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

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

Hiring a Woman for Her Womb

New York Times, September 23rd, 2014

People unable to bear children have increasingly turned to women who bear children for them, often by transferring an embryo created by in-vitro fertilization. Because legal and social views on surrogacy vary from nation to nation (and even state to state), prospective parents often engage surrogates in the United States and in developing countries. Controversy has clouded this issue.

What can be done to ensure that birth surrogacy is safe, ethical and protective of both the birth mother and the intended parents?

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Surrogates and Couples Face a Maze of Laws, State by State

New York Time, September 17, 2014 – by Tamar Lewin

When Crystal Kelley, a Connecticut woman who had signed a contract to bear a baby for a couple in her state, was five months pregnant, a routine ultrasound showed that the fetus had a cleft palate, a brain cyst and heart defects. The couple for whom she was carrying the baby asked her to have an abortion, offering to pay her $10,000 to do so.

But instead, Ms. Kelley, a single mother of two, fled to Michigan, where surrogacy contracts are unenforceable. So in June 2012, when she had the baby there, Ms. Kelley was listed on the birth certificate as the mother, although she had no genetic connection to the infant, made with the husband’s sperm and an egg from an anonymous donor. The little girl was adopted by a family that had other special-needs children.

While surrogacy is far more accepted in the United States than in most countries, and increasing rapidly (more than 2,000 babies will be born through it here this year), it remains, like abortion, a polarizing and charged issue. There is nothing resembling a national consensus on how to handle it and no federal law, leaving the states free to do as they wish.

Seventeen states have laws permitting surrogacy, but they vary greatly in both breadth and restrictions. In 21 states, there is neither a law nor a published case regarding surrogacy, according to Diane Hinson, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who specializes in assisted reproduction. In five states, surrogacy contracts are void and unenforceable, and in Washington, D.C., where new legislation has been proposed, surrogacy carries criminal penalties. Seven states have at least one court opinion upholding some form of surrogacy.

California has the most permissive law, allowing anyone to hire a woman to carry a baby and the birth certificate to carry the names of the intended parents. As a result, California has a booming surrogacy industry, attracting clients from around the world.

Seeking Middle Ground

In many states, surrogacy remains a political third rail, drawing opposition from anti-abortion groups, opponents of same-sex marriage, the Roman Catholic Church, some feminists, and those who see surrogacy as an experiment that could have unforeseen long-range effects.

The issue has produced some strange bedfellows: In several states, for example, Kathleen Sloan, an abortion rights advocate who is a board member of the National Organization for Women, has worked with Catholic and conservative groups to oppose surrogacy because she sees it as a form of exploitation. But most other feminists have backed off.

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In Thailand’s Surrogacy Industry, Profit and a Moral Quagmire

New York Times – August 26, 2014 by Thomas Fuller

PAK OK, Thailand — Soon after the first surrogate mother from this remote village gave birth, neighbors noticed her new car and conspicuous home renovations, sending ripples of envy through the wooden houses beside rice paddies and tamarind groves.

“There was a lot of excitement, and many people were jealous,” said Thongchan Inchan, 50, a shopkeeper here.

In the two years since, carrying babies for foreigners, mainly couples from wealthier Asian nations, quickly became a lucrative cottage industry in the farming communities around Pak Ok, a six-hour drive from Bangkok. Officials say at least 24 women out of a population of about 13,000 people have since become paid surrogate mothers.

“If I weren’t this old, maybe I would have done it myself,” Ms. Thongchan said. “This is a poor village. We make money by day and it’s gone by evening.”

The baby boomlet here was just one of several bizarre and often ethically charged iterations of Thailand’s freewheeling venture into what detractors call the womb rental business, an unguided experiment that the country’s military government now says it is planning to end.

Commercial surrogacy has been available for at least a decade in Thailand, one of only a handful of countries where it is allowed, and one of only two in Asia, making it a prime destination for couples in the region from countries where the practice is banned.

Officials estimate that there are several hundred surrogate births here each year, a number that does not include foreign surrogates, including many hired by Chinese couples, who come to Thailand for the embryo implantation then return home to carry out the pregnancy.

But a pair of recent scandals have focused scrutiny on the largely unregulated industry, raising ethical questions and prompting the government’s crackdown.

In late July, the Thai news media reported that an Australian couple who had paid a woman to carry twins returned home with only one of their children, leaving behind the other, who had Down syndrome. Pleas for assistance by the surrogate mother helped produce a sustained national outcry that was further stoked by comments by the boy’s biological father that were deemed insensitive at best.

The father, David John Farnell, told an Australian television program that he would have preferred that the pregnancy had been terminated. “I don’t think any parent wants a son with a disability,” he said.

He also said that he and his wife had told the agency in Bangkok that served as an intermediary to “give us back our money.”

The Australian news media raised questions about his fitness as a father after finding court records showing that he was convicted and imprisoned for 22 counts of child sex abuse in the 1990s.

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

China Experiences a Booming Underground Market in Child Surrogacy

New York Times – August 2, 2014 – by Ian Johnson

The rise of surrogacy is often linked to the increase in wealthier, better-educated Chinese couples waiting until their late 30s to start a family, a trend that makes it harder to conceive. Some academics say China’s severe air, water and soil pollution contribute to increasing infertility, though that claim has not been scientifically demonstrated.

