Mississippi Same-Sex Adoption Ban Unconstitutional

Mississippi Same-Sex Adoption Ban Unconstitutional: The Supreme Court “foreclosed litigation over laws interfering with the right to marry and ‘rights and responsibilities intertwined with marriage,’” a federal judge ruled Thursday.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Mississippi on Thursday afternoon halted enforcement of the state’s ban on same-sex couples adopting children.

Citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 decision ending bans on same-sex couples’ marriages, U.S. District Court Judge Daniel P. Jordan III granted a preliminary injunction against the state’s Department of Human Services in a case filed this past August.gay rights, lgbt adoption rights, adoption rights, gay adoption rights, gay adoption new york

Of the Supreme Court’s decision, Jordan wrote, “[T]he majority opinion foreclosed litigation over laws interfering with the right to marry and ‘rights and responsibilities intertwined with marriage.’”

Jordan concluded on Thursday: “The majority of the United States Supreme Court dictates the law of the land, and lower courts are bound to follow it. In this case, that means that [the adoption ban] violates the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution.”

The case was brought by same-sex couples seeking to adopt through the foster care system or private adoptions, as well as by the Campaign for Southern Equality and the Family Equality Council. They snagged Roberta Kaplan as their lead attorney in the challenge — the lawyer who represented Edie Windsor in her successful challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act and then Mississippi same-sex couples who successfully challenged the state’s same-sex marriage ban.

While Jordan did grant their requested preliminary injunction, he also granted the requests made by many of the defendants to be removed from the lawsuit. Jordan granted requests to dismiss the complaint against Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, Attorney General Jim Hood, and several judges — finding that they were not the appropriate parties to be sued by the couples and groups.

Buzzfeed.com, by Chris Gender – March 31, 2016

in Adoption / Ethics / In the News / Legal / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Why You Should Always Meet Your Gestational Carrier In Person

 Meeting your gestational carrier is a required component of the matching process. We are, after all, human beings with emotions and body language and senses and intuition.

It almost sounds a little silly as I type out those words, and I’m the one writing them.  What gives? Who doesn’t meet their gestational carrier, you might wonder.

Believe it or not, it happens.

In my early days of surrogacy, I belonged to several online support groups with surrogates and intended mothers from across the country.  Although the majority of the experiences the women brought to the group were positive, there were a few hair-raising ones as well.

One particularly unfortunate story involved an experienced surrogate carrying for a couple that maintained homes in the United States and Europe. They had an independent agreement (meaning they didn’t use an agency to find one another or negotiate their contract) and they used a US fertility center. They used donor eggs and the intended father’s sperm, and the surrogate was pregnant with their baby girl.

Throughout the contract agreement phase and the entire pregnancy, the surrogate spoke only with the intended father by phone. He told her that his wife spoke little English and they were overseas, so she had no contact with her intended mother.

When she delivered the baby, the intended father didn’t come to the birth. Within a day or so of giving birth, he revealed to her that his wife was never aware of the pregnancy and did not want the child, and therefore he didn’t want the baby either.

Shocking, right?!?

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All’s well that ends well (in theory, at least) – the surrogate was able to get temporary guardianship of the baby and placed her with adoptive parents, who no doubt were elated.   But the guy who orchestrated the pregnancy and his unsuspecting wife? Clearly all sorts of crazy.

It turns out that the surrogate never met either of the parents (and this was long before the days of Facetime or video conference calls). She’d only spoken with the intended father on the phone, and nothing more. Granted, in no way, shape or form did she deserve this to happen to her, but I have to wonder if the situation could have been avoided had she insisted on meeting both parents prior to agreeing to carry for them.

And if you follow the news, you probably already know about an unfortunate surrogacy case currently happening in California, where a gestational carrier is pregnant with triplets for a single father. He wanted to reduce the pregnancy, which she refused to do, and now it’s in question whether he wants any of the babies  at all (though they’re all his).

a face-to-face meeting is a required component of the matching process. We are, after all, human beings with emotions and body language and senses and intuition

As it turns out, she agreed to carry for him and became pregnant with his children without ever meeting him, or ever speaking with him for that matter (he is deaf, but still, there are mechanisms for people who are hearing impaired to communicate by phone, and of course there’s email).

by Susan Fuller – March 11, 2016 Surrogacy by Design

Click here to read the entire article.

in Ethics / Recently Added / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Is a Surrogate a Mother?

