Elena Barysheva | DW.com | October 17, 2020
This article features Vladimir, a father in Russia, who fears arrest after authorities recently threatened to arrest single men who had children through IVF and surrogacy. Critics state that investigators are using a separate human trafficking case involving surrogacy for foreign heterosexual couples as a pretext to discriminate against and criminalize gay men.
Muri Assunção | Daily News | October 9, 2020
Following years of legal battle, a child born through surrogacy in Canada to a binational gay couple was ruled a US citizen by an appellate court. The US State Department had repeatedly rejected the child’s citizenship status but not that of his twin’s. The Executive Director of LGBTQ advocacy group Immigration Equality remarked that this decision “demonstrates yet again that it is far past time for the State Department to change its discriminatory policy.”
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Eloise Drane | Newsweek | September 23, 2020
An experienced surrogate shares her story of pregnancies for three couples. Prior to becoming a surrogate, she donated a kidney and then her eggs, describing her experience as a Black woman and the misinformation she encountered about people of color and infertility. She continues to see surrogacy as “a selfless, amazing, beautiful gift that you can give to somebody else,” despite serious health complications during two of her three surrogate pregnancies.
By Nell Minow | Roger Ebert | June 12, 2020
“The Surrogate” is new movie from the US about Jess, a woman who agrees to be a surrogate for her best friends, Josh and Aaron. The film delves into the relationship between Jess and her friends after the fetus tests positive for Down syndrome, and the unique position Jess is put in. This review praises the film for centering real and difficult conversations related to surrogacy, abortion, and the lives of people with disabilities, and illuminating dynamics around race, gender, and sexual orientation. The trailer for the film is available here.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
