India, Law, Surrogacy

India – Delhi HC seeks Centre’s response on plea challenging validity of Surrogacy law

Source The Siasat Daily

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New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Friday sought the response of the Centre on a plea challenging the constitutional validity of provisions of the Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Act, 2021, and the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021.

Issuing notice in the matter, a bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Sachin Datta asked the government to file a reply within six weeks and posted the matter for further hearing on November 19.

The petition was filed by Karan Balraj Mehta, a single unmarried man and a lawyer by profession, and Dr Pankhuri Chandra, a married woman teaching Psychology in a private school.

Surrogacy, Ukraine, War

Wartime labour: How Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has exposed the reality of the surrogacy industry

Source The Glove and Mail

Nurse Oksana Martynenko feeds a surrogate-born baby inside a special shelter owned by BioTexCom clinic in a residential basement, as Russia’s invasion continues, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine March 15, 2022. Picture taken March 15, 2022. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich
GLEB GARANICH/REUTERS

Among the most heartrending footage that has emerged from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been of the children.

They have suffered the misfortune of being born in what is now a warzone, and many have been orphaned, injured and killed by Russian violence. According to UNICEF, 7.1 million people have been internally displaced in Ukraine so far, including up to 2.8 million children; more than 4.5 million people, 90 per cent of whom are women and children, have been forced to flee the country altogether. An entire generation of Ukrainians now threatens to be hollowed out.

Yet for some in the West, the focus has been on a different category of Ukrainian children: the surrogate-born babies promised to foreign couples around the world.

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Surrogacy, UK, Ukraine, War

UK – ‘We took in our twins’ surrogate mum after she fled Ukraine. We couldn’t look our kids in the eye if we hadn’t’

Source My London

Maryna and her family arrived in London on April 24 (Image: Celia Niven)

She says this is the bare minimum she could do after her surrogate gave her the “greatest achievement” of her life.

A woman has taken in her twins’ surrogate and her family after they fled the war in Ukraine. For many, the relationship between a surrogate and the family is simply a financial transaction, but for Celia Niven, 41, and her husband Rob the bond they’ve created with their twins’ carrier is lifelong, and now they have been able to give back to her in an unimaginable way.

In 2017, after eight rounds of IVF and suffering many losses throughout the journey, the couple turned to a surrogacy clinic in Kyiv, Ukraine. Heartbreakingly, seven rounds of surrogacy, with different surrogate mothers, were either unsuccessful or ended in tragedy.

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Ireland, Surrogacy, Ukraine, War

Ireland – FAMILY’S MOVE Rosanna says it’s ‘horrendous’ what’s happening to Ukrainians as surrogate settles in Ireland

Source The Sun

The Irish model said her surrogate Anastasia, and her family arrived in Ireland after a “harrowing and traumatic journey across Ukraine”.

The former Miss World and her husband Wes Quirke welcomed their eldest child, Sophia, through surrogacy in 2019.

The couple travelled to Ukraine to find a surrogate after suffering a heartbreaking 14 miscarriages during their fertility battle.

And they have now welcomed Anastasia her family and their husky dog into their home after Ukraine was devastated by Putin’s war.

The family were previously living in the besieged city of Kherson, which is under Russian control and took a small opportunity to leave after talk of a referendum.

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Australia, Surrogacy

Surrogacy likely to be legalised in the Northern Territory, bringing it into line with the rest of Australia

Source ABC Australia

Kelsey and Aaron Rouse have been trying to have to a baby since mid-2015.(Supplied: Kelsey and Aaron Rouse)

Kelsey and Aaron Rouse describe their six-and-a-half-year struggle with infertility as an “ongoing nightmare”.

Key points:

  • The NT is the only jurisdiction in Australia with no surrogacy laws
  • A surrogacy bill was introduced in March and was likely to be debated in the May sittings
  • If it passes, eligible territory families may be able to surrogacy legally by the end of 2022

The Darwin couple has spent more than $70,000 trying to have a baby: visiting two separate IVF clinics and having 13 embryo transfers.

Ten of those transfers failed, and three ended in miscarriage.

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Africa, Sperm Donation, Surrogacy

Nigeria – ‘I Can’t Allow My Wife Take Sperm From Another Man — Husband Says As Lawyer Warns Of Legal Implication Of Surrogacy

Source The Whistler

An Abuja-based legal practitioner, Barrister Tunde Falola, has warned those engaging in the act of surrogacy in Nigeria to desist from such practice because it runs contrary to Nigerian laws.

Surrogacy is the practice where a woman (a surrogate) carries a child for another person (the commissioning or intending parents) based on a prior arrangement that the child would be handed over to the commissioning parent at birth.

