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.

Click here to read the entire article.

 

AFP and Times of Israel Staff – August 26, 2015

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

Same sex couples face more obstacles to infertility treatment

Study suggests same sex couples face more obstacles to infertility treatment

Same sex couples encounter more obstacles to treatment for infertility than opposite-sex couples, suggests a new study that will be presented at the 110th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA).

“For example, same sex couples often must undergo psychological evaluations before being treated for infertility — a process that is not normally required for opposite-sex couples,” said study author Ann V. Bell, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Delaware, who noted that the U.S. medical system is standardized to work with heterosexual couples.

Bell’s study is based on interviews with 95 people — 41 heterosexual women of low socioeconomic status, 30 heterosexual men, and 24 women in same-sex relationships. “These people are on the margins of our understandings of infertility, as it is generally viewed as a white, wealthy, heterosexual woman’s issue,” Bell said.

The new study builds on her 2014 book Misconception, which focused on the 41 women of low socioeconomic status, as well as 17 women of high socioeconomic status, to explore social class and infertility. Through her interviews with the 41-women for the book, Bell found that their experiences related to infertility were shaped by inaccurate stereotypes and that doctors often assumed infertility was not a problem for them.

Bell has extended her earlier research beyond social class to include the effects of infertility on men and same-sex couples. The “medicalization” of infertility — studying and treating it as a medical condition — is a process that has increasingly led to disparities and inequalities, she said.

“Most of the research out there is about women, even though just as many men are affected by infertility,” Bell said. “It’s still viewed as a woman’s issue.”

Click here to read the entire article.

 

EurekaAlert.org, August 26, 2015

CHICAGO —

in Anonymous/Known Donation / IVF / Science / 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.

Click here to read the entire article.

 

by OPB | Aug. 19, 2015

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

Gay Rights: Couple’s Legal Battle in Thailand

Gay Rights: Couple’s Legal Battle in Thailand Highlights Commercial Surrogacy Issues

Gay rights amid Thailand’s commercial surrogacy industry has been complicated and controversial this past year. It’s been half a year since Baby Carmen was born in Thailand, but aside from the pictures, everything else remains fuzzy. For biological father Gordon Lake and his partner, Manuel Santos, what started as a legal agreement to have a surrogate baby has evolved into a custody battle.

But one thing remains clear to the American-born Lake. “Carmen is a U.S. citizen,” he said. “She’s biologically my daughter. That’s been proven with a DNA test. The embassy has issued a CRBA, a consular report birth abroad, which certifies her as a U.S. citizen.”

Thailand’s commercial surrogacy industry made headlines last year when a newborn with Down syndrome was left behind by an Australian couple, while they took his healthy twin sister.

Following the negative exposure, the government banned commercial surrogacy. The law came into effect in July.

But the surrogate mother said she wasn’t aware of one fact about the couple.

“If they were a mother and father like a normal parents under Thai culture, I would have no problem being a surrogate for them,” said the surrogate, Patida Kusongsang. “If I had known they were a gay couple, I would not have done this for them, because in Thai culture we don’t have this kind of status.”

Click here to read the entire article.

by Steve Sanford, August 14, 2015 – VOANews.com

BANGKOK—

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

Egg Donation or Sperm: kids have a right to know ?

Do children have the right to know if they’re the result of a stranger’s sperm or egg donation?

Although she has two half-sisters from her dad’s previous marriage, there was nothing in Jess Pearce’s childhood to make her doubt her biological origins. She tanned, her father tanned; he was tall, so was she. Yet when she was 28, her mother dropped a bombshell.

“She sat me down one Sunday afternoon and said she had something she wanted to tell me,” Jess recalls. “She looked quite upset, and I thought, ‘She’s going to die.’” Instead, her mother told her, “Your dad isn’t your real dad.”

Jess’s father had undergone a vasectomy after his first marriage. When he met her mother he tried to get it reversed, but the operation failed and they opted for sperm donation through the NHS. Jess was conceived on the third try at St George’s Hospital in Hyde Park Corner; all her parents knew about the donor was that he was from Middlesex. The clinic advised Jess’s parents to keep the insemination a secret. “No one knew,” says Jess. “It was literally just my mum and my dad and two of their best friends.” This was the norm back then, says Olivia Montuschi, co-founder of the Donor Conception Network. “The vast majority of [parents] were told not to tell their children… They just thought it was in everybody’s best interest that the secret was kept – go home, make love, and who knows?”

Olivia herself has had two children through donor insemination because her husband is infertile. They had resolved to be honest with their kids from the outset. “I remember telling this to a nurse when she was inseminating me, and getting a very odd look as if to say, ‘Why would you do that?’” she says.

