With more people facing fertility issues and couples increasingly seeking alternative routes to have children, there is a growing number of UK families created through surrogacy.
In the last three years, the number of children being born through surrogacy has almost tripled according to figures from the Ministry of Justice Family Court.
Surrogacy is no longer a taboo – along with adoption it has become an accepted alternative to traditional child birth. It has even recently featured in the Archers on Radio 4 and has been put into the headlines by Kim Kardashian and Kanye West who have recently used a surrogate to have their baby, Chicago.
Earlier this week, Governor Jay Inslee of Washington signed into law an updated version of the state’s Uniform Parentage Act. Written to safeguard the rights of LGBTQ and non-biological parents, the new law defines a “de facto” parent as well as allows compensation beyond medical and other expenses for surrogate mothers.
According to the law’s sponsor, state Senator Jamie Pedersen, who has four children with his husband conceived through surrogacy, the bill will help parents who want to have a child through surrogacy at home in Washington State, rather than leaving the state. (Pedersen and his husband had their children in California where compensated surrogacy is already allowed.)
Casey and Kim Richardson hug Kim’s sister Andrea Friesen, center, after Friesen delivered the couple’s twins on Dec. 27.
Andrea Friesen of Nampa said three of the hardest phone calls she’s ever had to make were to call her younger sister, Kim Richardson, each time she got pregnant.
Friesen had three successful pregnancies. During those years, Richardson and her husband, Casey, longed to have children but faced painful infertility hurdles and miscarriages.
“It’s hard to see these guys want that so badly and try and not get that — when it has been so easy for me,” Friesen said.
So, Friesen and her husband, Dan, made a proposal: What if Andrea carried the baby for Kim and Casey?
Sensible Surrogacy Founder, Bill Houghton, with his surrogacy family
Same-sex couples who are considering gay surrogacy to conceive their families should examine the serious risks of unregulated programs overseas, said Bill Houghton, founder of the Sensible Surrogacy Guide.
As same-sex couples increasingly look for options to conceive children, many are choosing programs in countries without basic protections, according to Bill Houghton, founder of the Sensible Surrogacy Guide. Some destinations popular with gay couples have no specific legislation on surrogacy. This opens the door to unregulated programs with serious risks.
On Jan. 25, 2018, the Appellate Division, Third Department, issued a significant decision in Matter of Christopher YY v. Jessica ZZ, 2018 NY Slip Op 00495. Underlying the court’s determination is the conundrum which it describes as follows: “Application of existing case law involving different-gender spouses, addressing whether the presumption [of legitimacy] has been rebutted, to a child born to a same-gender married couple is inherently problematic, as it is not currently scientifically possible for same-gender couples to produce a child that is biologically ‘the product of the marriage’ [citations omitted].”
The last two decades have been revolutionary in terms of fertility management and triumphing challenges posed by infertility. To the couple experiencing difficulty in getting pregnant, there is plenty of hope today. It is not a lost battle like it was in the past. Besides, almost every hurdle can be overcome with the help of scientific and technologically advanced options. For example, a woman without a uterus can still have her own child by borrowing another’s womb! This makes experts believe that every woman how chooses to become pregnant can be blessed.
Children risk being “commodities” as surrogacy spreads, UN rights expert warns
GENEVA (6 March 2018) – Children face becoming commodities as surrogacy arrangements become more prevalent, and urgent action is needed to protect their rights, the UN Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children has warned.
“There is no right to have a child under international law,” said Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, who presented a report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva. “Children are not goods or services that the State can guarantee or provide. They are human beings with rights.
The UK’s Department for Health and Social Care has released new guidelines advising that children born via surrogacy be told of their origins.
The guidelines, released last Wednesday, are intended to “ensure LGBTQ+ individuals are given equal care, and that all surrogates and intended parents are treated with due dignity and respect”. The document states:
Research suggests that openness, confidence and transparency about a child’s origins from an early age (pre-school) is the best way to talk to children about their identity and origins. Your fertility counsellor should have given you the opportunity to explore how you feel about telling a child about their origins, and fertility counsellors would be happy to help you reach a decision about this at any time, as your thoughts and feelings about if, when and how to do this may change over time.
LGBT people have gradually stepped out from shadows over the last 50 years, not only transforming our own lives, but those of our families and communities. A generation or two ago, the children we raised were born of previous heterosexual relationships. This began to change in the 1970s and ‘80s, aided by helpful court rulings that reflected cultural sea change in attitudes toward gay people in general. In 1997, New Jersey became the first state to allow same-sex couples to adopt jointly.
Adoption, artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization and surrogacy are now viable avenues available for LGBT individuals and couples. Ultimately, the choice of how to build your family (adoption vs. fertility treatment) is a personal decision based on many factors. Those who seek help from assisted reproductive technologies want to have children with whom they share a genetic connection. What is this path like?
Government guidance has been issued for couples considering surrogacy in England and Wales, for the first time.
Two sets of guidelines have been released, one for surrogates and intended parents, and the other for healthcare professionals working with them.
