Supreme Court ethics hearings face tough, but necessary, road to reform

Supreme Court Ethics – The hearings, led by Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin, began this week and are perhaps the only vehicle, at this stage, to leverage public pressure that could lead to an ethics code for the nation’s highest court.

We might as well say right now that the Senate Judiciary Committee is unlikely to get a federal law passed that would set clear Supreme Court ethics for the ethically challenged U.S. Supreme Court.Supreme Court Gifts

Passing a Senate ethics bill would require 60 votes, which would require at least nine GOP lawmakers — who like the majority-conservative court operating just as it is — crossing the aisle to vote with their Democratic counterparts.

And the Republicans control the House, so a bill would certainly be D.O.A. there.

Also, legal experts aren’t in agreement about whether or not Congress has the constitutional authority to impose ethics standards on the court, or order the court to do so itself.
 
CST Editorial Review Board, May 3, 2023
 
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in Ethics / In the News / Legal / Supreme Court  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

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

Infertility? Could a Uterus Transplant Help?

ethicsUterus Transplants May Soon Help Some U.S. Women Struggling With Infertility Become Pregnant

Infertility affects millions of women worldwide and in Cleveland within the next few months, surgeons at the Cleveland Clinic expect to become the first in the United States to transplant a uterus into a woman who lacks one, so that she can become pregnant and give birth.

Six doctors swarmed around the body of the deceased organ donor and quickly started to operate. The kidneys came out first. Then the team began another delicate dissection, to remove an organ that is rarely, if ever, taken from a donor. Ninety minutes later they had it, resting in the palm of a surgeon’s hand: the uterus.

The operation was a practice run. The recipients will be women who were born without a uterus, had it removed or have uterine damage. The transplants will be temporary: The uterus would be removed after the recipient has had one or two babies, so she can stop taking transplant anti-rejection drugs.

Uterine transplantation is a new frontier, one that pairs specialists from two fields known for innovation and for pushing limits, medically and ethically — reproductive medicine and transplant surgery. If the procedure works, many women could benefit: An estimated 50,000 women in the United States might be candidates. But there are potential dangers.

The recipients, healthy women, will face the risks of surgery and anti-rejection drugs for a transplant that they, unlike someone with heart or liver failure, do not need to save their lives. Their pregnancies will be considered high-risk, with fetuses exposed to anti-rejection drugs and developing inside a womb taken from a dead woman.

Eight women from around the country have begun the screening process at the Cleveland Clinic, hoping to be selected for transplants. One, a 26-year-old with two adopted children, said she still wanted a chance to become pregnant and give birth.

“I crave that experience,” she said. “I want the morning sickness, the backaches, the feet swelling. I want to feel the baby move. That is something I’ve wanted for as long as I can remember.”

She traveled more than 1,000 miles to the clinic, paying her own way. She asked that her name and hometown be withheld to protect her family’s privacy.

She was 16 when medical tests, performed because she had not begun menstruating, found that she had ovaries but no uterus — a syndrome that affects about one in 4,500 newborn girls. She comes from a large family, she said, and always assumed that she would have children. The test results were devastating.

Dr. Andreas G. Tzakis, the driving force behind the project, said, “There are women who won’t adopt or have surrogates, for reasons that are personal, cultural or religious.” Dr. Tzakis is the director of solid organ transplant surgery at a Cleveland Clinic hospital in Weston, Fla. “These women know exactly what this is about,” he said. “They’re informed of the risks and benefits. They have a lot of time to think about it, and think about it again. Our job is to make it as safe and successful as possible.”

Click here to read the entire article.

 

New York Times, by Denise Grady – November 12, 2015

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

Surrogacy Law Plugging the Loopholes

No Surrogacy Law in Unregulated India

Surrogacy law is desperately required in a country which ranks lower than traditionally patriarchal societies like Qatar and Saudi Arabia in the United Nations Gender Inequality Index, the Government’s intent to block commercial surrogacy for foreigners in India is reason to celebrate. Despite impressive and revolutionary breakthroughs, India’s story of gender equality remains far from inspiring.

