Month: April 2018

Three Genetic Parents

Discussion on new genetics-linked tech welcome

Intended Parents

Source The Straits Times

The Bioethics Advisory Committee has to consider the dilemmas associated with a new technology which allows a child to be born without serious genetic defects, but with three genetic parents.

Mitochondrial genome replacement technology involves combining the genetic material (DNA) of a couple – who would otherwise be unlikely to have healthy children of their own – with that of a female egg donor.

That would mean the child would have the genetic make-up of three people, although the donor’s contribution would account for less than 1 per cent of the child’s DNA.

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Italy, Law, Lesbian, Same Sex

Italian authorities REFUSE to register the baby of a lesbian couple unless the mother pretends she had sex with a man

Intended Parents

Source Daily Mail

A lesbian couple in Italy have been refused their request to register their baby unless the child’s mother pretends she had sex with a man.

Chiara Foglietta, from Turin, gave birth to a baby boy, Niccolo Pietro, last Friday after travelling to Denmark with partner Micaela Ghisleni last year to undergo artificial insemination treatment.

To the couple’s dismay, Italian law refuses to acknowledge the treatment for lesbian couples – only recognising its effects in heterosexual couples.

Italy has continued to ban several fertility treatments which have long been the norm in many other EU member states.

Despite legalising same-sex civil unions back in 2016 – the country is lagging far behind in its adoption of Europe-wide rights for same-sex couples.

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Law, Malta

Malta – ‘I had told Muscat I am against freezing, adoption of embryos, and surrogacy’ – Deborah Schembri

Intended Parents

Source Independent

Former Parliamentary Secretary Deborah Schembri said she has always been against embryo freezing, embryo adoption and surrogacy and “Prime Minister Joseph Muscat knew (this) from day one.”

Last week Health Minister Chris Fearne presented in Parliament a number of amendments to the Embryo Protection Act. Schembri said that she is in favour with some of them and against in others.

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Infertility

Here’s what you need to know about infertility

Intended Parents

Source AbuDhabi World

We ask two doctors what you can do when you’re struggling to get your family started

According to a report by the United Nations, fertility across the UAE has been declining for a while. In fact, by the time we reach 2025, it’s projected to have declined by 75 percent of what it was in the 1970s. Another study found that men account for over 50 percent of cases of infertility thanks to lifestyle issues in the UAE. With that in mind, it’s time to talk about what all this means for your future of having a family.

From knowing the causes of infertility to finding the right clinic and procedures for you, we sit down with two Abu Dhabi experts to find out all you need to know about IVF and beyond.

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Doctor using own sperm

Can Doctors Who Secretly Use Their Own Sperm To Impregnate Patients Be Brought To Justice?

Intended Parents

Source Above The Law

Just because the legal calculation is hard to make, doesn’t mean judges should throw up their hands and not try.

Last week, another woman brought suit against a fertility doctor after finding out that he had gotten involved with his own patients’ efforts to have a child. This time, it was the child conceived through the fertility procedure, together with her parents, who brought the suit. The defendant is an Idaho fertility doctor, who was busted after the plaintiff used an Ancestry.com mail-away DNA-test and learned that her fertility doctor’s genetic profile meant that he was actually her biological father. That had to be quite a shock! Sure, those home DNA tests are fun for finding out your heritage, but they are less fun for finding out that one of your parents isn’t actually genetically related to you. Plaintiff Kelli Rowlette, of Washington state, spoke with her mother once she received the results. Her mother, Sally Ashby, was equally horrified to learn the news.

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Sperm Donor Children

WHY THIS TEEN, GIVEN LIFE BY SPERM BANK, IS CALLING FOR CHANGES TO INDUSTRY

Intended Parents

Source 11Alive

When he was just 14, John wanted to learn more about the sperm donor that helped give him life.

“At this age, your trying to figure out what makes you… you,” he told 11Alive.

So in March 2017, John, whose name 11Alive has changed to protect his identity, went online. But with a simple Google search, he learned more than he could have imagined.

The internet was filled with stories about the donor, diagnosed bipolar with schizo-affective disorder, that had been allowed to donate at THE Georgia sperm bank Xytex, for nearly 14 years.

It was a month earlier that 11Alive Investigator Rebecca Lindstrom began an ongoing investigation into the donor, the industry and the push for change.