The practice in most cases is sought for when pregnancy is medically impossible, pregnancy risks are dangerous for the intended mother, or when a single man or woman wishes to have a child.

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Australia, Embryo, Singapore, Sperm Donation, Surrogacy

Asia Pacific Initiative on Reproduction (ASPIRE) 2022 Congress: Frozen embryos, sperm and eggs will be big travellers in post COVID-19 cross border reproductive care

Yahoo!

SINGAPORE, May 2, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — The aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to have major impacts on the nature of cross border reproductive care where infertile couples and individuals in the past travelled extensively abroad to access medically assisted conception.

The 2022 Congress of the Asia Pacific Initiative on Reproduction (ASPIRE) heard that as the pandemic unfolded, access to fertility care in other countries was severely curtailed because of border closures, the adverse effects of COVID-19 during pregnancy, and vaccine hesitancy issues.

Australian fertility specialist, Dr Clare Boothroyd, said today restrictions on commercial surrogacy emerged as coronavirus and its variants spread throughout the world and there was a sudden shortage of donated sperm, eggs and embryos.

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India, Surrogacy, Surrogate Mother

India – Health Matters: Dashing Hopes of Parenthood, New Surrogacy Policy Likely to Create Illicit Baby Market

Source News 18

Surrogacy was back in the news after celebrity Priyanka Chopra announced the birth of her daughter via a surrogate mother. The concept of having a baby through surrogacy is usually linked to celebrities.

A person who hasn’t yet faced an incurable infertility issue may not know that thousands of Indian couples from humble backgrounds resort to the option of having their own biological child via a surrogate mother every year.

For couples who were planning to opt for it, the New Year started on a dismal note, as India banned commercial surrogacy, apart from introducing several other regulations.

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Surrogacy, Ukraine, War

Ukraine surrogacy clinic delivers 80th wartime baby

Source The National News

A Ukraine surrogacy clinic has delivered its 80th wartime baby since Russia invaded the country two months ago.

BioTexCom has been caring for surrogate mothers and newborn babies in a bomb shelter and apartments next to its clinic in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv.

The company is working with volunteer medics, Warriors Without Borders, to deliver the children safely to their parents across the Polish border.

As it marked the 80th child born, it released a video of one of its surrogate mothers reassuring expectant foreign parents that they were safe.

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Gay Parenting, Ireland, Surrogacy

Irish Gay Dads group ‘implore’ Govt to ensure Irish surrogacy families are not ‘left behind’

Source The Journal

REPRESENTATIVES FROM THE Irish Gay Dads group have “implored” the Government to take action to make sure that families that are created through surrogacy “are not left behind” and treated as “second-class citizens in their own country”.

The Oireachtas Joint Committee on International Surrogacy met today to focus on issues faced by same sex couples, both male and female, entering international surrogacy arrangements and achieving parental recognition.

The meeting follows on from the last week’s controversial meeting where Independent Senator Sharon Keogan said she “does not believe it is everyone’s right to have a child”.

The committee had been hearing evidence from witnesses with experience of surrogacy, including those who had had children conceived using assisted human reproduction.

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Australia, Egg Donor, Gay Parenting, Surrogacy, Surrogate Mother

Australia – A single gay man just made history with the birth of his son via surrogacy

Source Upworthy

A single gay man from Melbourne, Australia, is finally living his lifelong dream of fatherhood with the birth of his son via surrogacy. Despite a long and challenging journey, Shaun Resnik made history as the first single man in the Australian state of Victoria to become a father via surrogacy, following the arrival of his baby boy Eli Michael on March 22 this year. The process took three and a half years, but he could not be more thankful for his newborn son. He hoped that his story of fatherhood would open doors for other single folks who wish to become parents, The Daily Mail reports.

‘My heart is so full’: Surrogate baby Eli makes Victorian history
birth.

Eli is the first biological child born to a single man in Victoria through local #surrogacy. His father, Shaun Resnik, was the first such man

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India, Surrogacy, Surrogate Mother

India – The ART of surrogacy

Source

The purpose of the ART Bill is to address the gaps that exist in the industry and protect women and children from exploitation, writes Dr Rita Bakshi.

Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) includes all techniques that attempt to obtain a pregnancy by handling the sperm or the oocyte outside the human body and transferring the gamete or the embryo into the reproductive go together. To undergo an ART treatment, a surrogate is involved in case the woman is not medically fit to bear the baby.

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Surrogacy, Ukraine, War

Surrogate mothers rescued from Ukrainian war zones as Russia-Ukraine battle continues

Source Fox News

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As the war between Russia and Ukraine nears its eighth week, Project DYNAMO is managing to continue with evacuation missions for groups of people who are most at risk.

