A husband and wife who had their embryo implanted into a surrogate, who then gave birth to their child, moved one step closer to getting the wife named the legal mother rather than the surrogate.

The Indiana Court of Appeals on Wednesday reversed a Porter Circuit Court decision that denied the husband and wife's petition to establish maternity on behalf of the wife, who they say is the biological mother even though a different woman gave birth. The woman who carried the child, the wife's sister, supports the wife's petition to be named mother. ...

"Indiana law expressly permits a man to establish that he is the father of a child. It has no corresponding mechanism to allow a woman to show that she is the child's mother," stated the summary.

"To hold that the absence of the ability to statutorily establish maternity means that it cannot be done is to deny equal protection under the law to women in general, and biological mothers in particular, who, because of nature's cruelty, are deprived of the ability to conceive and carry a child."

Labels: Indiana, surrogate motherhood

posted by Eve at 12:05 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

TWO Labor MPs have crossed the floor to vote against the Bligh Government's plan to allow gay couples and single parents to have children through surrogacy.

But it was not enough to scuttle the Bill which was passed at 8pm, 45 votes to 36 following a marathon debate. ...

[One Labor MP] revealed he had concerns about the practice of surrogacy because there was a pre-meditated intention to separate a child from their birth mother.

But Mr Choi added that he may have been persuaded to support it as a last resort for infertile heterosexual couples but he could not back a Bill which also "pre-destined" a child to grow up in a family with just one parent or with two parents of the same sex.

Labels: Australia, family structure, surrogate motherhood

posted by Eve at 1:38 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...Researchers at the Oregon National Primate Research Center were looking for ways to eliminate diseases that can be inherited through maternal DNA. They developed, as the magazine Nature reported last summer, a kind of swap in which defective DNA from the egg is removed and replaced with genetic material from another female’s egg. The researchers say the procedure is also likely to work on humans.

The result would be a baby with three biological parents — or “fractional parents,” as Adam Kolber, a professor at the University of San Diego School of Law, calls them.

He mentioned the idea over lunch at The Times, and it provided plenty of grist for debate among law junkies: Could a baby one day have 100 parents? Could anyone who contributes DNA claim visitation rights? How much DNA is enough? Can a child born outside the United States to foreigners who have DNA from an American citizen claim U.S. citizenship? ...

Since the 1960s, there has been a shift toward recognizing people’s intent in creating familial relationships, as reflected in the rise of no-fault divorce, prenuptial agreements and civil unions. But when it comes to deciding parenthood, courts remain deeply influenced by biology, even when it clashes with intent.

This concern is playing out now in A.G.R. v. D.R.H. & S.H., the biggest surrogacy case in New Jersey since Baby M’s. A woman served as a surrogate for her brother and his male spouse, giving birth to twins conceived with the spouse’s sperm and donor eggs. She signed a contract agreeing that her brother would adopt the children, but the trial court, saying it was following the Baby M decision, ruled that the spouse and the surrogate mother are the legal parents. The surrogate’s brother was given no parental rights.

Labels: Artificial Reproductive Technology, parenting, surrogate motherhood

posted by Eve at 12:34 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...We then consider recent research on the characteristics and experiences of women who have agreed to be surrogates. In this review, which is the main focus of the paper, empiricism will meet feminist theory as we revisit arguments against surrogacy, including the inability to give informed consent, the inherently exploitative nature of the arrangements and the dangers of commodification. Anecdotal research, both popular and theoretical, is available as is research based on more rigorous empirical methodologies to study the experiences of surrogate mothers. As will be described more fully, the “empirical data [consistently] offers little support for widely expressed concerns about contractual parenting being emotionally damaging or exploitative for surrogate mothers, children or intended/social parents”.

Vasanti Jadva and her research team concluded, based on interviews with 34 British women who have been surrogate mothers, that

Overall, surrogacy appears to be a positive experience for surrogate mothers. Women
who decide to embark on surrogacy often have completed a family of their own and feel that they wish to help a couple who would not otherwise be able to become parents. The present study lends little support to the commonly held expectation that surrogate
mothers will experience psychological problems following the birth of the child. Instead, surrogate mothers often reported a feeling of self-worth. In addition, surrogate mothers generally reported positive experiences with the commissioning couple, and many maintained contact with them and the child.

