Month: June 2018

Frozen Embryo Legal Battle

Woman must turn over embryo for estranged husband to destroy: judges

Intended Parents

Source NY Post

An appeals court has taken away a Manhattan woman’s frozen embryo — and given it to her estranged husband to destroy.

In April 2017, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Deborah Kaplan granted Bat-El Yishay Finkelstein sole custody of the embryo that a fertility clinic had created with her egg and her husband Yoram Finkelstein’s sperm.

The judge based her decision in part on the fact that the embryo represented the now 53-year-old wife’s “last chance to become a biological parent.”

Finkelstein, a 63-year-old architect, challenged the ruling.

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NJ, Surrogacy Law

End of an Era: New Jersey Legalizes Surrogacy, 29 Years After Baby M

Intended Parents

Source Verdict Justia

For the third time, the New Jersey legislature passed a bill to legalize gestational surrogacy. Two previous times, in 2012 and 2015, bills approved by the legislature were vetoed by then-Governor Chris Christie. Both times, Christie expressed concern that the legislature had not sufficiently considered or responded to the potential harms of surrogacy. But Christie was replaced by Democrat Phil Murphy in 2016, and Murphy signed the most recent bill into law. The bill had been approved by the legislature along party lines. Surrogacy is not obviously a partisan issue—many of its critics are liberal feminists—but Republicans in New Jersey all voted against the bill or abstained.

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Fertility over 40, UK

UK – As Brigitte Nielsen announces she’s pregnant at 54, an expert warns that celebrities who are not open about using donor eggs to conceive are giving women ‘false hope’

Intended Parents

Source Daily Mail

Last week, actress Brigitte Nielsen shocked fans by revealing she’s pregnant with her fifth child at 54, joining a long list of celebrities who have conceived in their 40s and 50s, such as Rachel Weiss, 48.

As fertility starts to decline after the age of 35, many women who fall pregnant in later life do so by using a donor egg.

Other famous women who have conceived in later life include Janet Jackson who got pregnant at 50 and Halle Berry who had her second child at 47, although it can’t be said for certain that any of these famous women did use donor eggs
l

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Fertility over 50

What it’s like to have a baby after 45

Intended Parents

Source NBCNews

Brigitte Nielsen announced this week that she’s pregnant at 54. Senator Tammy Duckworth recently gave birthto daughter Maile a month after she turned 50. Janet Jackson also had a child at 50. So did singer/songwriter Sophie B. Hawkins. Supermodel Iman had daughter Alexandria when she was 48.

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Canada, Donor Eggs

Canada – Baylis: Paying for egg donations enters dicey territory

Intended Parents

Source Ottawa Citizen

In Canada, it is illegal to pay a woman for her eggs; it is not illegal, however, for a woman to sell her eggs. That is, in Canada the buying is illegal; the selling is not.

Anthony Housefather, Liberal member of Parliament for Mount Royal, wants to change this. He wants to remove the prohibition on payment so as to facilitate the introduction of a commercial market in human reproduction. A commercial market would benefit fertility doctors, lawyers and brokers by increasing their profits. It would also benefit some intended parents who cannot access women’s bodies without payment.

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Egg Freezing

Why do women regret freezing their eggs?

Intended Parents

Source The Sydney Morning Herald

From the time she was a teenager, Donna* knew she wanted to have a baby. When she ended her most recent relationship at age 39, she decided to see a fertility specialist about freezing her eggs.

At that stage, she didn’t want to use donor sperm to undergo IVF, so she wasn’t ready to freeze an embryo. Instead, she wanted to freeze her eggs so she could use them down the track with a future partner.

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Canada, surrogacy compensation, Surrogate Mother

Canadian parents want to do more for the surrogates carrying their babies

Intended Parents

Source Global News

A private member’s bill has been tabled, with the goal of decriminalizing the act of paying surrogates in Canada. The legal patchwork surrounding the issue is grey. Abigail Bimman explains how the system works now, and why there’s opposition to the change.

With beaming smiles and giddy excitement, Mike Black and Travis Wood show off an ultrasound photo of their nine-week-old, unborn baby.

“I’ve been dreaming every night it’s a baby boy,” Black told Global New earlier this week.

Getting the photo required a 4,000-kilometre trip from Slave Lake, Alta., to Ottawa, where the couple’s surrogate lives and was getting an ultrasound. It’s an experience Black describes as “life-changing.”

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Catholic, Surrogacy Law

Push to expand surrogacy practices in US raises questions

Intended Parents

Source Catholic News Agency

Washington D.C., Jun 2, 2018 / 06:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A proposal introduced earlier this year aims to expand the practice of surrogacy within the U.S. in an effort to include same-sex couples as surrogate parents and to loosen state supervision over surrogacy contracts.

The measure was proposed by the Uniform Law Commission (ULC) with the goal of updating the Uniform Parentage Act, which provides the current model legislation for the legal rights of surrogacy practices within the U.S.

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Egg Donor, UK

UK – What it’s really like to donate your eggs to a stranger

Intended Parents

Source Cosmopolitan

30-year-old Kerri shared every aspect of the process with us – from why she did it to how it affected her, the health risks and the pay she didn’t know you got.

GETTY IMAGESCOSMOPOLITAN UK

Most women have probably never even considered donating their eggs – and neither had Kerri, 30, until she saw an advert for it on a London tube.