From the rural and illiterate to the urban and literate, Indian women contend with chronic gender inequities which liberating moves like education and employment opportunities have been unable to correct. Rampant instances of gender crimes and sexist biases dominate the narrative of a country, where literacy may have unfettered women, but where decadent mindsets stymie their participation in the country’s growth story. The unregulated world of commercial surrogacy contains one such saga of exploitation of the economically challenged Indian woman, across rural and urban divides.

The Health Ministry’s affidavit to the Supreme Court this Wednesday makes the Government’s stand on the matter abundantly clear and is indeed a significant step in insuring the rights of a surrogate mother and her child. It states that, “The Government of India does not support commercial surrogacy”, and that surrogacy should be available to “Indian married infertile couples only and not to foreigners”. Arguably, the altruistic intent of surrogacy — to address the parental needs of a childless couple — cannot be contested. Celebrities, from Hollywood to Bollywood, have, in fact, rendered the idea of surrogacy eminently fetching. Be it Hollywood’s Nicole Kidman and Sarah Jessica Parker or even Elton John with a same-sex partner, to Indian celebrities like Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan, couples, heterosexual and homosexual, have successfully reinforced the idea of altruistic surrogacy.

Commercial Surrogacy Needs Surrogacy Law to Prevent Explotation

However, there is reason to believe that the Rs900 crore worth surrogacy trade in India, far from being an altruistic enterprise, is predominantly an appalling tale of female exploitation, a surrogate mother in India available at less than one-third the cost of a similar volunteer in more developed pockets of the world. Declared a criminal offense by civilised countries the world over (from Australia, Japan, Canada, France, and the United Kingdom to some states in the United States), commercial surrogacy in India has had sinister manifestations, ethical and legal.

Today India is a favored destination for surrogacy tourism owing to the high-end medical science and technologies its medical fraternity has access to. This, alongside the criminally low financial costs and lack of Government regulation, has predictably led the practice into ethical and legal abuse, earning India the avoidable distinction of being an international hub of surrogacy services.

As per existing Indian laws, same sex couples with foreign nationality or single foreigners cannot commission surrogacy here even as single Indians can. Also, foreigners seeking surrogacy here must be a man and woman “duly married” and the marriage should have sustained for at least two years. Lest this descend into a regressive debate on Indian lawmakers’ apathy to homosexuality, or even their xenophobia, there is need to understand the rationale behind such a provision. Innumerable instances have been reported where a child from a surrogate Indian mother has been abandoned by its intended foreign parents without a thought to the fate of the mother or the child’s imperiled future.

Legal since 2002, commercial surrogacy in India has been open to grave misuse. The shocking case of an Australian couple forsaking one of the twin babies born to an Indian surrogate only because the two already had a child of the same sex, highlighted the need to urgently streamline this unregulated sector. In 2008, the Supreme Court had to intervene in a case where the commissioning parents were divorced during the pregnancy and the intended mother refused to accept the child. As per current Indian laws, foreign couples seeking surrogacy have to provide a written undertaking from the country of their origin that a child born through surrogacy would be taken to their country. However, this provision alone has not been able to prevent misuse.

A more comprehensive answer is available in the 2010 draft, Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Bill pending in Parliament. Admittedly, surrogacy forms only a part of the proposed Bill which intends to be a legal umbrella providing respite to childless couples while protecting surrogate mothers. Surrogacy, however, has been specifically vulnerable to abuse, claiming hundreds of economically disadvantaged women as its unsuspecting victims.

Therefore, there is urgent need for a fail-safe surrogacy law that guards the interests of the intended parents and the surrogate mother and child through a monitoring system rigorously implemented. Israel has led in this matter, becoming the first country in the world to approve of a state-ordered surrogacy policy wherein every case is scrutinized and sanctioned by the Government. Even Russia, where commercial surrogacy is legal, the industry is subject to rigid scrutiny by Governmental agencies.

Click here to read the entire article.

 

DailyPioneer.com, October 30. 2015 by Shobori Ganguli
in Ethics / International / Surrogacy  by Anthony Brown 1 comments

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.

Click here to read the entire article.

 

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