Gay Dads Australia

In today’s Sydney Morning Herald there is a lovely piece about Stuart Gent and his daughter Lucy.  It is wonderful to see such positive and life affirming articles on surrogacy particularly when they have gay men involved.  What makes this one a little different than the usual is that Stuart is a single gay man.  Congratulations Stuart – Lucy is beautiful and thank you for sharing your journey.

STUART GENT hopes his daughter Lucy will grow up believing herself blessed, a girl conceived and born with love in mind and with the greatest care and deliberation. She was no accident or afterthought.

At two years and seven months old, she knows she has a ”tummy mummy”, a biological one, and a dad who adores her. Planning of her life began in London; the first steps to conception were taken in Boston; she was born in California; she’s being raised in Melbourne.

”Lucy knows,” says Mr Gent, 38, who is gay.

”I tell it in the way of a fairytale.

I tell her that I wanted to have a little baby girl and that I went to a big land called America … and they were able to help me find a nice lady who helped me have my little girl and there was another lady who gave me the seed. The story changes, it gets more elaborate as she gets older.”

Mr Gent is speaking about his experience at a moment when surrogacy is again in the headlines. Last week Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban announced they had become parents via a surrogate mother in the US. At Christmas, Elton John and his partner David Furnish revealed they had become parents by the same route.

Mr Gent hopes his story can also shed light on a practice steeped in controversy.

When in his early 30s, he had been living in London for more than a decade, a long relationship had ended and he was starting to ponder his future. A certainty was that he wanted a child. He considered adoption, but was defeated by red tape. So he turned to surrogacy.

Online, he established contact with a surrogacy agency in Boston. The agency matched him with an egg donor, then with a woman to carry the child. Everyone involved had psychiatric and medical tests. He first met Lucy’s ”gestational carrier” Stacy and her husband at a Californian restaurant and the match seemed perfect.

Mr Gent’s sperm fertilised the eggs, which were implanted at an IVF clinic. Result: pregnancy. Nine months later, in July 2008, Lucinda was born in California. Her dad missed the birth when she arrived a few days early. He made a cross-Atlantic dash to the hospital.

”I went up to the nursery and they said, ‘Which one do you think is your daughter?’ and I said, ‘The little one, frowning.’ And I was spot on.

I just knew.”

Mr Gent brought her home to Melbourne a month later. His family was supportive. Friends rallied around. He now has a partner, Craig Swain, although they don’t live together.

”I’m a single father, that’s it,” Mr Gent says. ”I just happen to be gay. It took three years for me to become a father. There’s a lot of love goes into that. My objective is to give her as much courage and confidence as

I can so that if there are any problems, she can weather them.

”It comes down to the amount of love you give to a child, and she has plenty of love.”

[Source: Original Article Alternate Version]

This is not the “landmark” or “new” case it purports to be unfortunately.  It appears that it is merely another granting of parenting orders to a gay couple who did surrogacy overseas.  They have in fact been granted to gay couples for many years in these circumstances and still Gay Dads via surrogacy still are not recognised as the “legal” parents of their children in Australia.

Nevertheless, it is good news and a surprising positive article from the traditionally sensationalist Herald Sun.  Congratulations to the gay couple who got their parenting orders!  Well done.

A GAY couple who paid an Indian surrogate mother to give birth to twin girls have won a major legal case for parenting rights.

The case comes as overseas surrogacy booms, with 350 babies expected to be brought to Australia in 2011, compared with 50 just two years ago.

The Herald Sun can reveal the parenting rights breakthrough hot on the heels of Nicole Kidman’s shock new surrogate baby revelation and the success of TV hit comedy Modern Family, which features a gay male couple with a baby girl.

The 20-month-old girls were born in Mumbai to a woman who carried eggs from an anonymous donor impregnated with sperm from one of the men.

The Melbourne couple went to the Family Court seeking full parental status for the non-genetic father.

“In this case, the children do not have the benefit of a mother, but they have the good fortune of having two fathers,” Justice Paul Cronin found. “As a matter of law, the word ‘parent’ tends to suggest some biological connection, but … biology does not really matter; it is all about parental responsibility.”

Lawyer Susan Buchanan, who represented the couple at the Family Court, said the ruling could pave the way for other same-sex couples to win full parenting rights.

A gay couple told 60 Minutes last year they paid $40,000 for an Indian woman to give birth to twin girls.

“They’re going to grow up finding this totally normal until they see otherwise and then, you know, when they start asking questions we’ll give them the answers,” one of the men told the program.

The Family Court decision was welcomed by surrogacy advocates.

“It’s a major step forward having that kind of judgment because it sets a precedent,” said Sam Everingham, of Australian Families Through Gestational Surrogacy.

“Any judge would have seen that this is a modern family made in a fairly unconventional way.”

But Catholic ethicist Nicholas Tonti-Filippini said surrogacy should be discouraged because a “committee of parents” – surrogate, donors and commissioning parents – confused a child’s sense of identity.

“Parents don’t have rights, they have responsibilities. The crucial thing in all of this is that the courts make decisions in the interest of the child.”

The Family Court made “parenting orders” in three international surrogacy cases last year where couples- and in one case, a single Sydney man – returned to Australia seeking citizenship for the newborns.

India is the most popular source of surrogate babies.

Mr Everingham said more than 200 surrogate babies would be born this year to Indian women, who will charge about $25,000.

About 100 babies will come from the US, where the going rate is $150,000-plus, while about 50 will come from Thailand, where the charge is up to $50,000.

[Source: Original Article]

The Australian today has a wonderful article on our families.  It includes amongst others Mark, Allan and Rani, a gay dad parented, surrogacy family. Two of the sweetest, most devoted dads I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.  Their story, like all of our stories are ones that are important.  Not just to the rest of the world, but to our children.  As they grow up they will be in no doubt about the love and commitment that helped create their families.  I encourage everyone to tell their stories.  Whether it be in the media, to your friends and neighbours, to your local politician or simply in a journal for future reading.  Our stories are wonderful and we should celebrate them.

MEETING Mr and Mr Luciani-Crout and their daughter Rani for the first time requires some mental gymnastics. Two men and a toddler are a somersault and a half. Yet this tight domestic unit mirrors the average Australian family in so many ways.

A lush garden inhabited by free-range chooks surrounds their modest home near the Victorian spa town of Daylesford. Inside is neatly kept and comfortable. Framed professional certificates hang above the computer in a nook of the kitchen where baby bottles drain beside the sink. Christmas decorations brighten the lounge room. Season’s greeting cards dot the sideboard. Assorted toys on the floor belong to Rani, who clings to Allan’s hip, her arms around his neck. Dressed in a hot pink tulle fairy dress, her blonde hair is swept into a high ponytail tied with a silver bow. Her conception was unbelievably complicated and costly. Sperm from one of her fathers fertilised an egg harvested through an anonymous donor in India where the embryo was implanted into the womb of a surrogate. (Elton John and his partner last month became parents to a baby boy using similar mothers of invention.) Silver anklets and Rani’s name are the only clues to an exotic heritage camouflaged by naturally fair skin.

After putting his daughter down for a morning nap Mark switches on the baby monitor to listen for her cry. These two men hover dotingly like any new parents caring for a sweet-breathed gift of flesh and blood. They would never squeeze into Jane Austen’s 19th-century ideal of marriage and yet they are just as preoccupied by this social virtue because the privilege is denied them. Australian law forbids them to marry. So they’ve shown the law to be an ass. They have hyphenated their surnames and done everything within their power to tighten the knot that binds them together.

