French Senate Approves Bill Allowing IVF for Single Women, Lesbians

By Elizabeth Pineau | Reuters | January 22, 2020

Until now, France has had some of western Europe’s strictest rules governing medically assisted pregnancies. As this article explains, this bill will soften some restriction, although France will not pay for the treatment through it’s social security program.

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Buyer Beware: A Maryland Surrogacy Agency Was Scamming Vulnerable Hopeful Parents

By Ellen Trachman | Above the Law | January 8, 2020

The Surrogacy Group promised its clients services like matching intended parents with gestational surrogates, assisting clients with the surrogacy process, and managing funds. In many cases, as this article explains, the group’s owner pocketed the money, leaving both surrogates and intended parents high and dry.

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Giving Birth to Someone Else’s Child: Surrogacy in Armenia

By Armine Avetisyan | OC Media | January 6, 2020

This article tells the story of Gayane, a surrogate mother in Armenia, and Lilit and Sedrak, a couple who wanted to be parents but was unable to get pregnant. Their journey illustrates some of the dynamics in play around commercial surrogacy in Armenia and more broadly.

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Should Germany’s Ban on Egg Donation Be Lifted?

DW | January 2, 2020

Germany is one of only four countries in Central and Western Europe where egg cell donation or surrogate motherhood is completely forbidden. As this article explains, there is a growing movement for overturning, or at least softening, a law many consider outdated.

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NHS ‘Should Not Pay’ for US Surrogacy After Cancer Misdiagnosis

By Owen Bowcott | The Guardian | December 16, 2019

A woman in the UK has lost her case against a London hospital that, she claims, should compensate her for the costs associated with making commercial surrogacy arrangements in the United States. While the hospital does acknowledge responsibility for the cancer misdiagnosis that led to her infertility, the UK Supreme Court found that payment for commercial surrogacy should not be awarded because commercial surrogacy is not legal in England.

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Can Surrogacy Remake the World?

By Jessica Weisberg | The New Yorker | December 11, 2019

In this book review, Jessica Weisberg discusses two new releases—one fiction, one non—that explore the transformative role surrogacy does and could play in families in and in society.

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Proposed Updates to Canada’s Surrogacy Regulations

These three articles in The Conversation tackle different angles on the debates surrounding compensation and health care for surrogates and egg providers in Canada.

Paying Surrogates, Sperm and Egg Donors Goes Against Canadian Values by Françoise Baylis and Alana Cattapan

Egg Donors and Surrogates Need High-Quality Care by Françoise Baylis and Alana Cattapan

When Women Are Surrogate Mothers: Is That Work? by Alana Cattapan and Angela Cameron

UN Call to Stop Criminalisation of Surrogates in Cambodia

By Lea Goetz | BioNews | November 18, 2019

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) has condemned the decision by the Cambodian government to require that 30 surrogates, previously imprisoned for ‘cross-border human trafficking,’ raise the children they carried for intended parents living outside the country.

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SPH Hosts a Talk on Surrogacy, Gene Editing, and Egg Provision

AUA Newsroom | November 12, 2019

In her talk at the American University of Armenia Turpanjian School of Public Health, Judy Norsigian, founding member of Our Bodies, Ourselves, spoke about the rapid expansion of global commercial surrogacy; the lack of consideration for the health and well-being of gestational mothers and children born of surrogacy; the importance of advancing best practices and human rights in both surrogacy and egg retrieval; and the need to be cautious about human genome modification. 

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Dartmouth Couple Takes on CRA Over Surrogacy Costs

By Shaina Luck | CBC News | October 28, 2019

Shelly Lyn Maynard and her husband, Mark Foley, are a Nova Scotia couple who formed their family through surrogacy. As this articles explains, they are now pursuing a Charter of Rights and Freedoms challenge to a Canadian Revenue Agency policy they claim creates undue hardship for intended parents.

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