babies. Ralph echoed the opinion of many dads at the workshop when he said, “It shouldn’t be easy for young women to donate a zillion times and risk their health and fertility.”

Unfortunately, for some surrogacy agencies, money is more important than providing would-be parents with a family. Attendant and hopeful father Doron said, “I have dealt with a few agencies, some better than others. This is an industry. It’s a business. There are good people and bad people, and I landed with some bad people.”

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in IVF / Known Donor / Legal / Legislation / Parenting / Second Parent Adoption / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Paternity Leave: The Rewards and the Remaining Stigma

New York Times – November 7, 2014 by

Claire Cane Miller

Five months after Todd Bedrick’s daughter was born, he took some time off from his job as an accountant. The company he works for, Ernst & Young, offered paid paternity leave, and he decided to take six weeks — the maximum amount — when his wife, Sarah, went back to teaching. He learned how to lull the fitful baby to sleep on his chest and then to sit very still for an hour to avoid waking her. He developed an elaborate system for freezing and thawing his wife’s pumped breast milk. And each day at lunchtime, he drove his daughter to the elementary school where Sarah teaches so she could nurse. When she came home at the end of the day, he handed over the baby and collapsed on the couch.

“The best part was just forming the bond with her,” said Mr. Bedrick, who lives in Portland, Ore., and went back to work in June. “Had I not had that time with her, I don’t think I’d feel as close to her as I do today.”

Social scientists who study families and work say that men like Mr. Bedrick, who take an early hands-on role in their children’s lives, are likely to be more involved for years to come and that their children will be healthier. Even their wives could benefit, as women whose husbands take paternity leave have increased career earnings and have a decreased chance of depression in the nine months after childbirth. But researchers also have a more ominous message. Taking time off for family obligations, including paternity leave, could have long-term negative effects on a man’s career — like lower pay or being passed over for promotions.

In other words, Mr. Bedrick is facing the same calculus that women have for decades.

Women’s role in society and the economy has been transformed over the last half-century. Today, 70 percent of women with children at home are in the labor force, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But only recently have men’s roles begun to change in significant ways.

Paternity leave is perhaps the clearest example of how things are changing — and how they are not. Though the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 requires companies with more than 50 employees to provide 12 weeks of unpaid leave for new parents, it requires no paid leave. The 14 percent of companies that do offer pay, like Ernst & Young, do so by choice. Twenty percent of companies that are supposed to comply with the law, meanwhile, still don’t offer paternity leave, according to the 2014 National Study of Employers by the Families and Work Institute. And almost half the workers in the United States work at smaller companies that are not required to offer any leave at all.

Even when there is a policy on the books, unwritten workplace norms can discourage men from taking leave. Whether or not they are eligible for paid leave, most men take only about a week, if they take any time at all. For working-class men, the chances of taking leave are even slimmer.

“There is still some stigma about men who say, ‘My kids are more important than my work,’ ” said Scott Coltrane, a sociologist studying fatherhood who is the interim president of the University of Oregon. “And basically that’s the message when men take it. But the fact that women are now much more likely to be at least a principal breadwinner, if not the main breadwinner, really changes the dynamic.”

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Court Upholds Four States’ Bans on Same-Sex Marriage

New York Times by Erik Ekholm, November 6, 2014

By a 2-to-1 vote, a federal appeals court in Cincinnati upheld the right of states to ban same-sex marriage, overturning lower-court decisions in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee that had found such restrictions to be unconstitutional.

The long-awaited decision, written by Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton, an appointee of President George W. Bush, ​was the first by an appeals court to uphold a ban on same-sex marriage, contradicting rulings by four other federal circuit courts. The ruling appeared almost certain to force the Supreme Court to decide the same-sex marriage issue for the nation.

“This is the circuit split that will almost surely produce a decision from the Supreme Court, and sooner rather than later,” said Dale Carpenter, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Minnesota. “It’s entirely possible that we could have oral arguments in coming months and a Supreme Court decision by next summer.”