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Sperm Donor Children

Online search for sperm donor children brings three ‘special brothers’ together

Intended Parents

Source ABC News

PHOTO Caelan, Jacob and Chevy are biological siblings. SUPPLIED: SIMONE

Three women who used an online registry to find other children fathered by the same sperm donor say their sons now have a regular relationship with each other.

Simone, Casey and Grace said they each arrived at the decision to become a single parent for different reasons.

Simone was 37 and fed up with searching for Mr Right when she started searching for an anonymous sperm donor in Brisbane.

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Egg Donor

RHOC Alum Gretchen Rossi Details ‘Struggles’ with IVF: We’re Currently ‘Awaiting the Outcome

Intended Parents

Source People Babies

Gretchen Rossi is determined to expand her family.

The former Real Housewives of Orange County star recently opened up to PEOPLE about her and fiancé Slade Smiley‘s journey toward having children together via in vitro fertilization.

“Many celebrities in Hollywood glamorize the ability to have babies way up into your late 40s and the truth is that some of them are not telling the full story,” says Rossi, 39.

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Canada, surrogacy compensation

Lobby wrap: Surrogacy agency wants feds to reverse ban on payments to surrogates

Intended Parents

Source iPolitics

The Parliament Hill Peace Tower. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

The Canadian Surrogacy Community wants Ottawa to decriminalize the act of paying surrogates to carry other people’s babies – and they recently hired a lobbyist to help them achieve that goal.

The surrogacy agency recruited Lisa Jibson, founder and chief administrative officer of Ross Street Agency, to push government officials to repeal section six of the Assisted Human Reproduction Act – which says it’s illegal for an intended parent or couple in Canada to compensate a woman for carrying a baby on their behalf.

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Fertility Benefits, Surrogacy Benefits

Sick leave, Obamacare bills head to governor’s desk

Intended Parents

Source Press of Atlantic City

……. The New Jersey Gestational Carrier Agreement Act, which would provide legal protections to those struggling to conceive a child who wish to use a gestational carrier, gained final approval Thursday in the Assembly.

The legislation outlines specific guidelines that the carrier and the intended parents must follow when writing up agreements, including required medical and psychological evaluations, that the carrier be at least 21 years old and have already given birth to at least one child.

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frozen embryos

How a woman’s ex-boyfriend is stopping her from having a baby.

Intended Parents

Source Mama Mia

A New York woman claims her ex-boyfriend is using “time as a weapon” to prevent her from using their shared frozen embryos to become a mother.

Ilissa Watnik and her ex Kevin Heldt are currently locked in a legal battle over use of their embryos at Manhattan Supreme Court.

He says he doesn’t want the “emotional and financial burden of parentage” and that documents he signed giving her use are “vague” and “unenforceable”.

She says he’s just wasting her time in court to “run out” her biological clock.

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Ireland, Surrogacy, Surrogate Mother

Irish model Georgia Penna reportedly welcomes third child via surrogate

Intended Parents

Source RSVP Live

Irish beauty Georgia Penna has reportedly welcomed her third child via surrogate with husband Joe.

The model revealed she was expecting a baby girl back in February and shared gorgeous snaps of the baby shower thrown for her.

The star is married to Joe Penna and already has twin boys.

The 32-year-old is very private when it comes to her personal life and rarely posts family pictures.

Their baby girl was reportedly born last week to an American surrogate. An inside source told Evoke.iethat everything went well and the couple are delighted.

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Fertility over 50

Fertility over 50: Tammy Duckworth and other well-known moms make it look easy. But is it?

Intended Parents

Source Chicago Tribune

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Enter a Tammy Duckworth is the first senator to give birth, but she’s also among a rising number of women in their 40s and 50s becoming mothers. (Alex Brandon / AP)caption

When Sen. Tammy Duckworth welcomed her second child this week, it was cause for celebration — not only because she had become the first sitting senator to give birth or because she has already begun to challenge the Senate to change its rules to allow her to bring her infant on the floor with her during voting. In giving birth to Maile Pearl Bowlsbey, Duckworth, a combat-injured veteran who has overcome considerable obstacles in her life, beat the odds yet again.

At 50, she became one of a growing number of women to have a child at an age once considered an unlikely, unwise or even irresponsible time to attempt new motherhood.

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Assisted Reproductive Technology, Surrogacy

What should be done about Canada’s assisted reproduction laws?

Intended Parents

Source The Globe And Mail

Alison Motluk is a Toronto freelance journalistwith a special interest in assisted reproduction.

