Parenting Policies-China to End One Child Policy

As China ends its one child policy, some parents ponder the pros and cons of parenting a second child.

Parenting News from Beijing: China will allow all couples to have two children, a Communist Party leadership meeting decided on Thursday, bringing an end to decades of restrictive policies that limited most urban families to one child.

The announcement came after the party’s Central Committee concluded a four-day meeting in a heavily guarded hotel in western Beijing where it approved proposals for China’s next five-year development plan, which starts next year. The terse announcement from Xinhua, the state news agency, about the sharp shift in family planning policy gave no details.

The Chinese government has already eased some restrictions in what has often been described as the “one-child policy,” and a party conference in 2013 approved allowing couples to have two children when one of the spouses was an only child. But many eligible couples failed to take up the chance to have a second child, citing the expense and pressures of parenting children in a highly competitive society.

A summary of the decision by Chinese radio news said that officials had decided to “improve the demographic development strategy, and to comprehensively implement a policy that couples can have two children, actively taking steps to counter the aging of the population.”

The initial public reaction to the party leaders’ decision was restrained, and many citizens in Beijing who were asked whether they would grasp the chance to have two children expressed reluctance or outright indifference. Some, however, were pleased.

Still, the cost and difficulty of parenting 2 children are likely to deter many eligible couples from having more children despite the relaxed rules, Mu Guangzong, a professor of demography at Peking University, said in a telephone interview.

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by Chris Buckley - New York Times - October 29, 2015
in Ethics / In the News / International / Legal / Legislation / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

International Surrogacy Cases; Foreigners Banned

India Surrogacy Cases: Ban booming surrogacy service to foreigners

In International Surrogacy Cases News; India’s government said Wednesday it would ban foreigners from using surrogate mothers in the country, a move likely to hit the booming commercial surrogacy industry. Ranks of childless foreign couples have flocked to the country in recent years looking for a cheap, legal and simple route to parenthood.

Health industry estimates put the size of India’s surrogacy business at nine billion rupees ($138 million) and growing at 20 percent a year. But critics have said a lack of legislation encourages “rent-a-womb” exploitation of young, poor Indian women.

In an affidavit to the Supreme Court on Wednesday the government said it “does not support commercial surrogacy”. “No foreigners can avail surrogacy services in India,” it told the court, which is hearing a petition regarding the industry, adding that surrogacy would be available “only for Indian couples”.

Thousands of infertile couples, many from overseas, hire the wombs of Indian women to carry their embryos through to birth. India, with cheap technology, skilled doctors and a steady supply of local surrogates, is one of relatively few countries where women can be paid to carry another’s child. Surrogacy for profit is illegal in many other countries.

The process usually involves in-vitro fertilization and embryo transfer, leading to a rise in fertility centers offering such services.

A top fertility expert branded the government’s move discriminatory, while a leading women’s activist warned it could push the industry underground and out of reach of regulators. “Banning commercial surrogacy will send some couples onto the black market and deprive other couples of the chance of children,” Ranjana Kumari, director of the Centre for Social Research, told AFP.

“Our research shows many surrogates do not have health insurance and are paid poorly, among other issues,” she said, adding that stronger regulation rather than an outright ban was needed. The private petition to the top court seeks a halt to the importation of human embryos for commercial purposes.

Earlier this month the court in Delhi expressed its concern and ordered the government to spell out measures for regulating the industry. The government’s affidavit, presented to the court by Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar, said it would “require some time to bring the law in place”.

surrogacy cases

India decided surrogacy cases: banning foreigners from surrogate mothers,similar decisions expected internationally by booming commercial surrogacy industry

The surrogacy process usually involves in-vitro fertilisation and embryo “The government will prohibit and penalise commercial surrogacy services,” it said.

The government has been consulting women’s groups and the health industry on a draft bill, the Assisted Reproductive Technology, that seeks to regulate the industry.

– ‘No exploitation’ –

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Yahoonews.com, by Trudy Harris, October 27, 2015
in Ethics / In the News / International / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Gay Fathers Offered Assistance by M.H.B.

