Source RNZ.CO.NZ
A new bill in Parliament recognises that the path to being a parent is not always straightforward, especially if you’re becoming one via a surrogacy arrangement.
A child born in surrogacy generally happens one of two ways:
Through a traditional surrogate, where the woman carrying the baby has been artificially inseminated with the sperm of a father who is one of the intending parents, or donor sperm.
Or it happens via a gestational surrogate where IVF makes it possible to gather eggs from the mother (or an egg donor), fertilise them with sperm from the father (or a sperm donor), and place the embryo into the uterus of a woman who is the gestational surrogate.
If that sounds a bit complicated, it actually gets more complicated, and this is the reason why a Member’s Bill from Labour MP Tamati Coffey – the Improving Surrogacy Arrangements Bill – is currently before Parliament.