Recently, the Prime Minister suggested it might be time to revisit our law on assisted reproduction. He was responding to the news that Liberal MP Anthony Housefather planned to introduce a private member’s bill amending parts of the law that made it a criminal offence to pay people to act as surrogates, egg donors or sperm donors.

They are right that the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, which received royal assent in 2004, is a bit outdated. Much of it comes from a time before it was common for gay couples to have children, for lesbians to use anonymous sperm donors or for single women or men to create families on their own. The idea that paying for someone’s willing help in this could send a parent to prison doesn’t feel right.

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Commercial Surrogacy

The contradictions of commercial surrogacy

Intended Parents

Source BioEdge

Commercial surrogacy contains inherent contradictions about the status of the mother, according to an article in the Journal of Medical Ethics. Jennifer Parks and Timothy Murphy, two American bioethicists, focus on times when the person or persons who commissioned the pregnancy abandon the child. This has happened in a number of widely-publicised cases overseas and in the US. Most of the time, the mother is left with responsibility for the baby, even if it is disabled.

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Sperm Donor, Sperm Donor Rights, Sperm Freezing

Man claims fertility facilities allowed specimen donations to thaw, declined to provide explanation

Intended Parents

HOUSTON – A Harris County man alleges Houston Fertility Services, PLLC and Southwest Andrology Services, LLC refused to provide him information in connection with the purported destruction of his sperm donation.

In a lawsuit filed on Apr. 6 in the Harris County 334th District Court, Sharon Amos explains he contributed the specimens in question to the defendants in 2014 after he was diagnosed with cancer. Amos and his wife intended to start a family following his treatment regimen, the suit states.

Cancer, Surrogacy, Surrogate Mother

Would-be mother who has battled cancer TWICE in her 20s is finally fulfilling her dream of starting a family using a surrogate – after chemo crushed her hopes of carrying a baby 

Intended Parents

Source Daily Mail

A young woman who has been diagnosed with both cervical and breast cancer all before turning 30 has revealed her plans to start a family with her fiance, with the help of a surrogate.

Still just 28, Helen Johnson, who says she has always ‘longed’ to be a mother, faced a double whammy, when she found a pea sized lump in her breast exactly a year after being diagnosed with cervical cancer.
Helen, from Bolton in Greater Manchester, froze her eggs after learning she had cervical cancer when she was 27, just 14 months after her first ever smear test – which was clear.

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Surrogacy

Here’s Why Pro-Life People Should be Concerned About Surrogacy and “Selective Reduction”

Intended Parents

Source Life News

The reboot of the sitcom, “Roseanne,” has been met with accolades from many conservatives. They claim the popularity of the show is due to allegedly representing the values of Middle America. I have not watched the reboot because I wasn’t a fan of the original and I knew the storyline of the new show included a positive, or at least morally neutral portrayal of surrogacy. I may be mistaken, but I have yet to hear a single conservative pundit who praised the show express any moral concerns regarding the surrogacy. This unquestioned acceptance of surrogacy as a social good presents a moral crisis just as serious as surrogacy itself.

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Parental rights, Same Sex, Surrogacy

Gay people using a surrogate have to put time and effort into planning parenthood

Intended Parents

Source DevonLive

I wish people who disapprove of the decision by Plymouth diver Tom Daley and his partner Dustin Lance Black to have a baby by surrogacy, would just shut up.

The most common criticism, apart from plain old prejudice, is that the baby will suffer from not having a mother.

Unlike some heterosexual couples who accidentally have babies, or decide on a whim, same-sex couples are almost certainly going to discuss and plan their children at length

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Malta, Same Sex, Surrogacy, Surrogacy Law

Pro-life group tears into proposed changes to IVF law

Intended Parents

Source Malta Today
The Life Network Foundation says new law will create ethical and legal problems for children born from in-vitro fertilisation

A pro-life group has raised concerns over proposed changes to the Embryo Protection Act, which it says gives short shrift to the legal and ethical issues involved.

Life Network Foundation chairperson, Miriam Sciberras, was critical of changes that will change the definition of prospective parents, the introduction of anonymous gamete donation and embryo freezing.

Sciberras also criticised the proposal to start a consultation process on altruistic surrogacy. She said surrogacy turned women into objects and ignored the importance of the bond that develops during pregnancy between the mother and the child.

The wider definition of parents would allow, among others, single women to make use of in-vitro fertilisation treatment. The changes also propose the introduction of anonymous sperm and egg donation.

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