By Michael Cook | BioEdge | June 9, 2019
Since 2016, Kenya has become a new hub for international commercial surrogacy. This article identifies potential risks posed by the lack of regulations and cultural biases against LGBTQ people, and warn that pursuing surrogacy arrangements in Kenya could lead to a “dangerous situation.”
By Sarah Mervosh | The New York Times | May 21, 2019
The U.S. State Department has come under intense scrutiny in recent months amidst accusations it discriminates against same-sex couples by requiring higher citizenship standards for their children—even when the couple is legally married.
By Scott Bixby | Daily Beast | May 15, 2019
American parents who enter into surrogacy arrangements in countries outside the U.S. often assume—based on precedent—that their child will be eligible for birthright citizenship. However, the Trump administration now interprets the Immigration and Nationality Act to mean that “a child born abroad must be biologically related to a U.S. citizen parent,” a reality that puts many LGBTQ families at heightened risk for legal complications.
By David Dodge | The New York Times: Parenting | May 3, 2019
This guide outlines multiple pathways for LGBTQ people who want to become parents, with particular emphasis on the legal and financial issues that may arise along the way.
By Ciara Kenny | The Irish Times | March 6, 2019
Two years after the birth of their son in Canada, a gay couple from Ireland finally have proof of his Irish citizenship, but do not share full legal custody in the eyes of their home country. This article tells the story of a family caught in an expensive international back-and-forth that is still only partly resolved despite the passage of the Children and Family Relationships Bill.
As Mexican State Limits Surrogacy, Global System is Further Strained
By Victoria Burnett | The New York Times | March 23, 2017
Legal in the Mexican state of Tabasco since 1997, international commercial surrogacy is now under fire in the country.
This article tracks changes to the law – restricting Mexican gestational mothers from carrying children for foreigners – with analysis of how the new policy will be implemented. It follows gestational mothers, for whom surrogacy is a vital source of income, in a state with the highest unemployment rate in the country, as well as intended parents locked in legal battle with authorities that are stalling on birth certificates after the new restriction was enforced.
With this development, Mexico is the next (fallen) chip in the global practice of international commercial surrogacy.
Modern Families: Stories of Extraordinary Journeys to Kinship
By Joshua Gamson | NYU Press | 2015
Buy at Amazon >
From the publisher’s website:
From adoption and assisted reproduction, to gay and straight parents, coupled and single, and multi-parent families, the stories in Modern Families explain how individuals make unconventional families by accessing a broad range of technological, medical and legal choices that expand our definitions of parenting and kinship. Joshua Gamson introduces us to a child with two mothers, made with one mother’s egg and the sperm of a man none of them has ever met; another born in Ethiopia, delivered by his natural grandmother to an orphanage after both his parents died in close succession, and then to the arms of his mother, who is raising him solo.
These tales are deeply personal and political. The process of forming these families involved jumping tremendous hurdles—social conventions, legal and medical institutions—with heightened intention and inventiveness, within and across multiple inequities and privileges. Yet each of these families, however they came to be, shares the same universal joys that all families share.
From the book’s foreword by Melissa Harris-Perry, Maya Angelou Presidential Chair and Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Wake Forest University and, formerly, host of MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry:
These family making journeys raise hard questions, but offer no formulaic answers. These are stories of choices made consciously and sometimes uncomfortably to create and combine lives amidst the messy human realities of desire, commerce, science, faith, community and family. This collection is not a roadmap; it is a companion for all those who choose to navigate the world of modern kinship.
The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016
By PRS Legislative Research | 2016
In case there were any doubts, this short overview of the regulation in India is a helpful crib sheet on the legal status of commercial surrogacy in the country. Three main conditions included in the bill include:
Read the full overview and analysis >
For background and information on preceding legislation (2012), read BioNews on visa restrictions imposed by the Indian government on foreign intended parents.
The Dwindling Options for Surrogacy Abroad
By Danielle Preiss and Pragati Shahi | The Atlantic | May 31, 2016
This comprehensive article covers international commercial surrogacy laws around the world, with emphasis on and the implications of recent legal changes in India, Thailand, and Nepal. It follows an Australian couple, forbidden from paying gestational mothers in their own country, on a journey that spans Israel (the location of their agency), India (where their gestational mother lives), and Nepal (where she travels for embryo transfer and the birth) — with helpful insights on the effects of such arrangements on the children that are caught in the middle.