Five months before Rani was born, they invited 100 of their friends and family to a “commitment ceremony”. “We told everyone it was a shotgun wedding,” Allan jokes. A sympathetic priest braved church opposition and blessed their rings. A former nun sang Ave Maria. There were speeches and toasts and Allan’s mother made a white cake. “Why can’t I have two daddies?” one of the younger guests was heard to lament. Questions like this make traditionalists squirm. But when a son or a daughter or a brother or a sister or a niece or a nephew turns out to be gay there’s an inevitable mellowing of suspicion and prejudice. Is there a grandparent on the planet who would spurn a soft, warm bundle of kinship, however tangled the threads?

Gay families are multiplying. The 2001 census counted 19,594 same-sex de facto marriages. By 2006 numbers had swollen to 27,000. Younger gays born since decriminalisation have benefited from anti-discrimination laws which have encouraged tolerance. They expect to live together openly. Now reproductive technology is delivering them children. They want to share surnames, mortgages. They want to swap rings and vows. They want to be as boringly normal as it’s possible to get. They want the imprimatur of marriage, and the momentum for this stroke-of-the-pen amendment is gathering pace.

“It is the final citadel to be stormed in the quest for legitimacy,” says Anglican archbishop Peter Jensen, who supports the status quo yet at the same time sees an opportunity to revisit what marriage means to us.

Battle lines were staked last November when Greens MP Adam Bandt introduced a motion to kindle national conversations on gay marriage. Australia’s Marriage Act did not define marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution for the first 44 years of its legislative life. Only in 2004 was the Act changed to lock out same-sex couples, in a pre-emptive strike by the former Howard Government’s attorney-general Philip Ruddock. He rose first in last year’s parliamentary debate to argue against reform. “Marriage is a union that can give rise to the procreation of children”, who deserve “both a father and a mother available to them and influencing their upbringing”, he said.

Tell that to the littlies who attend childcare with two-year-old Dougal Mok, son of Melbourne couple Helen and Cath Mok. When his parents come to collect him, their arrival is often heralded by the children calling out: “Dougal! Your mother’s here… and your other mother.” Their daughter Maisie, now six, was the one who clamoured for them to share the same surname. She badly wanted the four of them to be “the Mok family”. Helen and Cath wear traditional gold bands on their wedding-ring fingers. Cath says when she was young she didn’t much care about marrying, but since the children came along “I feel strongly about it – I want the same thing for us as my family had”.

Ruddock says the only same-sex families he’s ever encountered comprise women with children from a traditional marriage who have left their husbands and set up house in a lesbian relationship. “I’ve never heard of men raising children,” he splutters a week before Elton John’s progeny makes international headlines. There are hundreds of these families. Allan and Mark recently attended the Gay Dads Christmas party where there was a crowd of fathers with kids. The Rainbow Families Council has more than 200 same-sex couples with children registered as members.

Although gays and lesbians tend to congregate in inner-city neighbourhoods, their family networks reach into every cranny of the country. There was nothing “queer” about the Sydney plumber and former Vietnam veteran who made an impassioned plea to Tony Abbott on the ABC’s Q&A for his gay son to be able to marry. His emotion was visceral. The politics behind the push for reform crosses party lines and traverses city and bush, uniting battlers, professionals, farmers, every kind of voter with a personal connection to someone who is gay. The Governor General’s private secretary, Stephen Brady, is gay. Julia Gillard’s chief of staff, Amanda Lampe, is gay. Her partner, Frier Bentley, has just given birth to twins. Federal cabinet minister Penny Wong, who is gay, swung the South Australian ALP behind same-sex marriage with her promise to argue for reform.

Gillard is committed to the status quo. She’s aligned herself with conservatives, church leaders, and older Australians who balk at the idea of Mr and Mr or Mrs and Mrs reversing the customary order of family life. This resistance will be targeted over coming months in the campaign to change hearts and minds.

Days after Liberal frontbencher Malcolm Turnbull spoke against gay marriage, he began to equivocate. He now acknowledges he’s “open” to persuasion. “If Turnbull doesn’t believe in gay marriage we’ll make Wentworth a Green seat,” warns a local resident who galvanised the Hawke Government’s response to HIV. On Labor’s side, sympathisers want the party to support a binding vote or at least allow a conscience vote when the national conference meets in December.

Hard-won rights

why do gays and lesbians want to marry? Divorce rates remain high in Australia, with between a third and a half of all marriages doomed. Mark and Allan Luciani-Crout both worked in family law. Mark, who has been married once, is a solicitor. Allan was a personal assistant in a family law firm. They’ve seen the hatred and fury first hand. “Seeing so much dysfunction didn’t put us off,” Mark says.

Marriage is not something that Mac Ronan, 84, and Geoff Allingham, 83, aspire to after living together for 62 years. When they first hooked up as young teachers in Melbourne their relationship was a criminal act. “For 30 years the law was against us,” says Ronan. “Marriage always seemed like such a long shot, something that was never likely in our lifetime.” The idea of fathering children was an even tinier speck in the landscape of possibility. They spent years as activists fighting for decriminalisation and countering the threat of AIDS. “I can see a lot wrong with the hypocrisy of marriage. Some of our friends say, ‘We don’t need to get married.’ But that’s a smug cop-out. Of course we need the choice for all.”

That’s how Tasmanian gay activist Rodney Croome explains the desire for marriage amongst a younger cohort he calls “the Family Law Act generation”.  Thirty years ago gays and lesbians made a virtue out of their exclusion. “Queer” was a badge of pride. But the minority is becoming more mainstream, hungry for the rituals and traditions that shape society as a whole. Most gay couples recorded by the 2006 census are aged 30 or younger. According to a University of Queensland study of 2032 gay and lesbian participants, around 63 per cent of under-30s favour marriage, which jumps to 67 per cent for under-19s. “In the era when men were breadwinners and women were stay-at-home mothers it was difficult to conceive of two men or two women living together because it didn’t make economic or cultural sense. Now there is a breakdown in the social dichotomy,” says Croome. The institution of marriage has evolved through no-fault divorce and the rise of de facto relationships. “It is now just another life choice. When you are not allowed to make that contract it sends a powerful message of exclusion.”

Alex Grimshaw, 30, spokesman for Australian Marriage Equality, remembers wrestling with his sexuality as a teenager and being stung when the then Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating tossed off his throwaway taunt that “two men and a cocker spaniel” don’t cut it as a family. “I wanted to grow up and get married and have a family,” says Grimshaw. “I remember walking to school and trying to convince myself I was straight.” Marriage matters to him: “It’s important for equality, the symbolism, because it allows us to be more comfortable with who we are.”

Megan Peters, 29, and Leanne Ferguson, 32, personify the new wave of same-sex couples who are renovating the architecture of heterosexual relationships with their own radical design. They had a wedding of sorts in a Hunter Valley vineyard before 118 people. Photos of the girls dressed in floor-length silk gowns on the arms of their silver-haired fathers suggest a traditional bridal party until a second glance fails to locate any groom. Megan has taken her partner’s surname. “It helps make us one family. Just as straight couples do. I was always going to change my name whether I ended up with a guy or a girl,” she says. She met Leanne, “the goddess”, in 2002 and they’ve been together since.

Once the courtship drew them into a deeper commitment they began canvassing the idea of children. Whereas straight couples may stumble into a pregnancy by accident or with the barest preparation, parenting for same-sex partners requires meticulous planning and discussion. The Fergusons imported sperm from a US donor after an online search through thousands of profiles, settling for a blond-haired blue-eyed professional whose identity might never be revealed to the son he’s fathered. “We did think of asking my brother to be the donor but it didn’t seem right,” Megan explains, “Too Jerry Springer.” Leanne is the birth mother of baby James. “I’m meant to go next,” Megan says. They can draw on frozen reserves from the same donor stored in a sperm bank.