Men Having Babies (MHB) offers assistance to gay fathers

Anthony Brown said, while growing up, he never saw a future where he’d be able to get married or have a child. However, today, because of how much society has changed in the past decade, he shares a 6-year-old son with his husband. Brown and his husband were fortunate in that they were able to afford to use a surrogate to start their family. For many would-be dads, the cost of surrogacy is prohibitive, reaching between $110,000-$140,000, Brown said. That is why, two years ago, the nonprofit Men Having Babies, which was founded in New York nearly a decade ago, began its Gay Parenting Assistance Program ( GPAP ) to help gay men afford surrogacy, start a family and become gay fathers.

Brown, a Men Having Babies board members, said GPAP is a program for gay men and trans women that offers assistance in the form of donated or discounted services and cash grants to eligible applicants who are accepted into the program.

“There are two stages,” Brown said. “In stage one, you get certificates for discounts from participating agencies and clinics.

“If you qualify, you are then invited to apply for stage two, and we actually give donated services and cash grants to people who pass through the grant committee selection process.”

Brown said the program has completed two full grant cycles and will soon enter into its third cycle.

“In those two years, we have given away at least $1.5 million worth of donated or discounted services or cash grants,” he said.

In addition to GPAP, Men Having Babies puts on annual conferences in five global cities: New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Brussels and Tel Aviv.

The conferences offer a wealth of information and personal experiences to prospective fathers, including how to choose a provider, costs associated with the process, resources available, the legal aspects of the process and much more.

A big decision prospective fathers need to make is whether they will use a domestic surrogate or look internationally for a surrogate.

Gay Fathers Offered Assistance by M.H.B., Men Having Babies

Men Having Babies focuses on domestic surrogacy, but at the organization’s Chicago conference, held in September, it brought in Canadian fertility lawyer Cindy R. Wasser, founder of Hope Springs Fertility Law, to talk about Canadian surrogacy options.

“There are some very good Canadian options, and law in Canada for surrogacy is very positive,” Brown said.

Wasser discussed some of the differences she has seen between surrogacy in the United States and surrogacy in Canada.

“One of the key differentiators for anyone coming to Canada is the cost,” Wasser said. “Our services are less expensive, and the dollar is good for Americans.”

She noted one of the issues parents need to consider when looking at international surrogacy is domestic citizenship/immigration for the baby.

Despite some differences, there are many issues that remain the same for couples, whether they are using international or domestic surrogates.

For potential gay fathers considering surrogacy, Wasser said one common consideration is which member of the couple will provide sperm or if both will, and, in that case, if they will be fertilizing together or at different times.

“If one partner is contributing and the other cannot, is there a family member of the non-contributor who could be the egg donor to establish a full family genetic connection?” was another question she posed.

While horror stories are few and far between, every so often one makes the headlines. Wasser said those situations arise from a “lack of good legal advice, respected agency assistance and proper medical care.” Brown also noted some of the horror stories he’s heard involve a lack of laws and regulations around surrogacy that make the surrogate legally vulnerable. “A lot of the controversy around surrogacy has been in third world countries,” he explained.

He said there have been cases where the surrogate doesn’t fully understand the contract she is signing or doesn’t receive the proper care and assistance she should be receiving, and she often doesn’t have proper legal representation looking out for her best interests.

He said Men Having Babies is committed to working with agencies with strong ethical commitments.

“Men Having Babies is developing ethical guidelines for intended parents,” he noted.

 

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Windy City Times – by Charlsie Dewey – October 14, 2015

in International / Legal / Personal Stories / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Commercial Surrogacy Legal Cases Strand Families

Commercial Surrogacy Legal Cases; Surrogacy ban strands families in Nepal

Australian parents have been left stranded overseas with their newborn babies, unable to bring them home, after a court issued a ban on commercial surrogacy in Nepal, having decided one of the many pending commercial surrogacy legal cases globally. Distressed parents said the health of their babies was at serious risk and that the children were “basically being held hostage” because local authorities refused to issue them exit visas.

“The longer this goes on, the bigger the risk becomes,” said one man whose twins, born six weeks prematurely, have fallen ill after their supply of formula ran out.

