Source The Spinoff
In Aotearoa, parents who conceive via a surrogate must formally adopt a baby who was always intended to be theirs. Now, a member’s bill looks set to change a time-consuming, expensive and exhausting process. It’s about time, writes Hannah Gibson.
At its essence, surrogacy is about people working together with others, centrally the surrogate, to fulfil their dream of having a family. For three years as a part of my anthropological research, I immersed myself in the complex world of surrogacy in Aotearoa, and found that the existing laws around adoption and surrogacy were one of the most loathed and archaic parts of the journey for new parents and surrogates alike.