“To be honest, I didn’t even know that you could donate eggs,” she told Cosmopolitan UK. But the curiosity got the better of her and, after weeks of playing on her mind, she googled the London clinic advertised on the underground, eager to know more.

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Surrogacy Law

New Jersey couples looking to start a family can now sign contracts with surrogate mothers

Intended Parents

Source NorthJersey.com

New Jerseysans hoping to become parents but struggling to conceive children are now allowed to enter legally binding agreements with “gestational carriers” under a law signed by Gov. Phil Murphy.

In a flurry of activity this week, Murphy, a Democrat, also signed about a dozen other measures, including one to protect the Obama-era insurance mandate, and conditionally vetoed a handful more.

The measure authorizing gestational carrier agreements had twice been vetoed by Murphy’s predecessor, Republican Chris Christie, who worried about the “profound change” the practice could bring to how families are started. 

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Surrogacy Law

Here’s what N.J.’s new surrogacy law means for couples and women willing to give birth to their child

Intended Parents

Source NJ.com

New Jersey state law caught up to medical science Wednesday, when Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill that provides legal protection to New Jersey couples struggling with infertility and sign a contract with a woman willing to carry their child.

The New Jersey Gestational Carrier Act clarifies the law as it applies to women who, unlike surrogates, have no biological link to the fetus because the egg belongs to another woman.

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Surrogacy

This Current New York Law Is Odd

Intended Parents

Source Above The Law

Last Thursday, two New York Assemblymen — Jeffrey Dinowitz and Richard N. Gottfriend — who are the Chairs of the Judiciary and Health Committees, respectively, held a joint public hearing of their Committees. They invited experts to give testimony on a new bill before the New York Assembly, the proposed Child-Parent Security Act (CPSA). Hoping to catch up to the rest of the country, the CPSA would overturn the 26-year-old prohibition on compensated surrogacy in New York. It would also solidify parent-child relationships for children conceived with assisted reproductive technology. These two reforms would give people who need help growing their families a much-needed victory.

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IVF, UK

UK – TERRIFIC TWOSOME  Single mum’s IVF quest for kids led to twins — born THREE YEARS apart

Intended Parents

Source The Sun

Samantha spent £12,000 on fertility treatments, with her five-year-old, Grace and 21-month-old Rory, conceived at the same time with her egg and donor sperm.

They were both born from the same embryos.

Grace came from the first batch implanted through IVF and Rory from the second, which was frozen for three years before being implanted.

Samantha, 46, says that despite their age gap, the bond between Grace and Rory is as strong as i

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Gay Parenting

The Steps To Becoming A Parent Through Surrogacy

Intended Parents

Source QNews

If you’re a gay couple and have made the decision to start a family but aren’t sure where to begin, Brisbane fertility speciality Dr Andy Stamatiou has the answers. Dr Stamatiou, from LGBTIQ-friendly fertility practice Genesis Women’s Health, shares the important steps you require to start your family-building journey.

There are three key elements you need to build a family: sperm, an egg and a surrogate to carry the pregnancy. Specialists can’t help you find a surrogate but we can provide advice and information.

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Canada, Surrogacy Law

Canada – Private member’s bill would allow payment to surrogates, sperm and egg donors

Intended Parents

Source CTV News

A new private member’s bill aims to remove the prospect of criminal charges for those who pay for and receive donated sperm and eggs, as well as surrogacy services.

Anthony Housefather, a Liberal MP representing the Montreal riding of Mount Royal, tabled the bill Tuesday, saying “criminalization is meant to eradicate societal evils. The desire to have a child or to help someone have a child is not evil.”

He said the criminal law should be changed and it should be left up to the provinces to regulate assisted human reproduction services. Provinces could choose to continue to prohibit compensation beyond expenses, set a cap on payouts, or leave it up to the free market, he said

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Australia, Canada, intended parents, Surrogate Mother

Canada – Dream comes true for Australian parents with Canadian surrogate

Intended Parents

Source The Star

During the Star’s Made in Canada series, which looks at this country’s booming international surrogacy industry, the Crabbs and their Canadian surrogate, Paula Capa, a teacher in Kitchener, struggled to become parents.

“Obviously we’ve been waiting forever for this,” David says. “And now we’ve got one beautiful little angel sent from heaven.”

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Acupuncture, IVF

Acupuncture doesn’t improve IVF success rate, study confirms

Intended Parents

Source xxx

There are approximately 200,000 cycles of in vitro fertilization (IVF) for infertility every year in the United States. This is an incredible investment, both financial and emotional. Women must undergo a significant amount of invasive testing to see if they are even a candidate and then the IVF requires days of hormone injections, blood work, numerous ultrasounds and two procedures — one to retrieve the eggs and another to hopefully implant an embryo. And then the terrible waiting to see if it worked.

The average cost per cycle of IVF is $12,400, even higher for cycles where a donor egg is required or if a gestational surrogate is used, and success is not guaranteed. For a woman under the age of 35 the chance of having a live birth with IVF using her own eggs is approximately 56 percent, but the success drops significantly for women aged 35 and older. By the time a woman is 38 her chance of a successful pregnancy with IVF is about 30 percent and over the age of 42 it drops to 5.0 percent.

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