A battle over triplets raises difficult questions about the ethics of the surrogacy industry and the meaning of parenthood.

Last year, a 47-year-old California woman named Melissa Cook decided to become a commercial surrogate. Cook is a mother of four, including a set of triplets, and had served as a surrogate once before, delivering a baby for a couple in 2013. According to her lawyer, Harold Cassidy, she’d found it to be a rewarding way to supplement the salary she earned at her office job. “Like other women in this situation, she was motivated by two things: One, it was a good thing to do for people, and two, she needed some money,” Cassidy says.

For her second surrogacy, Cook signed up with a broker called Surrogacy International. Robert Walmsley, a fertility attorney and part owner of the firm, says he was initially reluctant to work with her because of her age, but relented after she presented a clean bill of health from her doctor. Eventually, Surrogacy International matched her with a would-be father, known in court filings as C.M.

surrogacy ethics

According to a lawsuit filed on Cook’s behalf in United States District Court in Los Angeles earlier this month, C.M. is a 50-year-old single man, a postal worker who lives with his elderly parents in Georgia. Cook never met him in person, and because C.M. is deaf, Cassidy says the two never spoke on the phone or communicated in any way except via email. In May, Cook signed a contract promising her $33,000 to carry a pregnancy, plus a $6,000 bonus in case of multiples. In August, Jeffrey Steinberg, a high-profile fertility doctor, used in vitro fertilization to implant Cook with three male embryos that were created using C.M.’s sperm and a donor egg. (According to the lawsuit, the gender selection was done at C.M.’s request.) When an egg donor is under 35, as C.M.’s was, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine strongly recommends implanting only one embryo to avoid a multiple pregnancy, but some clinics will implant more to increase the chances that at least one will prove viable. In this case, they all survived. For the second time in her life, Cook was pregnant with triplets. And soon, the virtual relationship she had with their father would fall apart.

Cook and C.M. are still strangers to each other, but they are locked in a legal battle over both the future of the children she’s going to bear and the institution of surrogacy itself. Because she’s come under pressure to abort one of the fetuses, Cook’s case has garnered some conservative media attention. This story, however, is about much more than the abortion wars. It illustrates some of the thorniest issues plaguing the fertility industry: the creation of high-risk multiple pregnancies, the lack of screening of intended parents, the financial vulnerability of surrogates, and the almost complete lack of regulation around surrogacy in many states.

The United States is one of the few developed countries where commercial, or paid, surrogacy is allowed—it is illegal in Canada and most of Europe. In the U.S., it’s governed by a patchwork of contradictory state laws. Eight states expressly authorize it. Four states—New York, New Jersey, Washington, and Michigan—as well as the District of Columbia prohibit it. In the remaining states, there’s either no law at all on commercial surrogacy or it is allowed with restrictions.

California is considered a particularly friendly place for surrogacy arrangements. In 1993, a California Supreme Court ruling, Johnson v. Calvert, denied the attempts of a gestational surrogate named Anna Johnson to assert maternal rights. (A gestational surrogate is one like Cook who has no genetic relationship to the fetus or fetuses she caries.) What mattered in determining maternity, the court ruled, were the intentions of the various parties going into the pregnancy: “Because two women each have presented acceptable proof of maternity, we do not believe this case can be decided without enquiring into the parties’ intentions as manifested in the surrogacy agreement,” the court said. It was a victory for Walmsley, who represented the couple who’d hired Johnson as their surrogate.

Slate.com, February 15, 2016, by Michelle Goldberg

Click here to read the entire article.

in Ethics / In the News / IVF / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Surrogacy Ethics – Is It Selfish for a Gay Couple to Have Kids via Surrogacy?

Surrogacy ethics are in the news more and more around the world.  Are gay men’s options for family limited to adoption?

