Tag: LGBTQ

Article: The Trouble with Renting a Womb

The Trouble with Renting a Womb
By Abby Rabinowitz | The Guardian | April 28, 2016

This long article is well worth the read. It follows a group of gestational mothers in India, providing unusually deep insights into their lives, the contexts that frame their decisions, and their experiences within surrogacy arrangements and after. It also features conversations with the clinics and intended parents that hire gestational mothers, and touches upon the controversial effort to ban the practice in India.

Excerpt:

Critics say it is unlikely that banning foreign surrogacy clients will protect poor Indian women or end the practice. For one thing, surrogacy remains legal for heterosexual Indian couples. For another, transnational surrogacy is notorious for its elaborate work-arounds. When the Indian home ministry abruptly banned gay foreign surrogacy clients in 2012, Indian fertility clinics shipped Indian surrogates across the border to Nepal. When Nepal also banned transnational surrogacy in 2015, as did Thailand, industry insiders told me they believed that Indian surrogates were being rerouted to African countries instead. They also said that the ban will merely drive the practice underground.

Read the full article >

Article: Israel Evacuates Surrogate Babies From Nepal but Leaves the Mothers Behind

Israel Evacuates Surrogate Babies From Nepal but Leaves the Mothers Behind
By Debra Kamin | Time | April 28, 2015

This article follows the surrogacy relationship between Israel and Nepal, with a focus on Nepal after the 2015 earthquake. It describes the Israeli government’s evacuation of (Israeli) intended parents and their children, as well as resulting international criticism at leaving behind the gestational mothers that gave birth to the newborns.

The article also questions current law in Israel, which only allows heterosexual couples to use surrogacy in the country.

Read the full article >

For more, listen to “Birthstory,” a podcast about a gay couple from Israel that were in Nepal to pick up their surrogacy-delivered children when the earthquake hit.

 

Podcast: Birthstory

Birthstory
By Molly Webster | Radiolab, WNYC Studios | Nov. 22, 2015

Birthstory is a collaboration with the radio show and podcast Israel Story, It traces the journey of a gay couple from Israel that travel to Nepal to pick up their surrogacy-delivered children. While there, Nepal is hit by a devastating earthquake, resulting in the controversial decision by the Israeli government to evacuate its citizens – and their children – but leave behind the gestational mothers. The story follows the couple home, their efforts to contact the (two) gestational mothers, and their reactions on hearing how the women have been treated by the agency in between.

Listen to the full podcast >

Article: Gay Couple Win Custody Battle Over Thai Surrogate Mother

Gay Couple Win Custody Battle Over Thai Surrogate Mother
By Oliver Holmes | The Guardian | April 26, 2016

the guardianThis article follows up on a case in Thailand involving a same-sex couple that won a legal battle against the gestational mother who gave birth to their daughter, but refused to sign the paperwork to allow the baby to leave the country when she found out they were gay. It also provides links to articles covering the case of Baby Gammy and a 24-year old Japanese businessman who fathered 16 children with Thai gestational mothers – both of which led to the country’s current ban on the practice.

Read the full article >

For additional background on the case, read more by Oliver Holmes at The Guardian.

Article: Thailand Bans Commercial Surrogacy

Thailand Bans Commercial Surrogacy
By The Guardian | Feb. 20, 2015

the guardianThe Baby Gammy case made headlines in August 2014, when a Thai gestational mother claimed that Australian intended parents abandoned Gammy because of a diagnosis of Downs Syndrome.

This article provides an overview of the case and key elements of the law that came into effect soon after.

According to Thailand’s new law:

  • Foreign and same-sex couples are banned from seeking surrogacy services in the country.
  • Only married heterosexuals, with at least one Thai partner are allowed surrogacy.
  • No fees are allowed for the service.
  • Gestational mothers must be Thai, over 25 years old, and related to the intended parents.

Read the full article >

For more background on the Baby Gammy case and international commercial surrogacy in Thailand, read:

Article: Assembling the Global Baby

Assembling the Global Baby
By Tamara Audi and Arlene Chang | The Wall Street Journal | Dec. 10, 2010

This article provides a global overview on laws related to international commercial surrogacy, highlighting the transnational mobility of the practice as regulation around it changes. It might require a subscription or free sign up to The Wall Street Journal.

Excerpt:

the wallstreet journal logoIn a hospital room on the Greek island of Crete with views of a sapphire sea lapping at ancient fortress walls, a Bulgarian woman plans to deliver a baby whose biological mother is an anonymous European egg donor, whose father is Italian, and whose birth is being orchestrated from Los Angeles.

She won’t be keeping the child. The parents-to-be—an infertile Italian woman and her husband (who provided the sperm)—will take custody of the baby this summer, on the day of birth. […]

The man bringing together this disparate group is Rudy Rupak, chief executive of PlanetHospital.com LLC, a California company that searches the globe to find the components for its business line. The business, in this case, is creating babies.

Read the full article >

Initiative: Stop Surrogacy Now

Stop Surrogacy Now
Global | 2015

Stop Surrogacy Now is a global effort to oppose the “exploitation of women and the human trafficking of children through surrogacy.” According to the website, the group includes more than 100 individuals and 16 organizations from 18 countries, who believe all forms of surrogacy should be stopped because it is an abuse of women’s and children’s human rights.

In an article published on Public Discourse, co-founder Kathleen Sloan, describes the genesis of Stop Surrogacy Now, from 2011, when she and co-founder Jennfier Lahl first met at a screening of the documentary Eggsploitation, to the initiative’s current reach and status as a network that has, says Sloan, brought together people who might otherwise be “at each other’s throats.”

Here is an excerpt:

What sets this campaign apart is that Stop Surrogacy Now (SSN) unites organizations and individuals with opposing positions on many other issues—including the emotionally explosive issue of abortion. In the United States especially, no other issue ignites such passionate responses and produces such vitriolic debate. It has even led to violence, including eight murders and over forty clinic bombings. As time goes on, the contentiousness of the issue only seems to increase rather than dissipate. It is therefore extraordinary that so many people who stand on opposite sides of this issue have come together to stop the surrogacy juggernaut.

This campaign also brings together the fervently religious and the entirely non-religious, those who advocate LGBTQ rights and those who oppose same-sex marriage, feminists and non-feminists, the radical right and the radical left along with those in between, neoliberal capitalists and socialists, death-with-dignity supporters and those who consider it to be a form of euthanasia.

Visit Stop Surrogacy Now, read the full article, and follow the initiative’s outreach with The Hague on the human rights issues posed by international commercial surrogacy.