A challenge to the federal Assisted Human Reproduction Act (AHRA) (which prohibits paying a woman to be a surrogate mother) on federalism grounds was argued before the Supreme Court of Canada in April 2009. (The case started on reference by the Quebec government, before Quebec courts and they were joined by the governments of Alberta, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick before the Supreme Court of Canada.) Many sections of the AHRA were declared unconstitutional by both lower courts.

If the lower court decisions are upheld, the remaining sections of the AHRA will not make sense on their own and the federal government as well as provincial governments will need to reconsider surrogacy and other assisted human reproduction laws. Given this possibility, and in light of the research on surrogate mothers’ experiences, it is timely to review Canadian laws relating to surrogacy arrangements. We will briefly undertake such a review in the last section of the paper.

Labels: Artificial Reproductive Technology, feminism, surrogate motherhood

posted by Eve at 8:32 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

A New Jersey judge has ruled that a gestational surrogate who gave birth to twin girls is their legal mother, even though she is not genetically related to them.

The ruling gives the woman, who carried the babies in an arrangement with her brother and his male spouse, the right to seek primary custody of the children at a trial in the spring.

The case illustrates the legal complexities of gestational surrogacy, in which a woman carries unrelated embryos created in a petri dish. A gestational surrogate in Michigan recently obtained custody of twins she carried, but courts in several other states have upheld the rights of people who contracted with gestational surrogates. ...

In the New Jersey case, the surrogate, Angelia G. Robinson, agreed to have the children in 2006 for her brother, Donald Robinson Hollingsworth, an accountant in Manhattan, and his spouse, Sean Hollingsworth. The embryos were created from anonymous donor eggs and fertilized with sperm from Sean Hollingsworth.

The girls were born in October 2006 and went to live with the Hollingsworths at their home in Jersey City. But in March 2007 Ms. Robinson filed a lawsuit seeking custody, alleging that she had been coerced into the arrangement.

Judge Francis B. Schultz of Superior Court, who ruled in the case in Hudson County, N.J., relied heavily on the precedent established by the New Jersey Supreme Court in 1988 in the case of Baby M. The surrogate in that case, Mary Beth Whitehead, carried her own genetic child for another couple after artificial insemination with the man’s sperm. After Ms. Whitehead decided that she wanted to keep the baby, the court ruled that her maternal rights could not be terminated against her will.

“The surrogacy contract,” the Baby M court found, “is based on principles that are directly contrary to the objectives of our laws. It guarantees the separation of a child from its mother; it looks to adoption regardless of suitability; it totally ignores the child; it takes the child from the mother regardless of her wishes and maternal fitness.” ...

Since 2007, the twins have shuttled back and forth between the Hollingsworths’ home and Ms. Robinson, who has three parenting days a week. A final decision on custody is expected after the trial this spring.

Labels: donor conception, surrogate motherhood

posted by Eve at 11:42 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Unable to have a baby of her own, Amy Kehoe became her own general contractor to manufacture one. For Ms. Kehoe and her husband, Scott, the idea seemed like their best hope after years of infertility.

Working mostly over the Internet, Ms. Kehoe handpicked the egg donor, a pre-med student at the University of Michigan. From the Web site of California Cryobank, she chose the anonymous sperm donor, an athletic man with a 4.0 high school grade-point average.

On another Web site, surromomsonline.com, Ms. Kehoe found a gestational carrier who would deliver her baby. ...

On July 28, the Kehoes announced the arrival of twins, Ethan and Bridget, at University Hospital in Ann Arbor. Overjoyed, they took the babies home on Aug. 3 and prepared for a welcoming by their large extended family.

A month later, a police officer supervised as the Kehoes relinquished the swaddled infants in the driveway.

Bridget and Ethan are now in the custody of the surrogate who gave birth to them, Laschell Baker of Ypsilanti, Mich. Ms. Baker had obtained a court order to retrieve them after learning that Ms. Kehoe was being treated for mental illness.

“I couldn’t see living the rest of my life worrying and wondering what had happened, or what if she hadn’t taken her medicine, or what if she relapsed,” said Ms. Baker, who has four children of her own.