 

Question – My husband and I are gay and are exploring the possibility of having children using an egg donor and a surrogate mother. Sometimes when we mention this in conversation, people ask us, in a chiding tone, Why don’t you adopt? They often then argue that with so many children in need of good homes, it would be ethically superior for us to adopt, instead of spending a small fortune so we can have children to whom we are genetically tied. In addition, there are ethical issues related to paying women for their eggs or paying women to carry our children as surrogates. Are we acting unethically — or at the least selfishly or self-indulgently — in pursuing biological children instead of adopting orphans who could benefit from what (we like to think) would be a good home? David Lat, New York

adopt

Answer – Anybody who is contemplating having a baby, by whatever means, could be adopting a child instead. If those who chide you include people who have biological children themselves, you might want to point this out. Come to think of it, your friends who don’t have children are also free, if they meet the legal requirements, to adopt. Every child awaiting adoption is someone who could benefit from parental volunteers. There is no good reason to pick on you.

The path you have chosen, it’s true, mixes commerce and reproduction through egg donation and surrogacy. But while acquiring an egg and then working with a surrogate mother are transactions with ethical risks, they can each be conducted in morally permissible ways. The main concerns I would have as to surrogacy ethics are avoiding exploitation — so you need to make sure that the donor and the surrogate are acting freely and are fairly compensated — and taking care that your understanding with the surrogate mother is clearly laid out in advance. But any responsible agency that assists you in this should cover these bases.

Wanting a biological connection with your child is pretty normal: We evolved to pass on our genes, after all, even if we’re free to give Mother Nature the side-eye.

New York Times, By KWAME ANTHONY APPIAH FEB. 10, 2016

Click here to read the entire article.

in Egg Donation / Ethics / Recently Added / Second Parent Adoption / Step Parent Adoption / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Conversion Therapy Banned by Governor Cuomo Through Executive Actions Banning Coverage By Private Insurers

Multi-agency regulations announced today ban public and private health care insurers from covering conversion therapy in New York State

Governor Cuomo: “We will not allow the misguided and the intolerant to punish LGBT young people for simply being who they are.”

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced a series of comprehensive regulations to prevent the practice of so-called lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender “conversion therapy,” which has been deemed harmful to patients by a wide variety of leading medical and mental health professionals. Multi-agency regulations announced today ban public and private health care insurers from covering the practice in New York State, and also prohibit various mental health facilities across the state from conducting the practice on minors.

“Conversion therapy is a hateful and fundamentally flawed practice that is counter to everything this state stands for,” said Governor Cuomo. “New York has been at the forefront of acceptance and equality for the LGBT community for decades – and today we are continuing that legacy and leading by example. We will not allow the misguided and the intolerant to punish LGBT young people for simply being who they are.”

CONVERSION

The New York State Department of Financial Services is issuing regulations barring New York insurers from providing coverage for conversion therapy given to an individual under the age of 18. Additionally, the New York State Department of Health is prohibiting coverage of conversion therapy under New York’s Medicaid program and the New York State Office of Mental Health is issuing regulations prohibiting facilities under its jurisdiction from providing conversion therapy treatment to minors.

Conversion therapy – which refers to therapy intended to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity – has been repudiated by many medical and professional organizations, including: the American Academy of Pediatrics; the American Counseling Association; the American Psychiatric Association; the American Psychological Association; the American School Counselor Association; the National Association of School Psychologists; and the National Association of Social Workers.

“Governor Cuomo and the State of New York are commended for taking a principled and scientific stand,” said American Psychiatric Association President Renee Binder, M.D. “APA has long recognized that so-called reparative therapy is not a scientifically validated treatment and can, in fact, undermine self-esteem and be hazardous.”

Warren Seigel, MD, FAAP, Chair of the New York State Academy of Pediatrics, said: “Being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender is not a disease, disorder, illness, deficiency, or shortcoming. The American Academy of Pediatrics, as well as all major professional associations of health and mental health practitioners and child and adolescent development specialists in the United State have recognized this fact for nearly 40 years. We are very pleased by the actions announced today to help protect vulnerable gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth from discredited, sham and dangerous interventions. We applaud Governor Cuomo for his bold leadership on this issue.”

in Ethics / In the News / Religious  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Anonymous egg donor, the secret I’m tempted to keep from my kids

I’m keeping a very big secret from my kids, that they have a anonymous egg donor, and my biggest fear is that once they find out, they will want nothing to do with me.