Couples planning to enter into an agreement with a surrogate are recommended to use written agreements covering conception, expenses and any planned relationship between the surrogate and the child. They are also encouraged to use established surrogacy organisations in the UK to find a surrogate, rather than travelling abroad to clinics or using informal arrangements.
Actress Sunny Leone on Monday surprised everyone by announcing the birth of her sons Noah and Asher via surrogacy.
She had adopted a girl, Nisha, in 2017.
Leone took to Twitter to post a picture of herself along with husband Daniel Weber and their three children.
Leone captioned it: “God’s plan! June 21st, 2017 was the day Daniel and I found out that we might possibly be having three children within a short amount of time. We planned and tried to have a family and after so many years [our] family is now complete with Asher Singh Weber, Noah Singh Weber and Nisha Kaur Weber.”
The LA Times recently reported on a same-sex married couple who sought U.S. passports for their two children. Of the two fathers, one was born and raised in the United States while the other was born in Israel.
The couple lives in Canada, and the Israel-born partner has yet to obtain U.S. citizenship. They hired a gestational surrogate, used donor eggs and sperm from both men, and had two sons in one pregnancy, born in Canada. When they applied for U.S. citizenship for their children, they encountered a curious problem: only one child could become a U.S. citizen.
Priceless: Kristy and Craig Darken with baby Henry, born via a surrogate. Kristy described the process as akin to having all of the ingredients to make a cake, but baking it in someone else’s oven. Picture: Kelsey Mlekus Photography
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’.
Making the decision to use donor eggs in IVF is often not easy. If you’ve had failed IVF cycles using your own eggs or been told you have insufficient ovarian reserve for IVF, you and your partner may need time to grieve before moving on to donor eggs. Once you are ready, however, donor eggs are a kind of miracle. Eggs from young, healthy donors make it possible for women even of advanced maternal age to get pregnant and have a healthy baby at about the same IVF success rates as younger women, as high as 50 percent or more. Those celebrities having babies well after age 40 are most likely using donor eggs. When you and your partner are ready, these six factors can help you select an egg donor who’s right for you.
The high cost of assisted reproductive treatment in North America is forcing many US citizens to look to other countries for high-quality medical care at a lower cost.
Fertty International. A modern clinic, for new models of the family (PRNewsfoto/Fertty International)
In 2016, nearly 1.4 million Americans travelled outside the U.S. in search of medical treatment, compared to 750,000 in 2008. Currently, medical tourism, or cross border reproductive care as the media have labelled it, is rising by 25% per year.
The primary reasons for these trips, according to a study conducted by the Task Force on Ethics and Law from the ESHRE, and published in the scientific journal Human Reproduction (Shenfield et al. 2010), is the difficulty in accessing certain treatments due to legal restrictions, long waiting lists, and thirdly, the search for high-quality reproductive treatment.
The main countries hosting these medical tourists in Europe are Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Switzerland, Slovenia and Spain. The fact that the latter has the most permissive legislation in terms of assisted reproduction, together with the European regulations on mobilisation of biological samples, and high medical and technical quality make Spain the top destination. It is also the country with the most egg donations.
The Central Administrative Tribunal has come to the aid of a woman, working in the Ministry of Law & Justice, who was denied maternity leave as she had begotten her children through surrogacy.
The Tribunal directed the Ministry to sanction 180 days of maternity leave to the woman citing three high court’s verdicts which have held that the commissioning mother is also entitled for grant of maternity leave.
The woman is working as a Personal Assistant in the Legislative Department, Official Language Wing of Ministry of Law & Justice. As she was unable to conceive due to medical issues, she entered into Gestational Surrogacy Agreement with another woman.
Fertility services are treatments, which aid in treating infertility in patients. In vitro fertilization (IVF), surrogacy, artificial insemination, and others are different forms of infertility services, which assists couples with infertility problems, single mothers, and the LGBT community to procreate. The global fertility services market was valued at $16,761 million in 2016, and is estimated to reach at $30,964 million by 2023, registering a CAGR of 9.3% from 2017 to 2023.
Senate Bill 6037 allows for paid surrogacy in the state of Washington
Sometimes I have the pleasure of telling you a story and sometimes the story just tells itself.
It’s safe to say a number of area lawmakers have had some tough days during the current legislative session in Olympia but the past 24 hours just might have been the toughest for Reps. Liz Pike (R — 18th District) and Vicki Kraft (R — 17th District) and others.
Pike, Kraft and their fellow lawmakers were on the floor of the house until after midnight in the a.m. hours of Wednesday. I spoke with Kraft by telephone this morning and I believe she told me that she was still testifying on the floor of the House of Representatives after midnight.
A fertility expert has warned that plans to permit surrogacy in Ireland are too restrictive and that people would continue to seek surrogacy abroad even though it remains a grey area.
Consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist Mary Wingfield said the legal situation of those who employed surrogate mothers abroad should have been addressed in the Assisted Human Reproduction Bill.
Prof Wingfield was one of three fertility experts to discuss the proposed legislation at a meeting of the joint committee on health yesterday.