“It’s a matter of time until something drastic happens. I would hate for someone to die.”

Commercial surrogacy is banned in Australia and under NSW law prospective parents cannot pay a surrogate, even for arrangements in another country.

Australian babies and parents stranded in Nepal after commercial surrogacy ban

Nepal previously allowed the practice as long as the surrogate was not Nepalese, but its Supreme Court suspended commercial surrogacy services on August 25.

Parents said Nepali immigration officials have since refused to issue exit visas for babies born through surrogacy, even when the process was started long before the ban.

Lisa McDonald* was recently forced to return to Sydney, leaving her newborn son, Sam*, in Kathmandu with her husband, after she ran out of vital medicine.

She has a disease of the immune system and the couple’s biological child was carried by a surrogate.

“It was so hard to leave him and come back, it was torturous,” she said. “All I know is I want him home.”

Sam had to be rushed to hospital last week but transport is difficult because a dispute with neighbouring India has led to petrol rationing.

The Nepali government is also in upheaval after the adoption of a new constitution, a process that sparked deadly and ongoing protests.

“It’s really dangerous,” Ms McDonald said. “This is wrong, to be holding babies hostage like this. These are tiny babies. They just need to get them out.”

Nick Martin* and his partner have been in Kathmandu for six weeks with their twins. The Sydney father said resolving the babies’ status did not seem to be a government priority.

“We are distraught, absolutely distraught,” he said. “We’re effectively being kept captive in a country we don’t know, where we don’t speak the language. We just have no idea when we’re going to be going home.”
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by Kim Arlington, The Sydney Morning Herald – October 6, 2015

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

Adoption Gay Couples in China Look Abroad

Adoption Gay Couples in China Look Abroad

to Start a Family

Xu Zhe decided a few years ago that he wanted to get married and have a baby—typical life plans for a young man in China. But Mr. Xu is gay and his goals aren’t attainable in his country: Same-sex marriage and surrogacy aren’t legal.

That is why the Shanghai native set out for the U.S. in 2013. Mr. Xu and his long-term boyfriend married that year in California, in a symbolic gesture, since their marriage isn’t recognized in China. Shortly after exchanging vows, they began a search for an egg donor and a surrogate to carry their daughter. She was born earlier this year.

Their situation isn’t unique as the emergence of fertility services and surrogate programs geared toward gay Chinese suggest more couples are heading overseas to start their families.

Many go to the U.S. because of its robust gay-rights movement and liberal reproductive policies. Surrogate carriers are legal in some U.S. states and are believed to be more regulated than elsewhere in the world. The laws on parental rights are clear.

Yet this trend, while still nascent, is in some respects turning history on its head. For years, childless Americans have flocked to China in hopes to adopt a child there. Now, a segment of the Chinese population is looking to the U.S. to help them become parents.

“In the long run, I hope it’ll be possible for China to make it easier for all people to have their own families,” said Mr. Xu, who declined to disclose his partner’s and daughter’s names for this article.

Adoption Gay Couples in China: Gay & Lesbian couples in China resign themselves to not having children to avoid stigma!

There are no official estimates of how many Chinese same-sex couples are going to the U.S. to have children. The cost is prohibitive for most; the total bill, including egg donation, surrogacy and attorney and hospital fees, can reach up to $150,000. But the emergence of fertility consultancies and gay-rights activists acting as surrogates signals rising demand.

Carey Flamer-Powell launched an Oregon agency called All Families Surrogacy earlier this year, in part to help China’s gay and lesbian population, she said. She and John Hesla, an infertility specialist at Portland fertility clinic Oregon Reproductive Medicine, flew to Shanghai in June to speak to around 100 same-sex couples about their options for starting their own families.

“There’s research showing that in the future a man could harvest a stem cell, but don’t plan your family on that,” Dr. Hesla told the couples. He said that most would prefer their children to share their DNA and that the option is more easily available in the U.S. Around 40% of his patients are Chinese couples, some of whom are homosexual, Dr. Hesla said.

Around 20 same-sex Chinese couples have traveled to Los Angeles-based clinic HRC Fertility for services this year, up from around seven last year, said Peter Deng, chief executive of HRC’s China arm, which launched its marketing offices in China two years ago.