Five surrogate mothers who are carrying children for American parents were among the 60 people the rescue organization recently evacuated. They’re currently staying in a “safe location” in Ukraine that has been code-named Club DYNAMO.

Gay Parenting, Israel, Surrogacy

In Breakthrough, Israel Temporarily Eases Gay Surrogacy Policy

Source YNETNEWS

In what looks to be a breakthrough in the fight for equality, the Health Ministry announced Monday a temporary change in the gay surrogacy policy, making it easier for male homosexual couples to arrange surrogate pregnancies in Israel.

According to the new changes, single gay males or homosexual couples who have frozen embryos abroad, or are planning to freeze them until the end of April, will be able to bring them to Israel for insemination via a surrogate.

This means that tens, and perhaps even hundreds, of couples can now continue the surrogacy process they’ve started abroad in the country, with an Israeli surrogate. The existing law permits fertilization of eggs only in Israel, which negatively affects male couples or gay individuals, who could only find a suitable candidate to donate eggs abroad.

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Russia, Surrogacy, War

Another suffering surrogacy hub: Russia

Source BioEdge

It is well known that the surrogacy industry in Ukraine is another victim of Russia’s invasion. Surrogate mothers are in danger; parents are unable to fetch the babies that they commissioned; babies are being sheltered in basements; everyone fears bombardment.

Less visible is the plight of the Russian surrogacy industry. In a revealing article in BioNews,

Christina Weis, of De Montfort University in the UK, and Maria Kirpichenko, a researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, give a snapshot of how the war has affected surrogate mothers, parents and doctors in Russia.

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Surrogacy, UK, Ukraine, War

UK – My Ukrainian surrogate saved my life by giving me a baby – now it was my turn to save hers: The extraordinary story of one mother’s 2,300-mile mission to rescue the woman who’d made her dream of a family come true

Source Daily Mail

It is a bond that has united two families, spanned 2,300 miles and defied the most terrifying war machine the world has seen in generations. And this week, it culminated in a moving reunion.

For little Sophie was carried by Nazar’s mother Vita Lysenko, a surrogate from Ukraine, who two months ago gave Heather and Mark Easton the ‘mir

When the two women last saw each other, they thought it could be their final meeting. Using patchy Google Translate, they had promised to keep in touch.

Heather, 32, and HGV driver Mark, 39, were to return to Rugby, Warwickshire, with the child they had spent eight excruciating years and £80,000 to get. acle baby’ they had always longed for.

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Surrogacy, Ukraine, War

Ukraine’s surrogate mothers trapped between the frontlines

Source DW

It’s a job you can’t quit: Carrying a child for other people. With the war raging in Ukraine, the country’s large surrogacy industry has unraveled, leaving both surrogate mothers and intended parents in limbo.

Camouflage-patterned sleeping bags, shelves stacked with cans, baby cribs side by side with gas masks. Shortly before the outbreak of the war, Ukraine’s largest surrogacy agency, BioTexCom, published a video on its website — a tour of an air-raid shelter, accompanied by the sound of wailing sirens, where Ukrainian surrogate mothers were supposed to find refuge in the event of war. The message was clear: The pregnant women and the children they carry would be looked after.

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sister surrogate mother, Surrogacy, UK

UK – New mum’s powerful message of hope to infertile women after sister’s surrogacy

Source Birmingham Mail

A new mum who celebrated her first Mother’s Day thanks to her incredible surrogate sister has a powerful message for infertile women: ‘Never give up hope’. Born without a womb, Laura Knight never thought she would become a mother.

But she was able to share touching photos from a ‘very special’ Mothering Sunday after older sibling Hayley Burton gave birth to her ‘miracle’ baby Noah. The adorable little boy was seen smiling in matching outfits, which read ‘I made a wish’ and ‘it came true’ following the couple’s fertility struggles.

“Lifelong infertility, never knowing and always wanting, yet I celebrated my first Mother’s Day. It was amazing, honestly it was so emotional,” the Rowley Regis mum-of-one told BirminghamLive.

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India, Law, Surrogacy

India’s new surrogacy laws could limit chances for some would-be parents

Source The National News

Seven months after their only daughter died during the coronavirus pandemic, Indian couple Sabu Thomas and Jean George were hoping to fill a void through surrogacy.

But their dreams of having a child have hit a dead end under India’s new surrogacy laws, aimed at regulating the country’s once booming rent-a-womb industry that earned it the sobriquet of “world’s baby factory”.

Mr Thomas, 52, and Ms George, 47, from Pathanamthitta in southern Kerala state, lost their 20-year-old daughter Nova Sabu in August to brain hemorrhage, caused by what they claim was an adverse reaction to the Covid-19 vaccine.

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New Zealand, Surrogacy

New Zealand – Bill seeks streamlined path through surrogacy process

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.

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