Reactions range from shock and horror to “That’s interesting; I thought there was something odd going on,” says Montuschi. “More often than not, you will find that there have been odd discrepancies in things that parents have said,” she says. “Or [the child] will wonder about the complete lack of physical likeness or [shared] interests with the non-genetic parent.”

Though some parents feel under pressure to tell their kids about their genetic heritage, many decide to keep the details of their child’s conception under lock and key. A 2003 survey by the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge found that 47 per cent of parents of kids conceived after egg donation had no intention of telling. It’s not just the child’s feelings at stake. Even a genuine desire to tell can create tensions with grandparents or other family members who think it should remain a secret. Then there’s the wider taboo of where babies come from. “A lot of people find it really difficult to talk about, not necessarily because there is a genetic difference in the family, but because the discussion takes them into areas of parenthood where they wouldn’t normally have to go,” says Petra Nordqvist of the University of Manchester. “They’d have to say, ‘My sperm doesn’t work and we’ve had to undergo five years of IVF.’ Some people just hate having that kind of conversation with their families.”

Click here to read the entire article.

theindependent.co.uk by Linda Geddes, August 10, 2015

in Anonymous/Known Donation / Egg Donation / Ethics / Parenting / Science / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Commercial Surrogacy: Thailand Bans It!

ibnlive.com, August 7, 2015

Bangkok: A new law banning commercial surrogacy has come into effect in Thailand, a destination popular with foreigners and gay couples looking for cheaper surrogacy services.

The law banning commercial surrogacy was passed in February and came into effect from this month.

The law came after outrage following an Australian couple last year leaving a surrogate twin boy who had Down Syndrome behind in Thailand, taking his healthy sister.

The controversy triggered an immediate backlash in Thailand, forcing commercial surrogate operators to shut down operations.

Under the new law, a couple, a man and a woman, to avail surrogacy must be legally married for at least three years with one or both holding Thai nationality.

The surrogate mother is required to be a sibling of the couple, but not the parents or the couple’s children. The surrogate woman must also have her own child and have her husband’s consent.

If the woman is not a relative of the couple, the woman needs to meet regulations laid down by the Thai public health ministry.

Public Health Minister Rajata Rajatanavin said foreign couples would no longer be able to seek surrogacy services in Thailand.

Click here to read the entire article.

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

Surrogacy Abroad vs Surrogacy in the UK

Surrogacy Abroad vs Surrogacy in the UK – entirely different, or one and the same?

When comparing surrogacy in the UK and surrogacy abroad we can examine 2015, which has already seen a number of surrogacy judgments1 which challenge the law as it currently stands in relation to this increasingly mainstream pathway to parenthood. However, where the issue at hand is whether a parental order should be made2, the focus historically has been on international arrangements. Whilst contentious UK surrogacy cases, happily, remain remarkable (and therefore likely published), these and international arrangements overshadow the reality and prevalence of the undisputed UK surrogacy arrangement.  Though uncontentious in nature, such arrangements are commonly peppered with comparable issues to those found in overseas applications, though the latter remain in the realms of the High Court3.  It is not denied that international surrogacy arrangements are naturally hazardous and necessitate a cautious approach at court level, but, as demonstrated below, UK arrangements come with equal risks.

The practice of surrogacy abroad, in the UK


Repeatedly overshadowed by uncertainty as to the surrounding legalities, surrogacy is in fact very achievable in the UK and arrangements take place in their hundreds every year.  However, due to the lack of an overtly supportive legal framework, its practice varies widely and the resulting disparity between arrangements can be vast.

Often the best option, for those who have the choice, is to use a surrogate who is a family member or close friend.  Arrangements where trust is implicit invariably make for the most altruistic and straightforward.  For those who need to look elsewhere there are a number of independent organisations which facilitate arrangements between prospective parents and surrogates4, by enabling introductions and supporting the resulting relationships.  However, a growing method of establishing a surrogacy arrangement is to look online.  The increase in social networking has enabled prospective parents to find a willing surrogate (and vice versa) through Facebook groups and online forums, where regulation is scarce and support informal.

The risks of working with a previously unknown surrogate (or indeed prospective parents) are obvious, but some arrangements forge ahead with a surprising lack of communication to determine the other side’s true motivations.  As surrogacy agreements are not legally binding in the UK, there is no obligation or obvious trigger for prospective parents to meet with a lawyer at the outset.  Although it is not possible to draft an agreement on their behalf (this is an offence for professionals5, though something the parties are encouraged to do amongst themselves), a consultation at this stage provides an opportunity to set out the legal position and explain what must be done to reassign parenthood in due course.  Some parents are made aware of this and seek initial advice; others are not and will proceed having had no professional input (sometimes without any written agreement in place at all).  Though not enforceable, parents and surrogates can agree whatever they wish in terms of payments, restrictions and obligations during pregnancy, contact before and after birth and any other matters they consider important.