My preschool-age twin boys were born with the help of an anonymous egg donor. I’ve never second-guessed my decision to use IVF via donor eggs as my path to becoming a mother, but as my children get older, I’m more and more afraid of how they will react to learning the truth about their origins.anonymous egg donor

After trying and failing to get pregnant on my own in my late 20s, a preliminary blood test revealed my hormone levels were that of a post-menopausal woman. An internal ultrasound confirmed what a team of reproductive endocrinologists suspected: My ovaries had only four follicles them, and none of them were healthy enough make IVF a viable option. Devastated as I was, I took comfort in the fact that the rest of my reproductive system was perfectly healthy and more than capable of handling a pregnancy. All I needed was some donor eggs.

We looked into adoption, but in the end my husband wanted to share a biological connection to our kids, and I really wanted to experience pregnancy and labor. So after some long talks that lasted until the wee hours of the morning, a hard look at our finances and a bit of research into how much Ramen the human body can actually handle eating before it gives out, we decided to pursue a donor-assisted pregnancy.

Leafing through a binder of headshots and short biographies to choose a woman who will provide half of your children’s DNA is like a very high-stakes episode of The Bachelor. It’s bizarre to listen to your husband discuss other women he finds attractive while you try to balance any jealousy with the idea that your own children could inherit those good looks. In the end, we decided on a beautiful donor who looked nothing like me but whose application indicated she had similar interests and a personality close to my own.

We were lucky, and I became pregnant with twins on my first attempt at IVF. Through some quirk of genetics, neither of my kids inherited the donor’s red hair or hazel eyes. One favors his father’s coloring, and the other has my lighter locks. When we’re out as a family, the comment we receive most often is how we have “his-and-hers twins.”

Because we memorialized my pregnancy with tons of photos and videos, and because on the surface my children look like they could be my own, if I wanted to I could probably never tell the children the truth without them suspecting otherwise.

The idea of doing just that is tempting. Although my infertility story had the happiest of endings, the emotional pain of coming to terms with my diagnosis and undergoing the IVF process still lingers, and there’s a part of me that would love to lock it all away in a box, never to be spoken of. Not telling them would let me forget about that chapter of my life. It would also eliminate the risk of my being rejected by the kids or them feeling I’m somehow not their “real” mother in spite of carrying them and caring for them their whole lives.

But not telling them the truth is selfish. From a practical standpoint, they need to know about the donor’s medical history so they can be aware of any potential family hereditary issues. And it might be a plot line out of a soap opera, but I still want them to know they could have half siblings out in the world before they start exploring love and sex.

Knowing that telling them they were conceived with the help of an anonymous egg donor is the right thing to do doesn’t make it any less terrifying. I love my children completely.

by Anonymous – sheknows.com, January 4, 2016

Click here to read the entire article.  For more information about known v. anonymous egg donors, click here.

in Anonymous/Known Donation / Egg Donation / Ethics / Family Stories / Personal Stories  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Ethical Surrogacy, a Proposed Framework

Ethical Surrogacy guidelines are imperative to a successful journey to parenthood.

At the Men Having Babies 2015 New York Ethical Surrogacy Conference we focused on teaching the public at large about surrogacy and providing tools to intended parents to ensure that their surrogacy journey is ethical and positive.

As part of our mission to promote ethical surrogacy practices that benefits all involved parties, Men Having Babies   is in the process of devising a framework for ethical surrogacy principles, protocols and best practices for intended parents. The latest version drafted by our Board and our Surrogates Advisory Board is available on menhavingbabies.org. The document is already available in English, French and Hebrew, and we are collaborating with several community organizations to translate this document to additional languages and collect feedback. Selected issues from this framework will also be brought up for discussion and public comments at our upcoming conferences.

Men Having Babies (“MHB”) is an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to providing gay biological fathers and fathers-to-be with educational and financial support. We offer the following framework of ethical guidelines and best practices as part of our goal to promote surrogacy practices that minimize the risks and maximize the benefits to all involved. The framework comprises of three levels: a Statement of Principles, Baseline Protocols for Providers, and Recommended Best Practices for intended parents.

in Ethics / Legal / Legislation / Surrogacy / Videos  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

European Parliament condemns surrogacy

babybump The European Parliament has condemned surrogacy, even as it is being offered in Europe for $37,500.

The Parliament adopted a resolution condemning “the practice of surrogacy, which undermines the human dignity of the woman since her body and its reproductive functions are used as a commodity.” The resolution continues, “The practice of gestational surrogacy which involves reproductive exploitation and use of the human body for financial or other gain, in particular in the case of vulnerable women in developing shall be prohibited.”