Regardless, failure to reproduce is less of an option than it is in the West. Tradition holds that couples must have a child. A folk proverb warns that “among the three unfilial deeds, having no offspring is the worst.” Some women think they must have a child or their husbands will divorce them. Some couples seeking surrogacy have sadder stories, sometimes hoping to replace only children who have died.

China’s unregulated market, with a network of roughly 1,000 baby brokers nationwide, often results in trouble.

One woman who asked to be identified only by her family name, Zuo, said a friend put her in touch with a woman from the countryside who had already given birth and needed more income. Another friend recommended a private clinic in Beijing that would conduct the embryo implantation and follow-up treatments; a surrogate mother requires months of hormone shots to prepare her body for the implanted embryo and prevent its rejection.

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

Thai surrogacy is now dead in the water

Australian Surrogacy and Adoption Blog – July 31, 2014 By Stephen Page –

A couple of days ago I wrote about how there was a crackdown in Thailand about surrogacy and gender selection.

Yesterday there was a meeting between the various IVF clinics, the Thai Medical Council, lawyers and others. The outcome of the meeting is ominous for those who undertake surrogacy in Thailand: it is over.

In summary, surrogacy is now only recognised in Thailand if:

  • the intended parents are a heterosexual married couple
  • who are medically infertile
  • the surrogacy is altruistic
  • and the surrogate is a blood relative.

It is no surprise that this will exclude almost every foreigner from pursuing surrogacy in Thailand. For Australians, this is significant- as about 400 babies were born in Thailand via surrogacy in the year ended 30 June 2012 to Aussie intended parents, and that number is likely to have increased since then.

The ruling coming out of the meeting, bearing in mind that there is now a military junta in charge in Thailand, is that surrogacy will be illegal in Thailand if:

  • the intended parent or parents are unmarried under Thai law (i.e. de facto couples, same sex couples and singles are excluded)
  • any money is paid to the surrogate
  • the removal of the child from Thailand without permission of Thai authorities will breach Thailand’s human trafficking laws.

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

A Surrogacy Agency That Delivered Heartache

By tamar Lewin – The New York Times, July 27, 2014

CANCÚN, Mexico — Rudy Rupak, the founder ofPlanet Hospital, a medical tourism company based in California, was never shy about self-promotion. Over the last decade he has held forth about how his company has helped Americans head overseas for affordable tummy tucks and hip replacements. And after he expanded his business to include surrogacy in India for Western couples grappling with infertility — and then in Thailand, and last year, Mexico — he increasingly took credit for the global spread of surrogacy.

But now Mr. Rupak is in involuntary bankruptcy proceedings, under investigation by the F.B.I. and being pursued by dozens of furious clients from around the world who accuse him of taking their money and dashing their dreams of starting a family.

Where it is permitted, as in parts of Mexico, businesses like Mr. Rupak’s — many reputable, some not — have flourished by serving as intermediaries connecting clients with egg donors, in vitro fertilization clinics and surrogates. Those able to pay more than $100,000 for services often turn to an American agency in a state where surrogacy is legal and fairly widely practiced. Those with less money often go to India or to Mexico through agencies like Planet Hospital that advertise heavily and charge less than half the American price.

Jonathan C. Dailey, a lawyer in Washington, wired Planet Hospital $37,000 in December 2013, the first installment on a contract for a single mother in Mexico to carry his child. He and his fiancée flew to Cancún to leave a sperm deposit at the clinic that would create the embryo and to visit the downtown house where their surrogate would live while pregnant. They picked a “premium” egg donor from the agency Planet Hospital sent them to. But nothing happened.

“It was just outright fraud,” said Mr. Dailey. “It’s like we paid money to buy a condo, they took the money, and there was no condo. But it’s worse, because it’s about having a baby.”

The emerging Planet Hospital story, which Mr. Rupak characterized as one of mismanagement rather than fraud, stands as a cautionary tale about the proliferation of unregulated surrogacy agencies, their lack of accountability and their ability to prey on vulnerable clients who want a baby so badly that they do not notice all the red flags.

Catherine Moscarello, who worked with Mr. Rupak and handled communications with clients, said the company was engaged in unsavory practices “from the moment I stepped aboard.”

“The object was to get money,” she added. “He would keep changing clinics, and whenever his relationship with a clinic in India or Thailand or Cancún broke off, he would disparage the clinic and the doctors there. But what was really happening was that he wasn’t paying his bills.”

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

Would-be parents fleeced, surrogates abandoned by Mexican surrogacy operation Planet Hospital

By ABC.net.au By Jane Cowan and Bronwen Reed – July 8, 2014

An unscrupulous surrogacy operation in Mexico has left clients thousands of dollars out of pocket, and dozens of would-be surrogates abandoned, a Foreign Correspondent investigation has revealed.

Some of the clients are believed to be Australians.

At least one of the surrogates tracked down by Foreign Correspondent miscarried after being impregnated with twins, and received only a fraction of the money she was promised.

The man behind the operation, Rudy Rupak, has done the same thing previously in two other countries, according to one of his former employees.

Earlier this year, Foreign Correspondent exposed India’s lucrative commercial surrogacy industry, following two Australian couples on their own odyssey to create a baby.

Clinics offering an array of affordable fertility services are springing up in cities, towns and villages across the subcontinent.

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