Megan works full-time for her brother, manufacturing and selling products to clean coffee machines. Leanne is on leave from her human resources job, to cope with the breastfeeding and demands of a newborn. Many of their heterosexual girlfriends marvel at how much Megan helps when she gets home, compared with their own couch potato husbands. “I cook dinner and chuck on a load of washing,” Megan laughs. Her name is on James’s birth certificate, which means a lot to them but lacks any legal punch.

Gay couples want to secure the non-biological parents’ role. Step-parents in heterosexual families enjoy rights that are denied to the non-birth parent in a same-sex couple. “We are just like any other normal happy couple,” Megan says. “We’re upholding the sanctity of marriage, contributing to society, we own a house, we pay taxes, we’re raising a little pearler, we’re living a life that is so similar to heterosexual couples yet we are treated differently under the law. We still have to explain ourselves.” The stigma annoys her. “It’s as if there is something wrong with us. Families are going to keep changing. You can’t stop it happening, and the law has to keep up with this.”

Like every social institution, marriage has bent and stretched to accommodate waves of political reform and the rich diversity of modern life. We’ve got rid of betrothal; matrimonial vows of obedience; bans on inter-racial marriage; even the need to marry at all. Frank Bates, emeritus Professor of Law at Newcastle University, can’t see what’s wrong with another shift to account for the rise of same-sex relationships. Originally seen as a means of securing property rights, marriage became invested with romantic and emotional baggage in the 19th century. “There’s nothing magical about the Marriage Act – it’s just another piece of legislation,” says Bates. “We all know people who are part of long-term gay and lesbian couples whose commitment is as great as many married couples. If they want to formalise their relationship I can’t see any reason why it shouldn’t happen.”

Politicians against gay marriage tick off recent reforms ending discrimination of same-sex couples in the fields of tax, superannuation, Medicare benefits, Centrelink payments, child support, immigration. They believe gays and lesbians who live together are catered for already. Allowing them to marry would “diminish” the institution, they say. But the core of resistance to same-sex marriage is preference for the mother/father model of family life. Archbishop Peter Jensen believes “it’s demonstrable that the traditional model is better for raising children”. He welcomes an “informed moral debate” on the issue, but he’s not about to alter his view that conferring marriage on same-sex unions will lead us in slippery directions. Philip Ruddock agrees, saying of his opponents: “What they are really arguing is that the fundamental nature of our culture should change.”

It is changing already, with or without a walk down the aisle. Numbers of same-sex couple families are difficult to count. Census officials acknowledge underreporting. The University of Queensland survey found that 33 per cent of 742 lesbian couples have children who are their own or inherited from previous relationships, while 30 per cent plan on having children; 14 per cent of gay male couples have children and 11 per cent plan on having offspring. New technology and free market solutions to baby-making have subverted the template. Tales of creation are mind-blowing. Insemination is being done at home with syringes of sperm provided by friends or strangers; eggs and wombs are being sourced on the internet through the international fertility market; extended family members are responding in innovative ways.

Concerns at how these offspring will fare may not be resolved until a generation are well into adulthood. A US study that followed 78 children raised by lesbian mothers for 17 years reported last June that these adolescents demonstrated healthy psychological adjustment. But critics have challenged the veracity of these results. The academic arena is so heavily politicised that one Australian academic who has reviewed the scientific literature for state parliamentary reviews examining same-sex couple adoption now begs anonymity because of the abuse he’s copped for pointing out methodological flaws in the research. He believes work on the children raised in these families is embryonic and suffers from bad science and bias.

Little is known about the impact of donor anonymity on children’s welfare. Much depends on the individual personality of the child and the stability of their adult relationships. There is no rulebook; each couple devises strategies to suit their needs. Australian researcher Dr Ruth McNair shares a three-year-old son, Sam, with her lesbian partner. Sam knows the identity of the man who helped his mothers conceive. The man visits from time to time. Sam calls him by his first name. Eilis Hughes of the Melbourne based Rainbow Families Council says her daughter Drew enjoys frequent contact with the biological father she calls “Dad”. The Mok children can access the identity of their donor father when they turn 17. The Luiciani-Crouts say they have chosen anonymity to limit problems and confusion for their daughter. The Fergusons were concerned to avoid donor intervention down the track.

Same-sex couples can’t hide the story of conception. The children in these families often begin their inquiry at an early age. The Rainbow Alliance distributes literature portraying the diversity of families with kids being raised by one parent; by grandparents; by two men or two women. Dr McNair says her son, Sam, grew curious after reading conventional story books populated by Mums and Dads.

The couples I interviewed try very hard to bring a mix of genders into their family circle so that male or female family and friends counter the imbalance in their household. Megan and Leanne Ferguson held a “naming ceremony” for baby James where guests were invited to contribute to his lifelong education. “Leanne’s brother Grant is a carpenter who surfs and fixes cars. We can’t teach James everything. We’re going to use everyone in our lives,” says Megan.

Mark and Allan Luciani-Crout have encouraged Mark’s sister and Allan’s mother to become involved with Rani. The Moks say most of their friends are heterosexual couples. Cath says when Dougal and Maisie role play, “she’s the Mummy and he’s the Daddy”. Any confusion is met squarely. “How come Dougal has two Mums?” Cath was asked recently as she collected him from childcare. “I just said, ‘Families come in all shapes and sizes.’ I know it may become an issue with their peer group at school but I trust we can give them the tools to deal with it.”

Childcare centres and schools are recognising sexual diversity just as they must acknowledge different races and religions. When other children at Dougal Mok’s childcare centre busied themselves making gifts for their dads on Father’s Day, he was encouraged to make something for his Great Aunty. Intolerance is being tested constantly. Last year in Victoria, two girlfriends were banned from going as a couple to their Year 11 formal. The headmistress of another school, the Methodist Ladies’ College likened their exclusion to “the dark old days”. MLC is one of several Victorian schools supporting kids who come out of the closet.

“People have to change their thinking,” says Allan Luciani-Crout. “Marriage and parenting is less about gender and more about a couple’s commitment to the complex needs of each other and their children.” He came out at 16 and grew up wanting to marry. He remembers thinking when he first met Mark “what a great dad he’d make”. They’ve been together for 18 years. Having brought Rani into the world they now hope desperately that one of a limited number of frozen embryos being held for them overseas will deliver her a sister or a brother.

Allan’s mother, Mary, has been married for 40 years. She has embraced her son’s choices. Allan is the eldest of her three boys. When she first began to talk about her son-in-law friends were baffled. “Son-in-law?” they frowned. “Yes, my son-in-law,” she told them. “And Mark is my son-in-law,” she says in a voice that brooks no doubt.

Rodney Croome thinks extended family members may be the most potent weapon in the push for gay marriage. “Marriage creates bonds between partners and communities, families. It extends kinship.” He’s confident the straight relatives of gay people will change hearts and minds. “My 70-something mother would like gay marriage to happen,” he says. Initially uncomfortable when Croome came out 20 years ago, “now she’s fine. Whenever the issue comes up she talks about it. The really pleasing thing for her is that there are all these other women now at lawn bowls with gay sons. Her line dance instructor is a gay man who wrote a dance as a tribute to his partner who died. These are the exceptions that are overshadowing the rule and my mother is very, very talkative.”

[Source: Original Article]

An interesting opinion piece has appeared in The Australian today from Greg Donnelly who is the government whip in the NSW Legislative Council.  Whilst Greg gets a few facts wrong regarding the criminalisation of overseas surrogacy in other states (QLD and ACT and potentially Tasmania have it),  he makes some assertions about the importance of knowing ones biological “parents”.  Again, as often is the case, the website “tangled webs” is cited as an example of the problems “donor” gamettes causes to so-conceived children and adults, but what is never stated is that these websites and studies tend to focus on those individuals who are not happy about their method of conception and biological origins.  It doesn’t deal with those individuals that are comfortable with it.  Why?  Well, individuals who are happy and comfortable about their origins don’t participate in “disgruntled” websites and surveys usually.  I suspect much of this comes down to how your child is brought up and how the information of their conception is shared and raised with the child.  I suspect it is much less of an issue with gay and lesbian parents, who have no choice but to be honest and open about it from an early age.  Heterosexual parents on the other hand can keep the information secret and it is often only revealed at a later age, possibly causing the anxiety that fuels these sites such as “tangled webs”.  Honestly, I don’t know if there has been any research done with respect to Gay and Lesbian donor raised children versus Straight raised donor children to compare, but I suspect it would make for an interesting and challenging comparisons.

“MASSIVE congratulations to David and Elton on having their beautiful son. Can’t wait for my first cuddle.”

So Tweeted Elizabeth Hurley on hearing that Elton John and his homosexual partner David Furnish had become parents to a healthy 3.6kg baby boy on Christmas Day.

While the sentiments are warm and reassuring, it seems to me the celebrity probably needed more than 140 characters to more accurately express the reality of the announcement. Or is it the case, as the Beatles song goes, that “All you need is love!”

One Australian who has given the issue of artificial reproductive technology careful thought is Margaret Somerville. Somerville teaches at McGill University in Canada. Earlier this year she presented a paper, “Children’s Human Rights to Natural Biological Origins and Family Structure”, at a symposium in Slovakia. Whether we care to debate the issues now or in future, her paper draws out some fundamental issues that will not go away. Indeed John, Furnish and their child, Zachary, have it all in front of them.

There are many issues, so let’s concentrate on some key ones. For starters, will Zachary be provided with the identity of his biological parents? I do not mean the adults, in this case two males, who are going to rear him. I mean his biological parents. Before John and Furnish leave to return to England in a couple of weeks or so, the state of California will issue a certificate stating they are the parents of the boy. As a baby Zachary cannot speak, let alone ask questions. In a few years that will change. Who is my father? Will it be one of his dads or a third-party sperm donor? And who is my mother? This is where it gets complicated.

That will depend on whether the woman who gave birth to him provided the ovum or not. In what is referred to as a traditional surrogacy arrangement, the woman who gives birth also provides her own genetic material, that is, the ovum. Obviously, she is biologically connected to the child. A gestational surrogacy arrangement is different. In this case, the woman gestates an ovum that is not hers, leading to the birth of a child that has no biological connection to the surrogate mother.

Assuming Zachary was born via a gestational arrangement, he will sooner or later have questions. Where did I come from? Who provided the ovum that caused me to be? Was it given to my dads as a gift by somebody or was it selected to meet certain criteria, for example, height, eye and hair colour, looks, intelligence and emotional quotient scores? Top shelf ova available through Fertility Futures and Perfect Match can set you back in excess of $US10,000 ($9800). And my half siblings? How many are there? What are their names and where do they live?

But perhaps the question that Zachary may ask himself time and time again is: Where is my mother? These may not be the first words he utters and no doubt he will have some carers who are female. However, there will come a time when the boy and indeed the man will surely want to know who his mother is, and where she is, notwithstanding the love and care his dads may provide.

On the question of the knowledge of the identity of one’s biological parents it is important to listen to those who should know, the people born through ART. As the children first born through the use of these technologies reach adulthood they are expressing feelings of anxiety about having their biological roots tampered with. Anybody having doubts about what society is being complicit in should visit the website of the organisation Tangled Webs or read the research of the Commission on Parenthood’s Future released in a report published in May this year entitled, “My Daddy’s Name is Donor: A New Study of Young Adults Conceived through Sperm Donation”.

Nobody has asserted that Zachary is a designer child. It has not been suggested that there has been an attempt to enhance the child one way or another using genetic technologies. It seems to me, though, that in cases where there has been the purchase of an ovum to meet a preordained set of criteria, it can be argued that this represents the rudimentary stage of a mindset that leads to designer babies. Reflecting on this, Somerville argues that genetic manipulation leads to the destruction of the essence of humanness, individually and collectively. Genetic manipulation interferes with the intrinsic being of a person, with their very self.

On the question of a child’s right to both a mother and father we are told by some that society has moved on, progressed. We now live in an era of genderless parenting where function has prevailed over form. However, as Somerville notes, research is showing men and women parent differently. There is emerging evidence that certain genes in young mammals are activated by parental behaviour, for example in epigenetics, which studies the interaction of genes and environment. As Somerville says, science may well show that complementarity in parenting (having both a mother and father) does matter for children’s wellbeing in ways we have not understood.

In Australia, the legal power to regulate surrogacy resides with state and territory legislatures. Most states and territories have moved to create surrogacy legislation; some more comprehensive than others. In all instances commercial surrogacy is outlawed. In simple terms, you cannot engage a woman to have your child on a fee for service basis. You may only reimburse her “reasonable costs” associated with the pregnancy and birth. In passing its legislation in November last year, the NSW parliament explicitly incorporated a provision that outlawed the practice of citizens residing in the state going overseas to enter into commercial surrogate arrangements to secure a child. Parliament determined that such arrangements clearly undermined the non-commercial principle that was a key feature of the law it was passing. Most other state and territory legislation does not contain such explicit prohibition of such overseas arrangements. In those jurisdictions it will be interesting to see how many couples and singles try the Californian or Indian option to obtain a child.

In the meantime, under the full gaze of a prying media and with the insatiable demands of the celebrity world, Zachary will inevitably reflect on the issues that have been mentioned, and more. There is much for him to consider and resolve in terms of the deepest of human questions. And perhaps he has more to ponder than most of us.

[Source: Original Article]

Britain’s first gay surrogate parents are planning to set up a surrogacy centre that caters to the needs of same-sex couples.

Tony and Barrie Drewitt-Barlow, from Danbury in Essex will open The British Surrogacy Centre in February 2011. Describing it as “a centre for all things surrogacy” which provides information for same-sex parents it will be based in Essex but have an office in California. The couple will help match surrogates and egg donors in the US with couples from the UK and Europe. The Drewitt-Barlow’s have five children which were all conceived using surrogates. In 1999 they made history when they travelled to the US and used donated eggs and a surrogate mother to become fathers to twins Aspen and Saffron, now ten. Since then they have added Orlando, seven, and Dallas and Jasper, ten month-old twins, to the family.

Barrie Drewitt-Barlow said Elton John and David Furnish’s decision to use a surrogate would “help the gay parenting cause greatly”.

Finally, Elton John can call himself a father.

The pop rock superstar and his long-time husband, David Furnish, announced to Us Weekly that they have had a child via a surrogate mother in California. Their son, named Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John, was born on Christmas day, and weighed seven pounds and 15 ounces.

“We are overwhelmed with happiness and joy at this very special moment,” the new fathers told the magazine. “Zachary is healthy and doing really well, and we are very proud and happy parents.”

It’s been a long road for John and Furnish in their quest to be fathers; in 2009, they were denied the right to adopt an HIV-positive toddler from the Ukraine, due to John’s age and the country’s lack of recognition of civil unions rendering him single by their laws.

John said that he still planned to support the child and his brother financially, and now has a son of his own, too. And one with the name Levon, one of John’s many well-known songs.

[Source: Original Article]

After a seven-year battle, a Johannesburg gay couple can finally look forward to holding their own child in their arms. 

In a judgment in the Johannesburg High Court, Judge Seun Moshidi granted Harry and Kevin Johnson (not their real names) an order confirming a surrogacy agreement between them and a 32-year-old woman who has undertaken to carry a child for them.

He also granted an order that the mother-of-five from Roodepoort relinquish her parental rights and responsibilities once the child is born.

This is in line with the new Children’s Act that came into effect in April 2010. The order has to be granted before embryos are transferred to the surrogate.

Now that the court order has been granted, the couple hopes to have at least one child by this time in 2011.

For more than seven years, the Johnsons battled homophobia while looking for a woman to carry their child.

The couple, who live in an upmarket Johannesburg northern suburb, wanted a child that was biologically theirs and this ruled out adoption. They opted for surrogacy.

Harry said: “It has been quite hard. We first tried in 2003 and went to a fertility clinic, but they did not like the fact that we were gay.”

While waiting in the clinic’s reception area, the couple was made to feel uncomfortable as staff members took turns to peek at them.

“We were probably the first gay couple there. Every single member of staff came and peeked,” said Harry, adding that a friend who had been willing to carry the child for them had since relocated.

Now the Johnsons are close to realising their dream of starting a family,

“What we are hoping for is triplets – then we don’t have to go through this all over again,” said Harry.

Read more…

“This is a big step for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community in Israel,” commented lawyer Irit Rosenblum.

A breakthrough legal ruling in the Jerusalem Family Court on Thursday will pave the way for homosexuals to officially adopt their partner’s or spouse’s child, the Tel Aviv-based New Family organization told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

“This is a big step for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community in Israel,” commented lawyer Irit Rosenblum, executive director of New Family, an organization that champions the rights of Israelis to marry and build families outside the traditional system.

“However, there is still a long road to the desired recognition, since each issue pertaining to gay rights is decided by the courts, and not by the legislature.”

Rosenblum, who submitted the request for adoption on behalf of the couple, told the Post that before this particular petition, no male homosexual had applied to legally adopt his partner’s child.

She pointed out that unlike in the past, surrogacy has succeeded in creating a new situation for gay couples, in which a man can become a single parent.

In this precedent-setting case, the child in question was born two years go to a man via a surrogate mother in India.

About a year ago, the father asked to allow his partner to adopt the child.

The two men went through the standard adoption process – including a review from a social worker, who assessed the partner to be a fit parent and submitted a positive recommendation to the Jerusalem Family Court.

Read more…

LITTLE Connor Harris doesn’t yet realise he’s a history-making baby.

The bubbly six-month-old is the first child in Queensland to be born under new surrogacy laws which grant his gay parents legal parentage.

And there’s no wiping the smiles off Connor’s proud parents, Brisbane couple Bentley and Matt Harris. "We are just so excited, it’s been pretty amazing," Matt said.

"When we held Connor for the first time there was a bond instantly, we just started crying. It was very emotional and life changing."

Altruistic surrogacy was decriminalised in Queensland on June 1, after a rare State Parliament conscience vote.

MPs voted 45 to 36 to support surrogacy and allow the legal parentage of the child to be transferred from the birth mother to the intending parents.

Last-minute Opposition amendments to confine surrogacy to married and heterosexual couples failed, although commercial surrogacy remains illegal.

A friend of the couple agreed to be the surrogate mother to Connor.

The married mother-of-two, who does not want to be identified, underwent artificial insemination using Bentley’s sperm last year and gave birth to Connor on May 11.

Despite no written agreement being made between Connor’s birth mother and his parents until he was born, Brisbane Children’s Court Judge Marshall Irwin transferred parentage to Matt and Bentley in September.

While the couple admits there have been sleepless nights, plenty of bottle feeding and lots of nappy changing, they’re quick to quash any sceptics who criticise gay parenting.

"I think if you want to be a parent, go for it," Matt said. "I just know there are people out there who aren’t going to accept it, but they’ll be people out there who will just love it."

The pair wed in a civil ceremony in New Zealand in 2008.

"I think we’re (gay couples) slowly getting more rights," Matt said.

"Just when it comes to our superannuation for example, we don’t have to worry because we know everything will be left to the other person."

Solicitor Kate Cherry from Colville Johnstone Lawyers, who helped the pair gain full custody and guardianship of Connor, said it was a landmark legal decision for Queensland.

"Because this had never been done before it was literally starting from square one because there was no precedent to follow."

On Connor’s birth certificate, Bentley is listed as Connor’s father and Matt is listed as his parent.

Matt has taken 12 months leave to look after Connor, while Bentley works full-time.

A Perth man has paid $50,000 for a woman in India to be a surrogate mother and have his twin boys.

The single man, aged in his 30s, was desperate to have children.

He travelled to a Mumbai clinic last month to pick up the twins, several days after their birth at Hiranandani Hospital. He returned to Perth this week with the four-week-old babies.

It was his third attempt at surrogacy in India after a woman chosen to be a surrogate failed to fall pregnant last year. The two unsuccessful attempts cost him another $24,000.

In the last attempt, twins were conceived using the man’s sperm and donor eggs from an Indian woman.

A different woman acted as surrogate.

Read more…

Click here to watch the video.

A wonderful story from Far North Queensland.  Two proud Dads, one beautiful son and an incredible story.  Read about it and download the MP3 below.

Becoming parents was hard work for gay couple, Pete and Mark but they’d do it all over again if they had to.

A shiny child’s bike lies on its side on the front lawn of an immaculate garden.

Around the back gay dads Pete and Mark chase their son’s pet chickens around, trying to catch them.

Drake, 5, exclaims that the little birds are too fast for him.

It’s a happy, relaxed family scene. But it wasn’t an easy road to get there. After many hurdles Drake was born by surrogacy in Russia.

"We decided that we would have a child, that it was time for us to have a family. We wanted to experience the joys of fatherhood and we started our surrogacy over in the United States back in 2002," Pete said.

At the time, Pete and Mark were living and working in the US.

"Surrogacy rules and laws are much easier in the United States," Mark said.

While not everybody was comfortable with the idea of surrogacy, Mark said the couple felt their options were limited.

"We knew that there were certainly plenty of women willing to do it so if it OK with them, then I guess it was OK with us," he said.

Mark and Pete used the internet to find prospective mothers for the child they longed to have. Apart from the woman’s health, Pete said one of the big concerns was how genuine the candidates were.

"We have heard about a lot of scams and certain people who represent themselves as so-called surrogate mothers who are really out there just to make money," he said.

Pete said the couple also wanted to make sure that any woman they employed as a surrogate fully understood the commitment she was making.

There was also the issue of whether the mother would actually give up her baby, Mark added.

After many failed attempts in the US, the cost was becoming prohibitive. The pair decided to try Russia as cheaper alternative.

That decision presented its own problems. Language was the main one. The couple took on a private Russian tutor and Pete gave up his job in Australia to oversee the process.

"We were very dedicated to making this work….we decided that at some point we didn’t have a budget. Our budget was anything that we had earned, anything that we had saved, anything that we could borrow to make this happen," Pete said.

In the end Pete said they found a woman who they ‘clicked with personality-wise’.

"She was very quiet. She didn’t have a lot of demands or conditions that some of the other woman that we had met had. She seemed like somebody we could work with," he said.

At the first attempt, Drake was conceived via artificial insemination using Mark’s sperm.

When asked why it was Mark’s sperm and not Pete’s, Mark laughed.

"A flip of the coin I think," he said.

During the pregnancy the couple stayed in limited contact with the mother via a translator. Mostly they were in touch just when there were practical things to care of such as visiting a doctor or getting an ultrasound.

"We made it clear to her that we wanted her to take vitamins, that we wanted her to eat well. We provided the money to do that and we just had to hope that she would do it," Mark said.

Neither man was at Drake’s birth because they felt it was important to protect the mother’s privacy.

When their son was five days old, Mark and Pete were handed their child. To their surprise, Drake’s mother gave them the baby and walked away.

"I think she had resigned herself to this much earlier on and was trying not to let emotions get in the way," Mark said.

In fact, it wasn’t the mother who got in the way of Drake coming back to Australia with his two Dads. What followed was two and a half years of bureaucracy before the child received permanent Australian residency and another year before he got citizenship.

On arrival in Australia customs quizzed Mark and Pete for hours. Police were also sent around to their house on a Sunday morning to investigate.

"When people see two guys together, you know it’s like, ‘Where’s his mother?’ We’ve had a lot of people ask that," Pete said.

"I think that even if one of us was a woman, we wouldn’t have had the same suspicions and problems that we went through."

Thinking back to the police visit, Pete said the police seemed to want reassurance that the situation was ‘right’.

They checked if the couple had equipment to raise a child like a bed, clothes and bottles.

Mark said he’s sure that they were under suspicion of paedophilia. But despite the difficulties, he said the couple would do it again with no hesitation.

"We’re a family just like any other family," he said with pride.

[Source: Original Article]

[Source: Original MP3]

Good news for Aussie gay guys about the new draft bill before the Indian Parliament.  It doesn’t appear that the new law would exclude gay men from using surrogacy in India.

Single men, women and even gays and lesbians could soon get the legal sanction to have children using surrogate mothers.

The draft Bill legalising surrogacy in India — the Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) [Regulation] Bill 2010 — has provided for single parenthood by allowing “unmarried couples” and “single persons” from India and abroad to have children using ART procedure and surrogate mothers.
The Bill, with potential to rewrite the social landscape, may be tabled in the monsoon session of Parliament if the Union Cabinet clears it. By conferring the right to have children on unmarried couples and single persons, the Bill attempts to achieve several historic feats — legalising commercial surrogacy, single parenthood, live-in relationships and entitling even gays and lesbians to start families using surrogate mothers — at one go.
“Along with the term single persons, the path is open for gays and lesbians to use ART procedure,” said senior advocate Rajiv Dhavan, who played a crucial role in drafting the Bill along with his colleagues at Public Interest Legal Support and Research Centre. “The expression ‘unmarried couples’ generally suggests heterosexual relationships. But its interpretation has been left open.”

By conferring the right to have children on unmarried couples and single persons, the Bill attempts to achieve several historic feats — legalising commercial surrogacy, single parenthood, live-in relationships and entitling even gays and lesbians to start families using surrogate mothers — at one go.

Asked if such a legislation would conform to traditional Indian values, Dhavan said, “This Bill does not provoke a moral attack on the institution of family. Married persons will mostly use it. But the option to create family will also be available to all others.”
Renting of womb is legal in India but there is no law to regulate surrogacy.

A 2009 Law Commission report had described ART industry as “a Rs 25,000-crore pot of gold”. “Wombs in India are on rent which translates into babies for foreigners and dollars for Indian surrogate mothers,” the report had stated.

The commission had recommended legalising only altruistic surrogacy arrangements and not commercial ones. But the draft Bill legalises commercial surrogacy as well.

Clause 34(3) of the draft Bill specifically says that apart from all expenses involved, “the  surrogate mother may also receive monetary compensation from the couple or individual, as the case may be, for agreeing to act as such surrogate.”
She will have to relinquish all parental rights over the child in favour of commissioning parent/s. Only a woman in the age-group of 21-35 can become a surrogate mother but she can not bear more than five children including her own.

In view of the recent controversy involving a German couple’s child born to a surrogate mother in India, the Bill makes it mandatory for foreigners to submit certificates on their country’s policy on surrogacy and that the child born to an Indian surrogate mother will get entry into the commissioning parent/s’ country.

The Bill proposes to set up a mechanism to regulate and supervise surrogacy in India.

[Source: Original Article]

There is a growing collection of blogs out there from Australia and around the world of Gay Dads and Dads to be charting their surrogacy journey.  Each of them provide helpful information and tell a wonderful story full of love and commitment.  Below is a selection of the ones that I am aware of.

• Gay Dads Australia – Australia – This blog is run by Gay Dads Australia and provide lots of information on Surrogacy together with an extensive media archive relating to all things Australian and GLBTI parenting.
• From India With Love….  – Australia – This is a blog by Johnny and Darren “Just your happily ‘unmarried’ couple who this year celebrate 13 years together. We live in the picturesque Blue Mountains, west of Sydney in NSW Australia & have become parents via commercial surrogacy in India. This is our story…”
• Orea-Zoi – Australia – George K’s blog about his surrogacy journey and his twins Electra and Eros “Lives life to the fullest, consumed by the world around him, delights in his family and friends…….. OH! and has just became a DAD! …… TWINS!” 
• Lucas – Australia – “Single man, though not by choice, but I just have extremely high standards. Have wanted kids for nearly 13 years, so now’s the time to stop making excuses and bite the bullet. If I’m going to wait for Mr Right, then considering my past experience, I’ll always be waiting for a very long time. Will it be easy? Hell no! Fun? Mostly! Fulfilling? Always! If you wanna get to know me better, drop me a line and say hi”.
• Our Surrogacy Story – Australia – Will and Michael  “have been in a committed relationship for nine years. We are now attempting to have a child through surrogacy to complete our family”.
• Fatherhood: Life with Addison – USA – Greg and Rob’s blog on their Indian Surrogacy journey. ”We are two guys who had a precious baby girl born via Surrogacy India. This is our Story…”
• Looking for Baby… – USA – Doug and Bill’s Egg-cellent Adventure into Surrogacy. "My partner, Bill, and I live in Hawaii and have been together since February 1996. This is a blog of our journey to become parents”.
• Becoming Dads – Canada – Todd (Canadian) and Matt (Aussie) blog – “A gay couple consider expanding their non-traditional family; anyway but the olde fashioned way”.
• Stalking the Stork – USA – Jason and Adrian blog. “We’re a Spanish-American binational gay couple living in Los Angeles and exploring becoming dads via surrogacy in India”.
• Christmas Eve Boys – Terry and Steve from the US charting their journey.
• Here we go again – Europe – Robert and Fredrik’s blog on their journey to become parents through surrogacy in India.
• John and Steve are Having a Baby – John and Steve’s blog on their journey. “We’re really just two strapping, young (shut up) homosexuals who are at the stage in our relationship where having a child just seems…well right”.
• The Allton Nee Three – UK/HK – Adam and Michael blog “Well this is our blog! We have been together 11 years and just embarked upon our first surrogacy attempt. We decided to use Thailand for our surrogacy and hopefully 2010 will be our year! We live and work in Hong Kong but are from the UK. We are updating this blog regularly and hoping for good news soon!!”
• Chiang-Cruise – Australia – Jeff and Rodney Chiang-Cruise’s blog on their family and all things GLBTI parenting in Australia.
• BT JR – The Becoming Tour – Australia – Chronicles of Geoff & Naigel’s Adventure to Become Parents.
• Introspective – Australia – Michael “shares his life with a loving man, beautiful twin girls, 2 dogs and 2 rainbow lorikeets”.
• 2 Dads and a Baby – Australia – Paul and Chris “Follow us on our journey to becoming a family”.
• 2 Dad Family – Australia – Two guys in Melbourne and the “ragdoll cat Frankie” on the surrogacy journey.

If you know of any more (I am sure there are many, many others please share them.

The Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority (VARTA) is holding a "Twilight" Seminar on the topic of "SURROGACY IN VICTORIA" on 8 September 2010.  It will be very useful for any single or gay couples thinking about doing Altruistic Surrogacy in Victoria. VARTA are keen to get gay men interested in surrogacy in Victoria to attend, so don’t be shy!. Details are as follows:

Twilight Seminar 2: Surrogacy in Victoria – Issues to Consider.

The next seminar in the Authority’s Twilight Seminar Series focuses on Surrogacy in Victoria – Issues to Consider and will be held on Wednesday 8 September 2010 from 5.30pm at Russell Kennedy in La Trobe Street, Melbourne.

It promises to be an interesting and informative evening. We will hear about the surrogacy journey from two different personal perspectives and an experienced family lawyer will discuss the legal implications of pursuing surrogacy in Victoria. The psychological aspects of surrogacy including essential ingredients for success and pitfalls to avoid will also be presented.

More information about the seminar including a registration form is available on the Authority’s website at www.varta.org.au.

I think the forms are not yet up on the website, but I am sure you can register if you give them a call.

THOUSANDS of foreigners are travelling to India in an attempt to conceive a child.

AFTER six miscarriages, years of failed in-vitro fertilisation treatments and endless queues at Australian and international adoption agencies, Megan Sorensen is finally expecting a baby this week, at age 43.

Like an anxious father-to-be, Sorensen (not her real name) will pace the corridors of New Delhi’s Phoenix Hospital while a woman she met six days ago and knows only as Rani goes through childbirth for her.

Once delivered, the baby will almost immediately be handed over to Sorensen. And Rani, when she has recovered from her labour, will return to her own flat, her husband and two children.

In New Delhi the same process will be repeated several dozen times over for Australian couples before the year is out. Childless Australian couples — heterosexual and gay — are looking to Indian women who are prepared to rent out their wombs for the chance to improve the lives and fortunes of their own families.

Delhi fertility specialist Shivani Sachdev Gour says she has seen an explosion of Australian clients as word of her service has spread through the community of couples exploring surrogacy options.

Since the first Australian couple walked through the door of her low-key clinic last year, she now sees at least 10 new Australians every month who have travelled to India — many of them for the first time — in a last-ditch effort to conceive a child.

"Of 100 surrogates on my books, 55 are pregnant and more than 50 per cent of those children will be born Australian babies," Gour says. "Most of the [commissioning parents] have done IVF in Australia and been advised by their specialists that surrogacy is their best option."

Her first successful Australian birth came just three weeks ago, to a single man who came to India for two days of treatment, gave a sperm sample on the day the donor eggs were collected, and nine months later collected his baby.

Unlike some Indian fertility specialists, Gour says helping aspiring single or gay parents conceive a child poses no ethical dilemmas for her. She’s vehement when confronted with the criticism that using a poor, often ill-educated woman to incubate a wealthy woman’s child amounts to exploitation. "Just because the [surrogate] is poor it doesn’t mean she’s not allowed to make her own decisions," she says. "The Supreme Court of India says surrogacy is an industry."

Indeed it is. More than 100 operators turned over an estimated $US445 million ($514m) last year.

But, for some, India’s reputation as the world’s baby factory for foreign women unable, or unwilling, to pay Western surrogate fees is a grotesque commercialisation of the reproductive system.

Sorensen has heard all the arguments before. "People say really nasty things, that we’re selfish for wanting our own child," she says. "What really gets me is when they accuse us of going to India to buy a baby like it’s an easy process. It’s not." She calculates the whole process — including one failed effort and one miscarriage — will have cost more than $90,000 by the time their baby is delivered. Of that, Rani will receive $5000.

While thousands of foreign children have been delivered by Indians without incident, several cases — including the death of a surrogate during childbirth last year — have scarred the industry. The woman, a second wife, was pressured by her husband to become a surrogate to earn more money for the family. And in 2008 the industry faced a scandal when a Japanese couple broke up before their child was born, leaving the baby in danger of becoming India’s first surrogate orphan.

India’s minister for women and child development Renuka Chowdhury warned two years ago: "We do not want surrogacy to become unfettered like the organ trade. We need to put a regulatory authority in place."

Draft legislation governing the entire assisted reproductive industry — IVF, sperm and egg donations and surrogacy — is to be debated in parliament within months. If passed, it will legalise surrogacy services for couples and single people and provide a loophole for gay couples by allowing one partner to register as a single parent on the birth certificate.

Surrogacy clinics will be forbidden from recruiting and acting for surrogate mothers, who will instead be represented by a third party. The law also will forbid a commercial surrogate from carrying more than five babies in her lifetime, including her own.

Australian law further stipulates that a child born overseas of a surrogate mother must have a DNA link to at least one of the commissioning parents.

Gautam Allahbadia, who helped draft the bill, says he expects it to pass with little trouble after five years of debate and amendments.

The Mumbai-based fertility specialist says India is an ideal surrogacy destination; Indian women rarely drink or smoke and the country offers "First World medical services at Third World prices".

But National Federation of Indian Women president Annie Raja fears the new law will lead to the exploitation of more poor and lower caste women. "This country has one of the highest maternal and infant mortality rates. Nobody is thinking about the mental or physical health of these women. It’s all about money," she says.

At Gour’s clinic money seems the furthest thing from Sorensen’s mind as she clucks over her young surrogate. Sorensen is ebullient and awestruck. Rani seems overwhelmed. Both women are close to tears. Through a translator Rani says she is "a little nervous" about the labour and concedes giving up the baby she has carried for 37 weeks, but has no biological link to, will probably be painful.

But she says: "It’s a few hours of sadness for me and a lifetime of happiness for Sorensen."

Asked if she would do it again she doesn’t hesitate; "One hundred per cent."

But she looks uncomfortable when asked to explain how being a surrogate will improve her family’s fortunes. For 10 months Rani has had a driver, maid and food delivery service, her rent and all family medical bills paid. When the baby is delivered she will receive 200,000 rupees ($4981), one-tenth the price of the most cut-rate US surrogate. For many Indian surrogate mothers all the attention that comes with carrying a wealthy woman’s baby ends soon after the child is delivered. But Sorensen says she is determined to make a difference to Rani’s life by helping her buy a home and paying for her children’s education. "I feel very maternal towards Rani," she says. "She’s part of our baby-making team."

[Source: Original Article]

A sensible and well balanced piece by Lisa Prior in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age today.  A copy of the NSW Adoption Bill is available

.

Those gays are after the children again. On Thursday Clover Moore introduced a bill into Parliament which would allow same-sex couples to adopt. Both major parties will allow their members a conscience vote on the issue after the winter break. And it is indeed a matter of conscience.

In a parliamentary inquiry conducted last year, a majority found that the Adoption Act should be amended to allow gay couples to adopt. Faith-based adoption agencies would still have the right to exclude prospective parents who are gay, so long as they refer them to an agency which will assist.

This follows the lead of Western Australia and the ACT which already give gay couples equal access to the adoption process. Even in Tasmania gay couples can adopt a child related to one of them. In every state gay couples can foster.

Reform is opposed by church adoption agencies and many church groups. Trawling through the submissions to the parliamentary inquiry yesterday, I felt awe at the special kind of faith of some of the groups standing in judgment of gay families, making accusations about promiscuity, abuse, violence and communicable disease.

These flimsy and alarmist accusations were rather ironic coming from organisations which have been implicated in well-documented systemic abuse relating specifically to adoption and foster care, such as the mistreatment of child migrants, the stolen generations and the removal of babies from young mothers without proper consent.

Stereotyping all religious people because of the sins of a few is no better than stereotyping all gay people. Instead let’s consider the facts.

Adoption is not what it used to be. The scenario of the teen mother relinquishing her newborn is pretty much a thing of the past. Here are the statistics about adoption cited in the inquiry, statistics which are scary for anyone whose baby-making fall back plan is: ”It’s OK. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll just adopt.”

”In 2007-08 … 125 adoption orders were finalised in NSW. Of those adoptions, 73 were inter-country. Of the remaining 52 local adoptions, 15 were unknown and 37 were known. Known adoptions for this period [comprised] 10 step-parent, 22 foster carer, three other relatives and two special case adoptions.”

In other words, most local adoptions involve children who already have a relationship with a carer, and adoption is about making that relationship permanent and secure.

The bill introduced this week is mostly about allowing gay foster parents, and gay step-parents, to provide the children in their care with stability and protection of permanent adoption.

It is also about providing children with the benefits of having two parents. As Moore noted on Thursday: ”Currently a child can’t be adopted by their parent’s same-sex partner yet can be adopted by their parent’s heterosexual partner,” she said. ”Unlike heterosexual couples, same-sex couples can’t adopt a child together – one parent must adopt as an individual and the other has no legal standing as the co-parent, leaving their child in legal limbo.”

Interestingly, one of the agencies in favour of allowing gay adoption is Barnardos. It specialises in the difficult side of fostering and adoption, often involving older children who have been victims of abuse and neglect.

As it said in its submission to the inquiry, it facilitates fostering by gay couples: ”Barnardos currently has seven children placed with two gay and two lesbian couples, all of whom have a care plan of adoption. The carers have provided excellent parenting for these children, all of whom have made pleasing and significant progress in areas of their physical, social and emotional development and who have developed a secure and positive attachment to each of their carers.”

So much for the cliche about flippant gays wanting designer babies as fashion accessories, a cliche repeated this year when the former US presidential candidate Mike Huckabee argued against gay adoption by saying ”children are not puppies”.

When it comes to voting on this legislation, the real issue facing our elected representatives is whether it is conscionable to try to send some vague message about preferred family structure by making the lives of children living in gay families more difficult and less secure. And this truly is a matter of conscience.

[Source: Original Article]

Stephen Page, my favourite blogger on all things legal and GLBTI has published some notes on the new Surrogacy laws that come into force this week in Queensland.  Visit his blog at Australian Gay and Lesbian Law Blog.

Queensland’s Surrogacy Act 2010 starts Tuesday. The latest of the states to legalise altruistic surrogacy, the Queensland scheme has a number of unique features:

• the starting point is that altruistic surrogacy from Tuesday will be legalised. Until Tuesday, to have engaged in altruistic surrogacy in Queensland has been an offence. Whilst there has been some doubt about the Tasmanian laws, Queensland seemed alone in criminalising all forms of surrogacy.
• the odd position of State boundaries remains. Only Queenslanders will be able to access the Queensland scheme. This is because the ability to obtain orders for intended parents can only be accessed by Queenslanders. This in turn will probably limit the use by IVF clinics of to whom they offer their services. Conversely, there is no limit in NSW, but there is no ability in NSW to have intended parent orders, as adoption is the only option (and adoption is not available to all).
• Queensland continues to ban commercial surrogacy. It is an offence to engage in commercial surrogacy in Queensland. This criminalisation not only affects the doctors and nurses, but the intended surrogate and the intended parents, too.
• Queensland couples who have gone to an overseas commercial surrogacy clinic and returned with a baby will (with some  exceptions) still need to obtain a Re Mark order from the Family Court recognising that both parents can make parental decisions. These are not hard to get, if done properly. There are some tricks of the trade to ensure that they are obtained in as straightforward and cheap manner as possible. Adoption for these couples is unlikely to be possible under Queensland’s scheme.

Read more…

Well the 5th Surrogacy for Gay Men forum is over and we think it was a great success.  Overall there were 85 people in attendance, not including the children, so it was a great turn out.  We hope that those who came got something useful out the forum and hopefully made some new friendships as well.   The forum can’t possibly cover everything but we hope that it will help you in some way on your journey to becoming dads.  It was also great to see so many dads and dads to be join us at the Prahran Market afterwards. 

There is a lot of work that goes into putting these forums on and I would like to take the opportunity to personally thank each of the people who helped in making the forum a success.

Doug and Brett, Jason and Brendan, Mark and Allan, Lee and Tony, Noam and David, Eilis – A huge thank you for your time, effort and contribution today.  Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience.  You guys are really wonderful. 

A special thank you to my hubby Jeff for all the baking and catering and keeping our son occupied.  You do so much behind the scenes.

Also a big shout out to Southern Star, ALSO, JOY 94.9 and Rainbow Families Council for all the assistance and support.

It is really exciting to see the next generation of gay dads.  It makes all the work that goes into events like this worth it.

Rainbow Families and Who is in your family? Resource Kit

Rainbow Families Council proudly presents the “Who is in your family?” resource kit. Rainbow Families Council developed these resources through surveys conducted with families and childcare workers in the City of Darebin and neighboring suburbs during 2009. Development funding was provided by the City of Darebin.

Officially launched at our February 2010 conference by the City of Darebin Mayor Cr Vince Fontana, we have re-launched the entire kit online to coincide with the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia on May 17.

The posters and information sheets are now available for you to download below. You can order FREE full colour A3 copies of the two posters from Gay and Lesbian Health Victoria (GLHV) by emailing info@glhv.org.au

This resource kit aims to help children, families and early childhood educators start discussions about the diversity of families – including same-sex parented families – who are part of their communities.

It comprises of two A3 posters and four A4 information sheets, including one specifically for parents to help them choose a rainbow family-friendly childcare centre or kindergarten.

• Poster 1 ‘Who is in your family? Our families come in all different shapes and sizes’ (with animal families)
• Poster 2 ‘Who is in your family? Our families come in all different shapes and sizes’ (with diverse human families)
• Info sheet 1 ‘Introducing rainbow families – a guide for early childhood services’
• Info sheet 2 ‘Creating inclusive children’s spaces’
• Info sheet 3 ‘How children play: challenging myths and stereotypes’
• Info sheet 4 ‘Tips for choosing a rainbow-family friendly childcare centre or kindergarten’

But if the draft bill to regulate surrogacy becomes law, gay couples like them may not be allowed to hire surrogates in India. The draft legislation, Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Bills and Rules, 2008, states that only couples that are living together and in a sexual relationship that is “legal” are permitted surrogacy to have children.

In July 2009, the Delhi High Court had decriminalised homosexuality by overturning a section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. But homosexual relationships are still not legally recognised in India, leaving the status of same-sex relationships ambiguous.

Several petitions filed to challenge the Delhi High Court verdict are pending before the Supreme Court. “Gay or lesbian couples will be allowed to have children through surrogacy only if the Indian law recognises homosexual relationships at the time when the bill is passed,” said Dr R.S. Sharma, deputy director general of the Indian Council for Medical Research. Considering India has emerged as preferred destination for surrogacy, the proposed law could dishearten gay couples who plan to come to India for children. Infertility clinics in Mumbai have helped many gay couples, mostly from US and Australia, have children through surrogates.

It is not clear whether homosexuals will be able to go for surrogacy as individuals. The proposed legislation allows single women to have children through surrogacy but they are silent about single men. “It will be important for the new law to address the issue about single parents and defining the role of doctors and compensation given to surrogates,” said Amit Karkhanis, a lawyer who has handled over 180 surrogacy cases.

An expert committee is revising the draft bill based on the comments by the central health ministry. “We will complete the process within a week and send the draft back to the ministry,” said Dr Sharma.

[Source: Original Article]