There is also a choice of how to conceive.  If no fertility procedure is strictly required6, and particularly if cost is an issue, it is not unusual for conception to take place via artificial insemination at home.  This not only throws up further issues as to the surrogate’s investment and attachment to the pregnancy, but by not having treatment at a licensed UK clinic parents and surrogates do not benefit from the built-in counselling and professional support provided before conception.

Oversight of surrogacy abroad, specifically in the UK


It is easy to see how the lack of structure and obligatory professional oversight here can lead to a culture of casually-set-up surrogacy arrangements based on hopes of aligned intentions and well-placed faith in the unknown.  In the absence of a robust UK legal system to fall back on, for those arrangements where problems do arise, a lack of guidance and support from experienced professionals can exacerbate matters and put the relationship of the parties under considerable strain.  Even where these issues do not affect the outcome of the arrangement7, they can cause difficulties during the subsequent court process.

The parental order process8 provides the first formal oversight that many arrangements will see, though this comes too late across the board, since there can be no application until the child is born (leaving him or her legally vulnerable for a period of at least several weeks).  It is at this stage that the applicant parents are faced with conforming to the parameters set by section 54 of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008; some of whom will not already be familiar with the requirements.

Whilst applications following UK surrogacy are dealt with relatively straightforwardly in practice, the ambiguous surrogacy backdrop in this country provides the potential for just as many legal quandaries to arise as do so in cross-border surrogacy arrangements.  The difference lies in the level of scrutiny of the two.

Click here to read the entire article.

 

by Nicola Scott August 6, 2015

in International / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Commercial Surrogacy, Indian Doctors Against Ban

Indian Doctors petition Supreme Court against ban on commercial surrogacy

The Indian Society for Assisted Reproduction (ISAR) has moved an application before the Supreme Court asking it not to quash a notification under which trading of “human embryo” is allowed. In the absence of a legislation to regulate commercial surrogacy, doctors and couples wanting surrogate children take refuge under the 2013 notification.

“There are hundreds of surrogates who have started their own small scale businesses like catering, beauty parlours, food joints and sewing coaching classes. They now own houses, their children study in English medium schools, their husbands have bought passenger rickshaws and their social status is markedly raised,” the society stated.

The petitioner claims to be a representative body of several scientists, doctors and research experts engaged in the field of assistive reproduction for childless parents. It has protested against advocate Jayashree Wad’s petition asking the court to strike down the 2013 notification.

Wad has contended that trading of human embryo under the Foreign Trade (Development and Regulations) Act is opposed to public policy, unethical and violates the principle of doctrine of reasonableness. “Embryo is a life in the miniature form and cannot be considered as goods,” Wad has contended.

Click here to read the entire article.

Bhadra Sinha, Hindustan Times, New Delhi – August 5, 2015

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

India must regulate its booming surrogacy business and stop women being exploited as just a ‘womb for hire’

South China Morning Post, July 13, 2015 by Amrit Dhillon

Surrogate mothers in India are a sad lot, their lives wrapped in layers of exploitation. At the bottom of the social heap, poor and uneducated, they spend their days in drudgery either in an urban slum or a rural shack.

Poverty has forced these women to “willingly” rent their wombs to rich Indian and foreign couples. In practice, this often means that when the surrogacy contracts are being signed, they give their uninformed consent to all manner of procedures without understanding a word of what is written.

If this wasn’t bad enough, the findings of a new study on Delhi’s fertility clinics – by researchers at two Indian universities, University of Delhi and Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Aarhus University in Denmark – show that their situation is even worse, with doctors doing their utmost to please the commissioning couples, often at the risk of harm to the mother.

The study found that some doctors implant several embryos in the womb – sometimes up to five or six – to ensure a higher success rate even though medical guidelines say that transferring more than three embryos can pose a serious health risk to the mother. “In a majority of clinics, doctors alone made the decisions about the number of embryos to transfer. Some of them involved the commissioning parents but few involved the mothers,” one of the researchers said.

What is unconscionable is how the Indian government has let this billion-dollar industry continue for so long with little or no regulation.

As cases of exploitation began being reported, the government came out with the draft Assisted Reproductive Technologies bill in 2010. It provides surrogates with a range of safeguards and also lays down regulations for the thousands of fertility clinics in the country.

But, for five years, the bill has been in limbo as lawmakers are apparently too busy to discuss it.

Click here to read the entire article.

in Ethics / International / IVF / Legal / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 0 comments