Now, she and her husband, Paul, plan to raise the twins.

The creation of Ethan and Bridget tested the boundaries of the field known as third-party reproduction, in which more than two people collaborate to have a baby. Five parties were involved: the egg donor, the sperm donor, Ms. Baker and the Kehoes. And two separate middlemen brokered the egg and sperm.

About 750 babies are born each year in this country through gestational surrogacy, and twice that many surrogacies are attempted. Most are less complicated than the arrangement that resulted in the birth of Ethan and Bridget.

But as the dispute over the Michigan twins reveals, surrogacy arrangements that go badly can have profound implications, particularly for the children. Surrogacy is largely without regulation, with no authority deciding who may obtain babies through surrogacy or who may serve as a surrogate, according to interviews and court records.

Labels: donor conception, surrogate motherhood

posted by Eve at 11:31 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

THE divisive issue of gay parenting is set to split State Parliament after the Opposition introduced a Bill to ban same-sex couples and single mothers from accessing surrogacy.

Opposition deputy leader Lawrence Springborg yesterday moved to trump the Government on the issue after it drafted laws to decriminalise altruistic surrogacy for anyone in Queensland, including homosexual couples and sole parents.

But Opposition MPs were angry the issue of surrogacy had been tied to gay parenting and had called on the Government to split its Bill, allowing all MPs to vote separately on decriminalising surrogacy for heterosexual couples and then same-sex couples.

The Government refused, but Labor politicians will now be forced to vote on the Opposition's Bill with a conscience vote expected to reveal deep divisions over the issue on all sides of politics.

Labels: Artificial Reproductive Technology, Australia, gay parenting, single parenting, surrogate motherhood

posted by Eve at 11:50 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Disappointments in Arizona, Florida, Arkansas, and California have affected gay men and lesbians around the country. Although in some states our ability to form loving, caring relationships is presumed to be subjected to a vote by fellow citizens, a growing number of gay men nationwide are having children and proving to be great parents.

Can recent ballot measures present obstacles to this trend? Not according to John Weltman, president and owner of the country’s oldest gay owned and gay focused surrogacy agency. Based on first hand experience, Weltman is optimistic about both the level of public acceptance of gay families, and the availability and affordability of surrogacy as a safe, legal and rewarding parenting option for gay men. ProudParenting asked John Weltman [pictured below] a few questions about how gay surrogacy is affected by recent political and economic trends, and the possibility of seeing more gay dads at the playground. We included a poll, to let you weigh in.

PP: John - we've read about you in the New York Times, Newsweek, and Details magazine. You are everywhere we look, getting your message out, and you recently told the newswire service AFP that Circle has grown significantly in 12 years. You also expect to double in the next two and half years. The number of new gay parents seems to be rising at a remarkable rate when we consider that the economy is getting more unmanageable. Do you expect the gayby boom to plateau at any point soon?

JW: I don't - in fact, I expect the gay surrogacy boom to continue to grow quite substantially in the next 10 to 20 years. I think what we are experiencing at Circle is the result of several trends resulting in more gay parents, and a larger share of these men who are choosing surrogacy as the method to achieve this goal. I think the world has just begun to accept gay relationships and gay parenting, and the rise in gay men choosing to become parents is in part a reflection of the growing numbers of men coming out and reaching a certain age and level of financial security. As this becomes true in more and more places, I think the desire of gay men to become parents is likely to grow further. However, a recent statistic I saw states that about 15% of gay men were becoming parents, still a much lower percentage than their heterosexual and even lesbian counterparts. This, I fear, reflects the simple fact that it is much harder for men to achieve parenthood. In addition with states like Arkansas cutting off gay adoption and certain international countries stopping adoption altogether, adoption is becoming even harder still. So what we are experiencing is the result of growing public awareness and acceptance of surrogacy as a viable method for gay men to become parents, when the alternatives are becoming decreasingly available. Beyond the obvious advantage of having a biological link with your children, surrogacy today is often faster than adoption, it is extremely reliable and essentially 100% safe legally. It doesn't involve the risk of a birth mother changing her mind, or the need to persuade the entire electorate that you are fit to be a parent. Our clients express a strong sense of empowerment and satisfaction that surrogacy allows them to “take their fate in their own hands,” especially when they are working with a gay-owned and gay-focused agency like ours. ...