In the decision, by a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Judge Sutton said that it appears almost inevitable that American law will allow gay couples to marry, but the more fundamental question, he wrote, is “Who decides?”

Judge Sutton said that such a profound change in the institution of marriage should be decided not by “an intermediate court” like his, but by “the less expedient, but usually reliable, work of the state democratic processes.” He dismissed the reasoning issued in the last year by several other federal courts, which have ruled that barring same-sex marriage violated equal protection or due process clauses of the Constitution and have no rational basis.

n the decision, by a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Judge Sutton said that it appears almost inevitable that American law will allow gay couples to marry, but the more fundamental question, he wrote, is “Who decides?”

Judge Sutton said that such a profound change in the institution of marriage should be decided not by “an intermediate court” like his, but by “the less expedient, but usually reliable, work of the state democratic processes.” He dismissed the reasoning issued in the last year by several other federal courts, which have ruled that barring same-sex marriage violated equal protection or due process clauses of the Constitution and have no rational basis.

Michael C. Dorf, a constitutional expert at Cornell Law School, said that “the essence of this opinion is that the issue should be left to the democratic process or to the Supreme Court, but I’m not going to do this as an appeals court judge.”

In a stinging dissent, Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, called the majority opinion “a largely irrelevant discourse on democracy and federalism” that treated the couples involved as “mere abstractions” rather than real people suffering harm because they were denied equal status.

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Children born via surrogacy to gay dads share their stories – Part 1 Men Having Babies NYC 2014

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To Sperm or Not to Sperm

Advocate.com by Brian Andersen – October 31, 2014

ivfI wouldn’t say I’m ugly. But I’m certainly not Instagram bathroom underwear selfie hot either. Nowhere near that, actually. I’m what people of my generation would refer to as an “Average Joe,” or as the youth of today charmingly call “Basic.” And I’m OK with my basicness. Or, I thought I was.

Being gay and being average-looking was always a struggle. I longed to be something more in the appearance department. I wished I could be the sexy lead singer of a boy band and not the one unattractive guy who made the other band members look 30 times hotter in comparison. I have never experienced being cruised, never been picked up at a bar (or rest stop), nor asked out on a date. I have always been the pursuer. The hunter. I’ve never experienced the joys of being the huntee.

It’s taken much of my life, but in last few years I’ve come to accept and embrace my plainness. I like to think I make up for this lack of eye-popping sexiness by having something of a humorous wit and sparkling personality. At least my feeble attempts at humor have always been enough to keep my easy-on-the-eyes husband interested these past 14 years. That’s all that really matters.

But last year as my husband and I began the surrogacy process, my old, banished self-consciousness bubbled horribly back up from my psyche. As my hubby and I talked about collecting our sperm to create a child I suddenly wasn’t so sure I wanted to pass along my DNA to a child.

Honestly, I just didn’t want a child of mine to suffer and struggle with body issues and inferiority complexes like I had. I wanted more for my kid.

Before you rage at me in the comments section, I will say that I realize that looks aren’t everything. For folks like me it’s a battle to remember that mantra when you’re being rejected for the three hundred millionth time. (Give or a take few hundred.) Rejection was — and still is — a daily part of my life. So I regularly remind myself that personality, heart, and a person’s soul are the true mark of a human being’s beauty, not smoldering eyes and a six-pack.

I know, the exterior is a façade; yet, the reality is that appearances do matter. As much as I wish it didn’t, as much as we preach it doesn’t, ultimately how a person looks impacts our lives deeply.

Attractive people have benefits and opportunities given them that regular folks like myself just don’t. Job opportunities, dating opportunities, free drinks at Starbucks — I’ve witnessed it firsthand. On numerous occasions. Attractive people are rarely openly dismissed outright at a moments glance. Whereas people like myself often have to fight to be noticed and welcomed.

So as my husband and I talked about the surrogacy process, I decided that I was happy to let him be the sole sperm donor. He’s a very handsome, lovely person with a fantastic personality, and his child would be gorgeous. That is, until my husband metaphorically slapped some sense into me.