While most gay and lesbian couples in China resign themselves to not having children to avoid stigma, demand is high enough that Mr. Xu has also launched a health consultancy in Shanghai. It aims to connect the city’s gay community with overseas clinics, explain the medical procedures and outline options for bringing a child back to China as a foreign citizen or with a Chinese travel document.

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Wall Street Journal China – October 2, 2015

SHANGHAI—

in Anonymous/Known Donation / Egg Donation / In the News / International / Known Donor / Parenting  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Adopted Kids: From Guatemala,Complicated Legacy!

Adopted Kids: For US adoptees from Guatemala,

It’s A Complicated Legacy!

 

Scattered across the United States are more than 29,000 adopted kids born in Guatemala and adopted by U.S. families before that troubled Central American nation shut down international adoption in 2008 amid allegations of rampant corruption and baby-selling.

Today, as adopted kids come of age, many want to know about their birth mother and why she gave them up and wonder about the murky circumstances of adoption. Some have traveled to Guatemala to investigate.

“Guatemala was all I could think about,” said Gemma Givens, a 25-year-old adoptee in California, who has made two trips to the country to learn what she could.

“I was just a mess,” she said, “the questions, the wondering, the pain, the desire to heal and to figure it out.”

International adoptions from Guatemala began to surge after a 36-year-civil war ended in 1996. Tens of thousands of civilians disappeared or were killed during the conflict, leaving legions of children without care. Orphanages overflowed, and American families seeking to adopt soon learned there was a vast supply of infants being made available.

By 2006, more than 4,000 Guatemalan children annually — about 1 of every 100 babies — were being adopted by American families, and the small country became the second-largest source of adoptees after China. Huge sums were at stake — American families routinely paid $30,000 or more to Guatemalan lawyers to arrange an adoption.

Then, as evidence of corruption mounted, the pipeline closed. Adoptions to the U.S. dropped to 27 last year.

Roughly half of all the adoptions by Americans entailed some type of impropriety — from outright abduction of infants by Guatemalan racketeers to baby-selling to various types of coercion and deception that induced mothers to relinquish their children, according to Carmen Monico of Elon University. The professor of human service studies has conducted extensive research on adoption in Guatemala.

Monico expressed empathy with adopting families, saying, “They had their hearts in the right place.” But she also has documented the experiences of Guatemalan mothers who believe their children were abducted to meet the demand.

“Some of these women have been searching for their children for years,” Monico said. Uncertainty also has weighed heavily on adoptive parents.

“After we brought our son home, I became more and more concerned,” said Laura Hernon of Seattle, who with her husband adopted a boy from Guatemala in 2008, just before the shutdown. She wondered, “Is there a mom who was duped out of her baby?”

The couple investigated, and determined anew that the adoption was legitimate.

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September 6, 2015 – by David Crary – TheNewsTribune.com

NEW YORK

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

The Great Lesbian Couples Sperm Crisis

The Great Lesbian Couples Sperm Crisis

Semen is one of the most abundant resources on the planet. So why are lesbian couples facing a donor shortage?

Like most Canadian lesbians, Paula and Nicole sought out foreign semen when they wanted to have a child. They settled on a donor who looked like their favorite ’80s television star and, through some Internet sleuthing, found another local family on Facebook who had used the same donor. Then, when they were pregnant, they bumped into another queer couple at their prenatal class.“[W]e were just talking and realized that we used the same sperm donor and…their friends were actually the other couple we connected to [on Facebook],” Paula said, in a recent study by feminist legal theorist Stu Marvel in the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law.Now, Paula and Nicole—whose names Marvel changed for the study—know at least nine families in the province of Ontario who have used the same telegenic donor.

What are the odds? Not bad, it turns out. In her study, Marvel estimates in the study that children born through donor insemination in Canada could have anywhere from 100 to 615 half-siblings worldwide in an extreme case. In 2011, the National Post also reported that a single donor at ReproMed, Canada’s only national sperm bank, could potentially have up to 75 offspring in a city the size of Toronto.