Family and Christian groups applauded. The European Federation of Catholic Family Associations “warmly” approved the vote and called on the EU to follow on the statement in principle with instructions to member states to “systematically treat surrogacy as a matter of urgency, fighting human trafficking for reproductive exploitation” and to set up an international agency to “effectively stop this practice.”

Surrogacy is banned in many European countries while legal on a non-commercial basis, where only the mother’s expenses may be paid, in some others. An organization calling itself Fertility International Solutions is offering “surrogacy in Europe from $37,500” from a base in Kiev. Its Ukrainian surrogate mothers are paid “on an income-adjusted basis up 8 year’s salary [sic] for their incredible gift.”

In surrogacy, the surrogate mother either conceives a child from donor sperm and her own egg or accepts an embryo into her womb conceived in vitro using both donated egg and sperm. FIS charges “as low as” $37,500 for surrogacy involving a “shipped embryo” and at least $42,000 when only sperm is donated.

Dr. Joseph Meaney, director of international coordination for Human Life International, told LifeSiteNews that  surrogacy is wrong for many reasons, not least of which is that “it completely dissociates pregnancy from parenthood.”

“Children are treated as commodities that can be ‘made to order’ and bought,” a violation of “their human rights and dignity,” said Dr. Meaney. As well, “there is a clear exploitation of poor women who … let others use their eggs and/or their wombs.”

Dr. Meaney also warned of health problems associated with the drugs used to harvest women’s eggs and of the psychological harm to children. He told of one child of surrogacy saying, “My daddy’s name is ‘donor.'”

“This is just heartbreaking.”

Click here to read the entire article.

 

Decembers 18, 2015 by Steve Weatherbe, Lifesitenews.com

BRUSSELS, December 18, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com)

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

Surrogate NYC: 71% of Americans Approve

71% of Americans Approve of Using Surrogates, Surrogate NYC or Anywhere Help Couples!

People tend to say that it is better to adopt than to use surrogacy, but most Americans say it is personally important to have biological, not adopted, children. This calls for the use a surrogate or in New York City, a surrogate nyc when searching google!

What is a Surrogate NYC? Definition Surrogate/Surrogacy: the practice by which a woman helps a couple have a child by carrying an embryo conceived by the couple, and commercial surrogacy is when a surrogate nyc or wherever you live, mothers the baby for money. Surrogacy, though still rare, is increasingly common and laws in many states are having to catch up to the reality of thousands of surrogate births each year. Pennsylvania just ruled that television star Sherri Shepherd is liable for child support payments for a child conceived by a surrogate that she later decided she did not want. In New York, which is one of the states which still completely prohibits commercial surrogacy, is considering legalizing the practice at the urging of gay rights activists.

A large majority of Americans (71%) approve of the practice of surrogacy, and most (57%) also agree with allowing surrogate mothers to charge money for carrying the child. Americans who say that religion is ‘very important’ to them are the only group without majority support for commercial surrogacy, but even they back it 48% to 31%.

Definition Surrogate NYC: Surrogacy is the practice by which a woman helps a couple have a child by carrying an embryo conceived by the couple.

In general, however, Americans tend to say that couples who cannot conceive a child on their own should adopt a child (50%) instead of using a surrogate (15%). Large margins among every group, except black Americans (29% to 34%), say that it is better to adopt than use a surrogate.

When it comes to them personally, however, most Americans say that it would be important for them to have a biological child rather than an adopted one. 27% say that it is ‘very important’ for them to have a biological child, while 31% say that it is ‘somewhat important’. Only 30% say that it is either ‘not very’ or ‘not at all’ important to not have an adopted child.

Click here to read the entire article.

 

Today.Yougov.com – December 14, 2015

in Adoption / Ethics / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Gestational Surrogacy Contract Enforced in PA

Surrogacy ContractSuperior Court of PA Rules to Enforce Gestational Surrogacy Contract

In the first ruling of its kind from the Superior Court of Pennsylvania, an appellate level court, the court ruled that a gestational surrogacy contract is enforceable.

This is a great step forward for ethical, regulated surrogacy.  It essentially opens the door a bit wider for couples living in states such as New York, who have not yet embraced regulated surrogacy.  As more becomes available, I will share.  However, if you would like to read the decision, click the link below.

 

Click here to read the opinion.

November 23, 2015

in Ethics / In the News / Legal / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments