Source 9 News
Male same-sex couples and single men will be able have children through a surrogate under proposed amendments to West Australian laws.
The bill will be introduced in state parliament on Thursday and will bring WA into line with most Australian jurisdictions.
If the legislation passes, men in WA will have the same access to altruistic surrogacy that women and heterosexual couples have had since 2009.
Source APNews
In this Thursday, May 17, 2018, photo, Peter Peacock, 68, left, and Gypsy Diamond, 36, pose for a portrait after an interview with The Associated Press, in Melbourne, Australia. Peacock, who donated sperm anonymously around 1980, was recently contacted by Diamond, his biological daughter, after a new law in Australia retroactively removed the anonymity granted to sperm donors decades ago. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E), The Associated Press
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — For Peter Peacock, fate arrived in the form of a registered letter.
The letter, at least initially, looked to be a bit of a letdown. Peacock had gone to the post office expecting the delivery of a big, furry aviator jacket he’d ordered online. And so it was with little fanfare that the Australian grandfather and retired cop tore the envelope open as he walked back to his car — at which point he stopped dead in his tracks.
“Dear Mr Peacock,” the letter began. “The Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority (VARTA) has received an enquiry of a personal nature which may or may not relate to you. The matter concerns a record held in relation to a project you may have assisted with at Prince Henry’s Institute.”
Source CTVNews
MELBOURNE, Australia – For Peter Peacock, fate arrived in the form of a registered letter.
The letter looked to be a bit of a letdown. Peacock had gone to the post office expecting an aviator jacket he’d ordered online. The Australian grandfather tore the envelope open as he walked to his car – at which point he stopped dead in his tracks.
Source Daily Mail
A grandmother has offered to give birth to her own grandchild after a life-saving hysterectomy left her daughter unable to have any more children.
Sherrie Zammit, 49, from Gladesville, New South Wales, Australia, made the offer to Chloe Simmons, 31, after Ms Simmons was told she had just weeks to live unless she had her womb removed the day after being diagnosed with cancer in the area between her placenta and uterus lining.
Grandmother-of-one Ms Zammit has already undergone all of the necessary tests ahead of the surrogate pregnancy, which would involve implanting Ms Simmons’ egg and her fiancé Dimitri Pixomatis’ sperm.
Source Yahoo News
Often grandparents share the burden of child-rearing, but one family has taken that a big step further.
A very generous 49-year-old mum wants to help her 31-year-old daughter have a baby, and has agreed to be a surrogate for her grandchild-to-be.
Sherrie Zammit gave daughter Chloe the gift of life – now, history is about to repeat itself for the next generation.
“My days, I thought, were done and dusted with pregnancies, and never did I expect to be carrying my grandchild, but I’m really excited,” Sherrie said.
Source The Sydney Morning Heral
Kahlia Holroyd, a 25-year-old primary school teacher, loves children. But watching her older brother struggle with the debilitating effects of mitochondrial disease has made her question whether she should ever have her own babies.
But no longer. A Senate committee has carved a path for the Federal Government to move towards legalising the “three parent” IVF technique that would prevent babies being born with mitochondrial disease, a genetic disorder that robs the body’s cells of energy, causing organ dysfunction and death.
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.”
Source Perth Now
MORE WA women are seeking to become “single mothers by choice” by using sperm donors, with the wait list at one fertility clinic doubling in 12 months.
A nationwide sperm shortage and increased demand for donor-assisted conception have extended wait lists at Perth fertility clinics, and hundreds of women are instead seeking sperm donors through Facebook.
PIVET Medical Centre’s wait list for donor-assisted conception has doubled in 12 months.
Donor co-ordinator Anne Wigham said more women were aware of their fertility limitations and were making the decision to have a child rather than wait for a partner.
Source. The Conversion
Many Victorians are now discovering for the first time that they have offspring from sperm donations made in Victorian clinics in the 1970s and 1980s.
These findings were revealed in a new report released earlier this month by the Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority (VARTA), the organisation charged with overseeing applications for information from donors, donor-conceived persons, their parents and descendants.
The VARTA report revealed that sperm donor records that were held by clinics in the 1970s and 1980s have been preserved. This is good news for people who wish to find people to whom they are related via donor conception, using last year’s changes to donor conception laws in Victoria.
Source 3AW693 NEWS TALK
Neil Mitchell has spoken with three people affected by the Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority’s release of a report, revealing previously unknown details about sperm donors to both donor children and biological fathers.
One is angry, one is hopeful and one is terrified.
The VARTA report to be released earlier this week revealed some donors who believed they were contributing to research actually have a number of biological children.
John told Neil Mitchell he and his wife have 35-year-old and 45-year-old children and subsequent grandchildren, who don’t know John isn’t biologically related to them.
Source The Sydney Morning Herald –
A West Australian woman has won the right to bring her deceased partner’s sperm to the ACT in an attempt to have a baby, with the territory’s broad legislation allowing the procedure where other states don’t.
The West Australian Supreme Court decided this week that the 42-year-old woman, identified as GLS in court documents, would be allowed to undergo in vitro fertilisation (IVF) procedures in the ACT after her application to move the sperm had previously been rejected.
Source Public Service Association of NSW –
The PSA, working collectively with our colleagues through Unions NSW, is claiming a great win for fairness following the recent publication of a NSW Government Determination on the rights of Employees in relation to altruistic surrogacy and permanent out-of-home care arrangements.
The Determination gives surrogate parents access to the same rights as other parents in relation to leave entitlements following the birth of their child. This formal extension of that entitlement follows years of advocacy by the PSA on a case-by-case basis for parents undertaking altruistic surrogacy arrangements and ensures that in future, no parent has to argue that their family is equal to others.
Source: news.com.au
MEN who donated sperm in Victoria in the 1960s and 1970s for “research purposes” may not have been aware that their donation was being used for conception, according to a new report.
Research by the Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority (VARTA), set to be released later today, reveals meticulous records kept by donor clinics and approximately 40 interviews with clinicians, sperm donors and recipient parents who were involved in the early days of the fertility industry.
The report states that men who donated in the early years of the program may not have been aware that their semen was being used for conception purposes.
Source: Newcastle Herald
BY the time Kristy and Craig Darken found out they were going to be parents, they had almost given up all hope of holding a child of their own in their arms.
It had been close to eight years of highs and lows, of hope and of devastation, as the Elermore Vale couple trod the testing track of having a baby via a surrogate.
But then, countless counselling sessions, IVF, two surrogates and 10 embryos later, a tearful late night phone call came from Kristy’s sister, Rebecca.
“She was crying her eyes out,” Kristy said.
“I thought she was crying because she knew it was our last try. I thought she was devastated. Then finally, she said, ‘I’m pregnant. It worked’.
Source: The Examiner
Former Labor Premier and Franklin MHA Lara Giddings has welcomed a “beautiful” baby girl.
Natasha Rose Magill was born at 12.36pm on Australia Day weighing 2.77kg.
Ms Giddings announced her pregnancy in September 2017 which was made possible by the assistance of an egg donor.
Source: Manning River Times
Source: CoastLive.com
The State Government has announced a shake up of the Human Reproductive Technology Act to allow same sex couples to have children using a surrogate.
An independent review will be undertaken by Associate Professor Sonia Allen who worked on similar reforms in South Australia.
Professor Allen’s work was successful in allowing same South Australian sex couples access to surrogacy from last year.
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald
Phnom Penh: Australian nurse Tammy Davis-Charles, who is suffering eye cancer, has had her appeal against an 18-month jail sentence on surrogacy charges rejected by a Cambodian court.
Davis-Charles sobbed after a judge ruled on Monday that under Cambodian law the court could not take into consideration her cancer.