He wisely argued that my DNA was far too important to the process of child-making to not be a part of the mix. Not just because he wanted me to be included in the exciting process but also just to hedge our bets. After all, there are no guarantees in surrogacy. We didn’t know if my husband had crummy spunk that wouldn’t lend itself to creating a child. We needed my baby batter to double our chances. So I relented and contributed my donation.

And funny enough, once we both fertilized the eggs we received from our donor and waited to see if any would become viable and grow into a fetus, I realized that I was being a complete and total idiot.

 

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in Family Stories / Personal Stories / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

When Gay Men Want to Be Biological Dads

Gay City News – By Paul Schindler – October 30, 2014

New York finished a more than respectable sixth place in terms of states giving gay and lesbian couples the right to marry, but for gay men who wish to be the biological father to their child, the primary route to doing so — relying on a surrogate mother to carry their child to birth — remains closed to them here at home.

In fact, across the 50 states, New York and New Jersey are among the five most legally restrictive for gay men — or anyone else — taking advantage of the advances in reproductive technology that surrogacy offers.

For the past 15 years, though, Men Having Babies, a New York-based nonprofit group, has worked with gay men here and elsewhere to assist them as they navigate the journey to fatherhood through surrogacy, largely out of state. During that time, demand for surrogacy services has grown dramatically among gay men, but the number of providers of such services that work with the LGBT community has exploded. The result is that costs have come down significantly and access to information and resources has improved.

Men Having Babies is a big part of that changed landscape.

On November 2, the group holds its 10th annual conference and expo, bringing together experts on surrogacy and LGBT families as well as roughly three-dozen service providers, including surrogacy and fertility clinics and attorneys who specialize in family law.

According to Anthony Brown, Men Having Babies’ board chair, the November 2 conference, which will be held at JCC Manhattan, is the largest event in an ongoing schedule of monthly meetings and workshops the group offers in New York for prospective “intended parents” — a legal term of art for the two parents who, in the best case, will be listed on a child’s birth certificate under the terms of a surrogacy contract and the applicable state law.

Under existing New York law, surrogacy contracts are legally unenforceable and, except for specific minor expenses, a woman who carries her own biological child to term or serves as gestational carrier for another woman’s fertilized egg cannot be compensated for giving up parental rights to the child at birth. Brown, who is a family law attorney, said there are such instances of “altruistic” surrogacy, but it is a risky path for intended parents since their legal rights are not secured until after birth.

Out gay Manhattan Senator Brad Hoylman and Westchester County Assemblymember Amy Paulin, both Democrats, have proposed legislation to open up surrogacy rights to New Yorkers but the measure has not yet advanced in Albany. New Jersey does not have the outright ban New York is burdened by, but its case law poses similar barriers to intended parents.

Hoylman and his husband, David Sigal, have a daughter born through surrogacy, and Brown and his husband, Gary Spino, are fathers to Nicholas, born in 2009 with the help of a gestational surrogate. Brown and Spino, whose sperm was used, worked with an egg donor from Florida and a gestational surrogate who lived in North Carolina — a process that had to be structured to comply with the laws of several states. Brown explained that such gestational surrogacy has become more common than “traditional” surrogacy — in which a woman carries her own biological offspring to term — because most instances of a surrogate rethinking and regretting her decision to surrender parental rights involve those who are the biological mother. He emphasized, however, that he and Spino have worked to keep both women involved in Nicholas’ birth a part of the youngster’s life.

According to Brown, the world has changed considerably even since he and Spino became fathers in 2009 — a story that was captured in a Soledad O’Brien special on CNN and in Gay City News’ LGBT Pride issue cover story. He estimated that the total costs incurred — for surrogacy services, hospital expenses, legal fees, and compensation to the surrogate and the donor, not to mention travel — came to $160,000, though without one extraordinary expense typically not incurred the cost would have been $140,000. With the proliferation of providers serving the market of gay intended parents, he said, that has come down to an average of about $110,000, and Brown has seen some full-service providers offering costs as low as $85,000.

That’s still a big hurdle for many prospective parents, and Men Having Babies works to ease the burden on at least some of them. Brown said the group last year distributed about $600,000 in cash and donated services to nine qualified couples or single parents and made provider discounts worth about $1 million available to another 30.

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New York State Is Lousy for Gay Men Who Want Children

New York Observer – by John Bonazzo – October 30, 2014

It’s the worst nightmare for any father–missing the birth of your child.

But that’s exactly what happened to Anthony Brown and Gary Spino. The couple lives in the West Village, but, since New York state law prohibits surrogate reproduction, they had to conceive their son Nicholas with the help of a surrogate in North Carolina.

“We had a C-section scheduled, but the surrogate’s water broke early,” Mr. Brown told the Observer. “We had to drive nine hours for our son’s birth, and it turns out we were four hours late.”

Overturning New York’s restrictive surrogacy law is one of the main goals of Men Having Babies (MHB), the organization of which Mr. Brown, a family law attorney, is chairman of the board. Though the state was lauded for being one of the first to pass marriage equality, when it comes to family matters the picture is not quite so rosy.

“New York’s family law is more conservative,” Mr. Brown said. “The capacity of the medical field’s advances has outshot lawmakers’ ability to regulate.”

Several members of the board of directors of MHB are in Albany lobbying for passage of the Child Parent Security Act, which would legalize surrogacy in the state.

Aside from advocating legal protections for surrogates, one of the organization’s main functions is to be “a peer support network for biological gay fathers and fathers-to-be,” MHB’s website states.

Mr. Brown knows well how valuable this peer support is–he, like every other board member, started his involvement with the group by attending one of their monthly workshops, which deal with particular aspects of surrogacy.

“We’re all alumni,” Mr. Brown said. “When we came in, the other members answered questions and allayed fears.”

Mr. Brown and the rest of the board will be on hand this Sunday, when 100-150 families are expected to attend the 10th annual Men Having Babies conference at the Manhattan JCC. The event, the largest of its kind on the East Coast, will feature seminars on surrogacy as well as private consultations with providers.

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in Legal / Legislation / Second Parent Adoption / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Utah Supreme Court lifts same-sex adoption stay

By Jennifer Dobner The Salt Lake Tribune – October 23, 2014

The Utah Supreme Court on Thursday lifted a stay which had barred from completion four pending adoptions of children by their same-sex parents.

The action clears the way for the Utah Department of Health to issue birth certificates that list the same-sex parents as the children’s legal parents. It will also restart countless other adoptions that were left in limbo by Utah’s contention that the cases should be on hold until it was clear that gay marriage would be legal in the Beehive state.

“The families involved are obviously relieved and thrilled,” said Laura Milliken Gray, an attorney who represented one of the four families, and who also had six other adoptions in process when the stay was put in place.

The court’s action was not unexpected, she said.

The Utah Attorney General’s Office asked the state’s high court to lift the stay and any pending petitions for extraordinary relief.

Utah’s reversal on the issue came two weeks ago when the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver ended Utah’s legal battle over the recognition of same-sex marriages and its associated rights, including adoption.

Previously, so-called second parents had no legal rights to their children.

That followed an Oct. 6 move by the U.S. Supreme Court, which let stand appeals court rulings upholding marriage equality in five states, effectively legalizing gay marriage in Utah and 10 other states.

“This rectifies a major injustice,” said Troy Williams, executive director of Equality Utah. “Families all over Utah are celebrating having their families united.”

About 26 percent of Utah’s same-sex couples are raising children, data from the University of California, Los Angeles-based Williams Institute shows. In the two weeks since same-sex marriage became legal in Utah, gay couples have rushed to start or finalize adoption petitions, so that their children will have two legal parents and full protections under state law, Gray said.

“I probably have a dozen new families from here to Cedar City,” she said. “They’re hurrying because some families worry that the Legislature is going to try and do something that will once again interfere with their rights.”

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