Semen is one of the most abundant resources on the planet, with men producing an estimated 1,500 sperm cells every second. But in places like Canada and the U.K. where sperm donation is limited, family building is a unique logistical challenge, especially for lesbians.

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By Samantha Allen, TheDailyBeast.com September 7, 2015

in Anonymous/Known Donation / International / Known Donor  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Surrogacy Services Suspension: Nepal’s Top Court Orders

Nepal’s top court orders suspension of surrogacy services

Nepal’s top court has ordered a halt to commercial surrogacy services in the Himalayan nation until it rules on the legality of the practice, an official said Wednesday. Nepal has become a destination for foreigners, including many Israelis, seeking to have children through surrogate mothers. The practice is controversial, with critics saying it exploits the poverty of women.

Although Nepal has no laws on its books covering surrogacy, the government last year allowed foreign women to serve as surrogates in Nepal but barred local women.

“There are no laws regarding surrogacy… it raises many constitutional and legal questions,” said Nahakul Subedi, spokesman for the Supreme Court.

“So the court issued a stay order on surrogacy services yesterday … until the case is settled,” Subedi told AFP.

Advocate Prabin Pandak, who filed the original lawsuit against the practice, told AFP the court’s order would put a stop to the registration of new cases.

“Women should not be a subject of trade, neither should a child,” Pandak said.

“Nepali women are not allowed to be surrogate mothers but they are misrepresented as Indian and used for surrogacy,” she said.

Nepal has become an attractive destination for couples who find its services cheaper than those offered by surrogacy agencies in the West.

Israel in April airlifted 25 infants born to Indian surrogate mothers in Kathmandu after Nepal was hit by a devastating quake that killed nearly 9,000 people.

In Israel, only heterosexual couples are legally able to use surrogacy, and there are many restrictions on who can serve as a surrogate. While straight couples must go through an onerous committee process in order to qualify for surrogacy, homosexual couples are left completely out of the system. Consequently, they must look to foreign surrogacy as a means of producing a child biologically related to one member of the couple.

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AFP and Times of Israel Staff – August 26, 2015

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

Planning your parenting journey / 2015 Brussels MHB

in International / IVF / Known Donor / Surrogacy / Videos  by Anthony Brown 1 comments

Becoming A Surrogate: The Quest For Pregnancy

Becoming A Surrogate: The Quest For Pregnancy

Mardi Palan is a hair dresser. She has a partner and a one-year-old son Forest. As a surrogate, she hopes to get $30,000 for a down payment on a home. But first, she has to get pregnant.

Back in July, a huge box arrived in the mail, filled with medications, hormones and syringes.

“I was kind  overwhelmed.”

The box came with a calendar and a list of all the medications she needs to take to help her synchronize her cycle with an egg donor.

“So each day, prenatal vitamin, aspirin, antibiotic and then a shot,” she said. “And then they send you a video of how to inject the shots. And each shot has a different needle, too. So the one that I’m doing right now is just a baby needle. And then later on the progesterone is inter-muscular. So it’s a huge needle. So it’s kind of scary to look at. I’m like, ‘Oh!’”

The first shot is Lupron and it’s used to decrease Palan’s natural hormones. Essentially, it stops her from ovulating.surrogate, surrogate attorney, legal surrogate, legal surrogacy, surrogate nyc, surrogate lawyers, surrogate lawyer

Palan also takes aspirin, to thin her blood. Clots can be a problem when taking hormones.

And she was taking birth control pills to make sure she doesn’t get pregnant before the eggs are transferred, but she stopped taking those last month.

Finally, both Palan and her partner, Caleb Weidenbach, have to take an antibiotic.

Although he agreed to take the pill, Weidenbach said he questions the requirement.

“I understand that if there is some kind of infection, they probably don’t want that to be shared with the egg,” he said.  “But I feel like maybe they should do a test, to see if there’s an infection, instead of just kind of handing out the antibiotics.”

The medicine is used to treat bacterial diseases like pneumonia and urinary tract infections.

Palan is working with Oregon Reproductive Medicine in Portland. It’s one of the area’s biggest in vitro fertilization clinics and has clients across the globe.

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by OPB | Aug. 19, 2015

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