PP: The New York Times recently published a story about single dads by choice, and we know Circle has worked with single men as clients throughout its 13 years of existence. The Time's piece reported an increase in the number of gay single fathers working with surrogates. Because so many gay men are single, do you believe the ratio of single gay dads will ever equal the number of gay male couples who choose surrogacy?

JW: While I do not think that the ratio will ever be the same, since obviously it is harder to raise a child on your own, we have seen a growth in the number of applications from single guys. I think that more single gay men are feeling confident and financially secure enough to start the process alone. However we have always had about 20% of our practice devoted to single dads.

Labels: gay marriage, parenting, single parenting, surrogate motherhood

posted by Eve at 4:28 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

With the birth last month of twin girls for Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, surrogate pregnancy once again assumed center stage. After years of infertility following the birth of their son in 2002, the couple chose to have another woman gestate the embryos they created.

Much has changed in surrogacy in the two decades since the high-profile Baby M case, in which the surrogate was the baby’s biological mother and unsuccessfully sought custody after the birth.

The legal proceedings in that case helped affirm the validity of surrogacy contracts, which are now standard. Some states have laws that protect the commissioning parents in surrogate pregnancies. And in a vast majority of surrogate pregnancies today, the surrogate has no genetic link to the baby.

Still, surrogate pregnancy is illegal in some states, including New York, and it remains fraught with controversy despite the fact that thousands of American couples — most of them not celebrities or especially wealthy — are happily bringing up children they could not produce on their own.

Labels: Artificial Reproductive Technology, donor conception, surrogate motherhood

posted by Eve at 3:25 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

A judge has granted a mother's request to have someone harvest sperm from her dead son's body, so she can have the option of carrying out his wish to have children.

Nikolas Colton Evans, 21, died Sunday at a Brackenridge hospital after being punched and falling outside an Austin bar March 27.

His mother, Marissa Evans, told the Austin American-Statesman newspaper that he wanted to have three sons someday and had even picked out their names: Hunter, Tod and Van.

"I want him to live on. I want to keep a piece of him," she told the newspaper. ...

University of Texas law professor John Robertson, who specializes in bioethics, said state law gives parents control over a child's body for organ and tissue donations but its use for sperm "is very unclear."

Labels: Artificial Reproductive Technology, donor conception, surrogate motherhood

posted by Eve at 3:32 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

If you're angry about the AIG scandal or Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme, check out what's happening to the infertile couples and surrogate mothers involved in a California womb brokerage. It's a familiar tale of vanishing funds and defaulted obligations. But this time, the potential loss is bigger than property. It's pregnancy.

Whose pregnancies are at stake? That's a tricky question. Through in vitro fertilization, a fetus can have two mothers: a genetic one and a gestational one. Last week, for example, we looked at a Japanese case in which a doctor mistakenly put one woman's embryo in another woman's uterus. Weeks later, the second woman was told of the error and aborted the pregnancy. The first woman wasn't told about anything for two and a half months.

That's what can happen when you separate pregnancy into two stages. One woman can abort another's offspring.

And that's not the only way it can happen. Thousands of women have hired themselves out as gestational surrogates. If you're the child's genetic mother, you can put a clause in the contract stipulating under what circumstances the surrogate can abort the pregnancy. But no court will enforce that clause, because you aren't the one who's pregnant. The surrogate is. She can choose abortion unilaterally. All you can do is stop paying her for carrying the child.

But what if it's the other way around? What if you stop paying her first? If you had hired her to sew booties for your kid, she could respond to your nonpayment by halting work on the booties. But her job wasn't to deliver booties. It was to deliver the kid. If she responds by halting work on the thing you've stopped paying for, that thing is your child.

Presumably, if you care enough about the baby to have hired a surrogate, you'll pay what you promised. But what if you don't control the payments? What if you delivered the money to a broker, and the broker lost, stole, or squandered it? You did your part, but the surrogate is no longer being paid. And she has every legal right to end the pregnancy.

That's the scenario unfolding in California.

Labels: abortion, donor conception, poverty, surrogate motherhood

posted by Eve at 1:29 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT