Lawmaker Hopes to End Ban on Gay Adoption in Florida
A Florida state senator has introduced a bill that would reverse a 30-year law that bars gay and lesbian couples from adopting children. Sen. Nan Rich's proposed measure would instruct judges to consider the child's best interest when placing them in a permanent home, according to WFOR, a South Florida CBS TV affiliate. A gay friend or relative would be considered as an adoptive parent if they were the child's legal guardian when the parents died.
More than 3,900 children in Florida's foster care system do not live in a permanent home.
Gov. Charlie Crist, who has publicly supported civil unions for same-sex couples, has come out against Rich's proposed legislation. State senator Ronda Storms is also working against the legislation; she has pledged to maintain the adoption prohibition against gay couples. And she just happens to chair the committee to which the measure has been assigned, and she has refused to bring it up for debate or a vote, according to WFOR.
Rich has the backing of the American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood, and the National Council of Jewish Women. She is the senate's Democratic policy chair and sits on the committees for children, families, and elder affairs. (The Advocate)
Monday, June 2, 2008
Gay Adoption
Navigating gay adoption
David Strah wears blue and green Nikes. He's the father of a 10-year-old boy and a 7-year-old girl. He lives in Chelsea - with his long-time boyfriend.
VIDEO COVERAGE
"I thought that the whole world was either gay people or straight people. When we [he and his partner] had children, it became people with children and people without children," Strah said.
Strah, a Gallatin graduate and author of the book "Gay Dads: A Celebration of Fatherhood," sought a domestic adoption for his two children. He considers himself lucky because he, unlike many parents who seek to adopt, had to decide whether he wished to adopt a boy within 24 hours of finalizing the petition.
He said yes.
But when his son was born, Strah and his partner faced an issue familiar to many gay people who wish to adopt. The doctors at the hospital would not recognize Strah as the parent of his newborn. Strah and his partner are just one of over 250,000 same sex couples to adopt children.
Last Thursday, NYU's Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Student Services held a workshop about queer adoption where 15 people and three panelists discussed the intricacies of adoption in the LGBT community. Julia Hall, Outspoken Peer Educator at Large and a student in the Silver School of Social Work, was inspired to plan the workshop after her internship at Sanctuary for Families, where she works in the clinical and legal department. It was there that she gained an interest in LGBT adoption.
In the two months she spent planning the event, Hall contacted Terry Boggis, director of Center Kids at the LGBT Center, who put her in contact with Strah and Carol Buell, a lawyer who dedicates one-third of her case load to alternative family cases. To round off the panel, Boggis was invited to speak as well. All three panelists are gay, and all three have adopted children.
Buell assures that the families she represents "are accepted and loved by the court system" but admits "it's taken a while to get here."
But there are still some areas in which the courts still hinder the LGBT community, according to Buell. She notes that it is a felony in the New York state to aid surrogacy arrangements.
"It has become a feminist issue," Buell said. "There are concerns about women being used as vessels, like the 'The Handmaid's Tale,' " referring to Margaret Atwood's 1985 novel about a dystopian society in which the role of certain women is simply to give birth.
The panelists recommended Family Focus in Queens for would-be parents inquiring about adoption. The organization, now in its 20th year of operation, just last year began recognizing LGBT adoptions. Many birth certificates also continue a hetero-normative tradition, according to the panelists. Some states only print certificates that read "mother/father," not "mother/mother" or "father/father." However, some states do print them as "parent/parent" according to Strah.
But in regard to birth certificates, Buell said "things gets complicated with transgender parents."
Also discussed within the topic of domestic adoption was the homelessness problem among LGBT youths. According to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, citing results from the New York City Council, nearly one-third of all homeless youths are LGBT. Hall noted the Ali Forny Center for homeless LGBT in Chelsea as a resource.
While New York City is a very open place to the LGBT community, Boggis says there are still hurdles.
International adoption is particularly hard for queer individuals. The Hague Convention, an agreement signed by the United States on April 1, 2008, bans adoption of international children by gay men and women.
"[People] find it threatening, a threat to ideology, to what an American family should be," CUNY graduate student and event attendee Lynn Horridge said. "Homophobia is a huge psychological underpinning."
David Strah wears blue and green Nikes. He's the father of a 10-year-old boy and a 7-year-old girl. He lives in Chelsea - with his long-time boyfriend.
VIDEO COVERAGE
"I thought that the whole world was either gay people or straight people. When we [he and his partner] had children, it became people with children and people without children," Strah said.
Strah, a Gallatin graduate and author of the book "Gay Dads: A Celebration of Fatherhood," sought a domestic adoption for his two children. He considers himself lucky because he, unlike many parents who seek to adopt, had to decide whether he wished to adopt a boy within 24 hours of finalizing the petition.
He said yes.
But when his son was born, Strah and his partner faced an issue familiar to many gay people who wish to adopt. The doctors at the hospital would not recognize Strah as the parent of his newborn. Strah and his partner are just one of over 250,000 same sex couples to adopt children.
Last Thursday, NYU's Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Student Services held a workshop about queer adoption where 15 people and three panelists discussed the intricacies of adoption in the LGBT community. Julia Hall, Outspoken Peer Educator at Large and a student in the Silver School of Social Work, was inspired to plan the workshop after her internship at Sanctuary for Families, where she works in the clinical and legal department. It was there that she gained an interest in LGBT adoption.
In the two months she spent planning the event, Hall contacted Terry Boggis, director of Center Kids at the LGBT Center, who put her in contact with Strah and Carol Buell, a lawyer who dedicates one-third of her case load to alternative family cases. To round off the panel, Boggis was invited to speak as well. All three panelists are gay, and all three have adopted children.
Buell assures that the families she represents "are accepted and loved by the court system" but admits "it's taken a while to get here."
But there are still some areas in which the courts still hinder the LGBT community, according to Buell. She notes that it is a felony in the New York state to aid surrogacy arrangements.
"It has become a feminist issue," Buell said. "There are concerns about women being used as vessels, like the 'The Handmaid's Tale,' " referring to Margaret Atwood's 1985 novel about a dystopian society in which the role of certain women is simply to give birth.
The panelists recommended Family Focus in Queens for would-be parents inquiring about adoption. The organization, now in its 20th year of operation, just last year began recognizing LGBT adoptions. Many birth certificates also continue a hetero-normative tradition, according to the panelists. Some states only print certificates that read "mother/father," not "mother/mother" or "father/father." However, some states do print them as "parent/parent" according to Strah.
But in regard to birth certificates, Buell said "things gets complicated with transgender parents."
Also discussed within the topic of domestic adoption was the homelessness problem among LGBT youths. According to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, citing results from the New York City Council, nearly one-third of all homeless youths are LGBT. Hall noted the Ali Forny Center for homeless LGBT in Chelsea as a resource.
While New York City is a very open place to the LGBT community, Boggis says there are still hurdles.
International adoption is particularly hard for queer individuals. The Hague Convention, an agreement signed by the United States on April 1, 2008, bans adoption of international children by gay men and women.
"[People] find it threatening, a threat to ideology, to what an American family should be," CUNY graduate student and event attendee Lynn Horridge said. "Homophobia is a huge psychological underpinning."
Monday, April 28, 2008
Surrogacy in the Movies- Baby Mama!
Baby Mama (2008)
New York Times Reviewed- http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/04/25/movies/25baby.html
In the new comedy “Baby Mama” Tina Fey plays a 37-year-old single career woman who, desperate for a baby, hires a womb of her own in the dizzy, slap-happy form of Amy Poehler. The film never comes fully to term, as it were: the visual style is sitcom functional, and even the zippiest jokes fall flat because of poor timing. But, much like the prickly, talented Ms. Fey, it pulls you in with a provocative and, at least in current American movies, unusual mix of female intelligence, awkwardness and chilled-to-the-bone mean.
Ms. Fey is of course best known for working in television, on “Saturday Night Live” and “30 Rock.” Until now her biggest movie role was the uncomfortable but earnest high school math teacher Ms. Norbury in the comedy “Mean Girls,” which she also wrote. (“You all have got to stop calling each other sluts and whores,” Ms. Norbury warns the mean girls and their female prey. “It just makes it O.K. for guys to call you sluts and whores.”) Like a lot of comedies “Mean Girls” has its devilish cake and eats it too, wagging an unpersuasive finger at the very cruelty it skillfully deploys. Ms. Fey may not want girls to call one another sluts, but she’s all too happy to call them that herself.
There’s often a degree of sadism in this kind of comic one-two punch, and while some performers appear to direct the cruelty inward — think of Jerry Lewis and Ben Stiller wringing squirmy, uneasy laughs out of the humiliations rained down on their characters — that doesn’t seem to be Ms. Fey’s style. Certainly it isn’t what she’s called on to do in “Baby Mama,” in which she plays a snappy, sardonic individualist who, much like Ms. Fey herself, works in a male-dominated industry (here, as an executive in an organic grocery chain similar to Whole Foods) and favors the kind of sexy librarian look (high-heeled shoes, low-cut blouses and dark-frame glasses) that signals there’s a hot body to go along with that feverishly smart brain.
“Baby Mama,” which was written and directed by the newcomer Michael McCullers, yet another “Saturday Night Live” alumnus, opens with Ms. Fey’s character, Kate Holbrook, eyeballing babies like a hungry wolf. Everyone has a pitter-pattering Tater Tot but Kate, who lives alone in her generically appointed Philadelphia apartment (the film was also shot in New York) and has few contacts outside her job, extended family and wisecracking doorman, Oscar (Romany Malco). Basically she’s Rhoda with thinner thighs, which I guess means that she’s Mary Richards. But this being 2008 and not the women’s-liberated 1970s, it isn’t enough for Kate to be a swinging single: she wants a baby and she wants it now. Enter Angie Ostrowiski (Ms. Poehler).
At 36 Ms. Poehler is at least 10 years too old for the role, as the softly focused close-ups suggest, but she’s a pip. She’s the ball that bounces against Ms. Fey’s formidable wall, a nonstop, joyfully watchable whirligig. Drawn in broad, often crude strokes, Angie is dumber than the usual dumb blonde so beloved of the movies largely because she’s also coded as white trash, a kind of urban Daisy Mae, complete with short shorts, wads of chewing gum and a tag-along buffoon, Carl (Dax Shepard). If Angie works at all, it’s because Ms. Poehler puts a sweet spin on her character’s gaffes, whether she’s yelping in horror at the unfamiliar taste of water or squatting in a sink when nature makes an untimely call.
There’s more, though not much, mostly some amusing nonsense from Steve Martin as Kate’s boss, a belligerently New Agey entrepreneur with an unkind ponytail. Greg Kinnear also shows up now and again as Kate’s inevitable love interest, perhaps so things don’t overheat when Angie moves in. Not that anyone need worry about this female odd couple, given that Ms. Fey, who doesn’t have the acting chops that might invest her character with some personality, has been forced to play it straight and narrow. The close-up medium of television is more forgiving of those comics who tend to stand in the middle of the frame as if they had just been planted. But unlike Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, Ms. Fey doesn’t even have a funny voice.
That’s too bad, because she is genuinely funny. And if there’s anything the movies could use it is funny women, especially those who earn laughs by keeping their clothes on and their dignity (more or less) intact. Under the old Hollywood system, the studio boss might have ordered up a dance coach for Ms. Fey, maybe a few lessons on how to walk across a set or move her upper body once in a while. She might not have been able to rip loose as a writer-performer, which makes the idea of her developing a simultaneous on-and-off-screen presence all the more tantalizing. Real funny women — Mae West, Elaine May — come along every few decades, so the timing seems right. But the clock is ticking.
“Baby Mama” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Some gentle raunch.
New York Times Reviewed- http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/04/25/movies/25baby.html
In the new comedy “Baby Mama” Tina Fey plays a 37-year-old single career woman who, desperate for a baby, hires a womb of her own in the dizzy, slap-happy form of Amy Poehler. The film never comes fully to term, as it were: the visual style is sitcom functional, and even the zippiest jokes fall flat because of poor timing. But, much like the prickly, talented Ms. Fey, it pulls you in with a provocative and, at least in current American movies, unusual mix of female intelligence, awkwardness and chilled-to-the-bone mean.
Ms. Fey is of course best known for working in television, on “Saturday Night Live” and “30 Rock.” Until now her biggest movie role was the uncomfortable but earnest high school math teacher Ms. Norbury in the comedy “Mean Girls,” which she also wrote. (“You all have got to stop calling each other sluts and whores,” Ms. Norbury warns the mean girls and their female prey. “It just makes it O.K. for guys to call you sluts and whores.”) Like a lot of comedies “Mean Girls” has its devilish cake and eats it too, wagging an unpersuasive finger at the very cruelty it skillfully deploys. Ms. Fey may not want girls to call one another sluts, but she’s all too happy to call them that herself.
There’s often a degree of sadism in this kind of comic one-two punch, and while some performers appear to direct the cruelty inward — think of Jerry Lewis and Ben Stiller wringing squirmy, uneasy laughs out of the humiliations rained down on their characters — that doesn’t seem to be Ms. Fey’s style. Certainly it isn’t what she’s called on to do in “Baby Mama,” in which she plays a snappy, sardonic individualist who, much like Ms. Fey herself, works in a male-dominated industry (here, as an executive in an organic grocery chain similar to Whole Foods) and favors the kind of sexy librarian look (high-heeled shoes, low-cut blouses and dark-frame glasses) that signals there’s a hot body to go along with that feverishly smart brain.
“Baby Mama,” which was written and directed by the newcomer Michael McCullers, yet another “Saturday Night Live” alumnus, opens with Ms. Fey’s character, Kate Holbrook, eyeballing babies like a hungry wolf. Everyone has a pitter-pattering Tater Tot but Kate, who lives alone in her generically appointed Philadelphia apartment (the film was also shot in New York) and has few contacts outside her job, extended family and wisecracking doorman, Oscar (Romany Malco). Basically she’s Rhoda with thinner thighs, which I guess means that she’s Mary Richards. But this being 2008 and not the women’s-liberated 1970s, it isn’t enough for Kate to be a swinging single: she wants a baby and she wants it now. Enter Angie Ostrowiski (Ms. Poehler).
At 36 Ms. Poehler is at least 10 years too old for the role, as the softly focused close-ups suggest, but she’s a pip. She’s the ball that bounces against Ms. Fey’s formidable wall, a nonstop, joyfully watchable whirligig. Drawn in broad, often crude strokes, Angie is dumber than the usual dumb blonde so beloved of the movies largely because she’s also coded as white trash, a kind of urban Daisy Mae, complete with short shorts, wads of chewing gum and a tag-along buffoon, Carl (Dax Shepard). If Angie works at all, it’s because Ms. Poehler puts a sweet spin on her character’s gaffes, whether she’s yelping in horror at the unfamiliar taste of water or squatting in a sink when nature makes an untimely call.
There’s more, though not much, mostly some amusing nonsense from Steve Martin as Kate’s boss, a belligerently New Agey entrepreneur with an unkind ponytail. Greg Kinnear also shows up now and again as Kate’s inevitable love interest, perhaps so things don’t overheat when Angie moves in. Not that anyone need worry about this female odd couple, given that Ms. Fey, who doesn’t have the acting chops that might invest her character with some personality, has been forced to play it straight and narrow. The close-up medium of television is more forgiving of those comics who tend to stand in the middle of the frame as if they had just been planted. But unlike Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, Ms. Fey doesn’t even have a funny voice.
That’s too bad, because she is genuinely funny. And if there’s anything the movies could use it is funny women, especially those who earn laughs by keeping their clothes on and their dignity (more or less) intact. Under the old Hollywood system, the studio boss might have ordered up a dance coach for Ms. Fey, maybe a few lessons on how to walk across a set or move her upper body once in a while. She might not have been able to rip loose as a writer-performer, which makes the idea of her developing a simultaneous on-and-off-screen presence all the more tantalizing. Real funny women — Mae West, Elaine May — come along every few decades, so the timing seems right. But the clock is ticking.
“Baby Mama” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Some gentle raunch.
The Life of Surrogates
The Curious Lives of Surrogates
Thousands of largely invisible American women have given birth to other people's babies. Many are married to men in the military.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/129594
Jennifer Cantor, a 34-year-old surgical nurse from Huntsville, Ala., loves being pregnant. Not having children, necessarily—she has one, an 8-year-old daughter named Dahlia, and has no plans for another—but just the experience of growing a human being beneath her heart. She was fascinated with the idea of it when she was a child, spending an entire two-week vacation, at the age of 11, with a pillow stuffed under her shirt. She's built perfectly for it: six feet tall, fit and slender but broad-hipped. Which is why she found herself two weeks ago in a birthing room in a hospital in Huntsville, swollen with two six-pound boys she had been carrying for eight months. Also in the room was Kerry Smith and his wife, Lisa, running her hands over the little lumps beneath the taut skin of Cantor's belly. "That's an elbow," said Cantor, who knew how the babies were lying in her womb. "Here's a foot." Lisa smiled proudly at her husband. She is, after all, the twins' mother.
It is an act of love, but also a financial transaction, that brings people together like this. For Kerry and for Lisa—who had a hysterectomy at the age of 20 and could never bear her own children—the benefits are obvious: Ethan and Jonathan, healthy six-pound, 12-ounce boys born by C-section on March 20. But what about Cantor? She was paid, of course; the Smiths declined to discuss the exact amount, but typically, surrogacy agreements in the United States involve payments of $20,000 to $25,000 to the woman who bears the child. She enjoyed the somewhat naughty pleasure of telling strangers who asked about her pregnancy, "Oh, they aren't mine," which invariably invoked the question, "Did you have sex with the father?" (In case anyone is wondering, Lisa's eggs were fertilized in vitro with Kerry's sperm before they were implanted on about day five.)
But what kind of woman would carry a child to term, only to hand him over moments after birth? Surrogates challenge our most basic ideas about motherhood, and call into question what we've always thought of as an unbreakable bond between mother and child. It's no wonder many conservative Christians decry the practice as tampering with the miracle of life, while far-left feminists liken gestational carriers to prostitutes who degrade themselves by renting out their bodies. Some medical ethicists describe the process of arranging surrogacy as "baby brokering," while rumors circulate that self-obsessed, shallow New Yorkers have their babies by surrogate to avoid stretch marks. Much of Europe bans the practice, and 12 states, including New York, New Jersey and Michigan, refuse to recognize surrogacy contracts. But in the past five years, four states—Texas, Illinois, Utah and Florida—have passed laws legalizing surrogacy, and Minnesota is considering doing the same. More than a dozen states, including Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and, most notably, California, specifically legalize and regulate the practice.
Today, a greater acceptance of the practice, and advances in science, find more women than ever before having babies for those who cannot. In the course of reporting this story, we discovered that many of these women are military wives who have taken on surrogacy to supplement the family income, some while their husbands are serving overseas. Several agencies reported a significant increase in the number of wives of soldiers and naval personnel applying to be surrogates since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. At the high end, industry experts estimate there were about 1,000 surrogate births in the United States last year, while the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART)—the only organization that makes an effort to track surrogate births—counted about 260 in 2006, a 30 percent increase over three years. But the number is surely much higher than this—in just five of the agencies NEWSWEEK spoke to, there were 400 surrogate births in 2007. The numbers vary because at least 15 percent of clinics—and there are dozens of them across the United States—don't report numbers to SART. Private agreements made outside an agency aren't counted, and the figures do not factor in pregnancies in which one of the intended parents does not provide the egg—for example, where the baby will be raised by a gay male couple. Even though the cost to the intended parents, including medical and legal bills, runs from $40,000 to $120,000, the demand for qualified surrogates is well ahead of supply.
Another reason for the rise in surrogacies is that technology has made them safer and more likely to succeed. Clinics such as Genetics & IVF Institute in Virginia, where Cantor and the Smiths underwent their IVF cycles, now boast a 70 to 90 percent pregnancy success rate—up 40 percent in the past decade. Rather than just putting an egg into a petri dish with thousands of sperm and hoping for a match, embryologists can inject a single sperm directly into the egg. The great majority of clinics can now test embryos for genetic diseases before implantation. It's revolutionizing the way clinics treat patients. Ric Ross, lab director at La Jolla IVF in San Diego, says these advances have helped "drop IVF miscarriage rates by 85 percent."
IVF has been around only since the 1970s, but the idea of one woman bearing a baby for another is as old as civilization. Surrogacy was regulated in the Code of Hammurabi, dating from 1800 B.C., and appears several times in the Hebrew Bible. In the 16th chapter of Genesis, the infertile Sarah gives her servant, Hagar, to her husband, Abraham, to bear a child for them. Later, Jacob fathers children by the maids of his wives Leah and Rachel, who raise them as their own. It is also possible to view the story of Jesus' birth as a case of surrogacy, mediated not by a lawyer but an angel, though in that instance the birth mother did raise the baby.
Thousands of largely invisible American women have given birth to other people's babies. Many are married to men in the military.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/129594
Jennifer Cantor, a 34-year-old surgical nurse from Huntsville, Ala., loves being pregnant. Not having children, necessarily—she has one, an 8-year-old daughter named Dahlia, and has no plans for another—but just the experience of growing a human being beneath her heart. She was fascinated with the idea of it when she was a child, spending an entire two-week vacation, at the age of 11, with a pillow stuffed under her shirt. She's built perfectly for it: six feet tall, fit and slender but broad-hipped. Which is why she found herself two weeks ago in a birthing room in a hospital in Huntsville, swollen with two six-pound boys she had been carrying for eight months. Also in the room was Kerry Smith and his wife, Lisa, running her hands over the little lumps beneath the taut skin of Cantor's belly. "That's an elbow," said Cantor, who knew how the babies were lying in her womb. "Here's a foot." Lisa smiled proudly at her husband. She is, after all, the twins' mother.
It is an act of love, but also a financial transaction, that brings people together like this. For Kerry and for Lisa—who had a hysterectomy at the age of 20 and could never bear her own children—the benefits are obvious: Ethan and Jonathan, healthy six-pound, 12-ounce boys born by C-section on March 20. But what about Cantor? She was paid, of course; the Smiths declined to discuss the exact amount, but typically, surrogacy agreements in the United States involve payments of $20,000 to $25,000 to the woman who bears the child. She enjoyed the somewhat naughty pleasure of telling strangers who asked about her pregnancy, "Oh, they aren't mine," which invariably invoked the question, "Did you have sex with the father?" (In case anyone is wondering, Lisa's eggs were fertilized in vitro with Kerry's sperm before they were implanted on about day five.)
But what kind of woman would carry a child to term, only to hand him over moments after birth? Surrogates challenge our most basic ideas about motherhood, and call into question what we've always thought of as an unbreakable bond between mother and child. It's no wonder many conservative Christians decry the practice as tampering with the miracle of life, while far-left feminists liken gestational carriers to prostitutes who degrade themselves by renting out their bodies. Some medical ethicists describe the process of arranging surrogacy as "baby brokering," while rumors circulate that self-obsessed, shallow New Yorkers have their babies by surrogate to avoid stretch marks. Much of Europe bans the practice, and 12 states, including New York, New Jersey and Michigan, refuse to recognize surrogacy contracts. But in the past five years, four states—Texas, Illinois, Utah and Florida—have passed laws legalizing surrogacy, and Minnesota is considering doing the same. More than a dozen states, including Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and, most notably, California, specifically legalize and regulate the practice.
Today, a greater acceptance of the practice, and advances in science, find more women than ever before having babies for those who cannot. In the course of reporting this story, we discovered that many of these women are military wives who have taken on surrogacy to supplement the family income, some while their husbands are serving overseas. Several agencies reported a significant increase in the number of wives of soldiers and naval personnel applying to be surrogates since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. At the high end, industry experts estimate there were about 1,000 surrogate births in the United States last year, while the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART)—the only organization that makes an effort to track surrogate births—counted about 260 in 2006, a 30 percent increase over three years. But the number is surely much higher than this—in just five of the agencies NEWSWEEK spoke to, there were 400 surrogate births in 2007. The numbers vary because at least 15 percent of clinics—and there are dozens of them across the United States—don't report numbers to SART. Private agreements made outside an agency aren't counted, and the figures do not factor in pregnancies in which one of the intended parents does not provide the egg—for example, where the baby will be raised by a gay male couple. Even though the cost to the intended parents, including medical and legal bills, runs from $40,000 to $120,000, the demand for qualified surrogates is well ahead of supply.
Another reason for the rise in surrogacies is that technology has made them safer and more likely to succeed. Clinics such as Genetics & IVF Institute in Virginia, where Cantor and the Smiths underwent their IVF cycles, now boast a 70 to 90 percent pregnancy success rate—up 40 percent in the past decade. Rather than just putting an egg into a petri dish with thousands of sperm and hoping for a match, embryologists can inject a single sperm directly into the egg. The great majority of clinics can now test embryos for genetic diseases before implantation. It's revolutionizing the way clinics treat patients. Ric Ross, lab director at La Jolla IVF in San Diego, says these advances have helped "drop IVF miscarriage rates by 85 percent."
IVF has been around only since the 1970s, but the idea of one woman bearing a baby for another is as old as civilization. Surrogacy was regulated in the Code of Hammurabi, dating from 1800 B.C., and appears several times in the Hebrew Bible. In the 16th chapter of Genesis, the infertile Sarah gives her servant, Hagar, to her husband, Abraham, to bear a child for them. Later, Jacob fathers children by the maids of his wives Leah and Rachel, who raise them as their own. It is also possible to view the story of Jesus' birth as a case of surrogacy, mediated not by a lawyer but an angel, though in that instance the birth mother did raise the baby.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Surrogacy in Japan
Japan doctor says helped births through surrogacy
Sun, Feb 3 02:33 PM
A Japanese obstetrician said on Sunday he had helped two couples have babies through surrogate mothers over the past two years, criticising moves by academics to make the practice illegal.
Japan's obstetricians' association is opposed to births by surrogate mothers and academics recently drafted a proposal for the government to ban such births by law. A final report is due at the end of March, according to media.
Yahiro Netsu, one of a handful of doctors to have helped couples have children through surrogate mothers, said it was unfair to deny infertile couples the chance to have children.
"It's ridiculous to force values on people, to not allow something that has been agreed upon by two parties," Netsu, who runs a maternity clinic in Nagano, central Japan, said by telephone.
"Couples should be given the freedom to choose."
Surrogate motherhood has amassed wide media attention in Japan in recent years, in part due to a celebrity couple who had twin boys through an American surrogate mother in 2003.
The family made headlines last year when it lost a case in Japan's Supreme Court to have the boys registered in Japan. The children have only U.S. citizenship and are required to carry alien-registration cards.
Netsu, long known for defying the obstetrics' association and urging the medical community to review its opposition to surrogate motherhood, said he was currently helping another couple give birth through surrogacy.
He declined to give details on his patients, but said that prior to 2006, he helped five couples have babies through surrogate mothers.
A government survey last year showed 54 percent of respondents were in favour of allowing surrogate births, but academics have questioned the health risks for both the surrogate mother and child, the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper said.
Netsu said he also helped an unmarried 60-year-old woman give birth to a boy in December after she had gotten pregnant with an embryo created from donated egg and sperm.
Netsu, whose clinic cared for her after other medical institutions in Japan refused to see her, said the case showed that older woman were able to have children as long as they were in healthy condition.
Late childbearing, defined by the World Health Organisation as involving women over age 35, has been increasing in Japan as more women work and marry at a later age.
Sun, Feb 3 02:33 PM
A Japanese obstetrician said on Sunday he had helped two couples have babies through surrogate mothers over the past two years, criticising moves by academics to make the practice illegal.
Japan's obstetricians' association is opposed to births by surrogate mothers and academics recently drafted a proposal for the government to ban such births by law. A final report is due at the end of March, according to media.
Yahiro Netsu, one of a handful of doctors to have helped couples have children through surrogate mothers, said it was unfair to deny infertile couples the chance to have children.
"It's ridiculous to force values on people, to not allow something that has been agreed upon by two parties," Netsu, who runs a maternity clinic in Nagano, central Japan, said by telephone.
"Couples should be given the freedom to choose."
Surrogate motherhood has amassed wide media attention in Japan in recent years, in part due to a celebrity couple who had twin boys through an American surrogate mother in 2003.
The family made headlines last year when it lost a case in Japan's Supreme Court to have the boys registered in Japan. The children have only U.S. citizenship and are required to carry alien-registration cards.
Netsu, long known for defying the obstetrics' association and urging the medical community to review its opposition to surrogate motherhood, said he was currently helping another couple give birth through surrogacy.
He declined to give details on his patients, but said that prior to 2006, he helped five couples have babies through surrogate mothers.
A government survey last year showed 54 percent of respondents were in favour of allowing surrogate births, but academics have questioned the health risks for both the surrogate mother and child, the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper said.
Netsu said he also helped an unmarried 60-year-old woman give birth to a boy in December after she had gotten pregnant with an embryo created from donated egg and sperm.
Netsu, whose clinic cared for her after other medical institutions in Japan refused to see her, said the case showed that older woman were able to have children as long as they were in healthy condition.
Late childbearing, defined by the World Health Organisation as involving women over age 35, has been increasing in Japan as more women work and marry at a later age.
Surrogate Mother to Eight babies!
Anita Brush is happy in her role as a surrogate mum to eight babies
By Rita de Brun
Monday February 04 2008
Six years ago, Dublin couple, John Mc-Mahon and Gerard Whelan became the proud fathers of triplets. The event came about with the help of Anita Brush, a surrogate mother from California.
Fiercely protective of their family unit, John talks about their experience only to help others considering surrogacy. The closeness and affection between John, Gerard and Anita is obvious and they all agree that they knew instinctively when they met, that they would have kids together.
They had a good feeling about Anita when they met. "We liked each other instantly," says John. "We all knew that our meeting was meant to be.
"Of course, when we discovered that we were having not one or two but three children, we were totally blown away but quite overjoyed, and we trusted Anita to do whatever she could to keep our babies safe.
"We knew she wouldn't drink, smoke or take drugs, as she simply wasn't the type. She's a genuinely caring person, so we knew she would take it easy and try to hold on to the babies until term;,and she did," John adds.
"Anita is a close friend of our family and often comes to stay with us. She and the children get on really well together. We have a very deep and special bond with her and we know that without her, we wouldn't have our kids, so we'll always be grateful."
At 41, Anita Brush has a figure that most women in their early twenties would be glad of. On looks alone, nobody would ever believe that she is a mother of 11.
"Ten years ago, my then husband was training to be a teacher, so I needed to go back to work," says Anita. "I wanted a job that would allow me to be around for our children, and something that would have a positive impact on others.
"I had previously worked in childcare and always loved children. Also, I enjoyed being pregnant and wanted to help childless couples."
Anita had three children of her own, the youngest being two, when she first became a surrogate mother.
"My first pregnancy was for a heterosexual Japanese couple," she recalls. "Then the following year I had a baby for a heterosexual American couple. The triplets arrived in 2001. Then, two years later, I had twins for a gay couple in the Midwest, and in October of the following year, I had a third child for that same couple. In all, I had eight babies in seven years for four couples."
Then, she laughs: "Well I didn't set out to have that many, you know."
Anita says that for her, the highs were in not having to worry about the practicalities of raising a child.
"I get immense enjoyment out of being pregnant, but I have no difficulty handing the baby over to the parents at the birth," she adds. "They take over the responsibilities, and I go home to my family.
"Of course, my body isn't aware of that arrangement, so I have to get used to the hormonal changes that happen after giving birth," she concedes.
"And there have been times, following the births, when I've felt the need to hold a baby close. When that happens, I just hold my friend's babies for a while and that does the trick."
As to her own children, and the impact of her surrogacy on them, Anita believes that their experience was positive.
"Their lives have been enriched by the wonderful people we've met along the way. We keep in touch with all the families, and this has been very positive for my kids. Also, they had me at home with them all the time, and that was a big plus for all of us."
Two years ago, Anita, as a guest on Good Morning America, cautioned women never to become a surrogate mother for financial gain. "Do not do this for the money," she said. "If you want to classify this as a job, it's 24 hours a day, seven days a week."
For five pregnancies, she earned a total of $130,000, and it couldn't have been easy.
"I drank a gallon of whole-milk every day for the benefit of the triplets and I gained 80lbs," says Anita laughing. I used to feel a little queasy, but never sick and it was worth it."
Describing herself as very accepting of varying points of view, Anita says that her life experience has shown that there is no such thing as an ideal family type.
"What counts is the love between the members of that family, and that's what makes Gerard, John, and their children a beautiful family."
Surrogacy in Ireland
MOST of us are familiar with Cork woman Maureen O'Connor who, with her partner Justin Pearlman (right), offered €5,000 in their search for a surrogate mother
While their story attracted substantial media coverage, there are no doubt far more Irish families who have children with the help of surrogate mothers than we know.
Most Irish couples considering the surrogacy option head overseas because there is no specific law or protections governing the process here, should complications arise.
Fiona Duffy, partner at Patrick F O'Reilly & Co Solicitors, explains that there is no specific legislation in place governing the law on surrogacy in Ireland.
But the topic was considered by the Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction. Although their report, which was produced in April 2005, made many recommendations, none have yet been implemented.
At present, the surrogate mother will be registered as mother on the birth certificate. If she is married, her husband will be named as father. If she is single, the commissioning father can apply to be registered as father.
If she is not married, she alone is the guardian of the infant. This may be so even though there is no genetic link between her and the child.
The commission recommended that a child born through surrogacy should be presumed to be the child of the commissioning couple.
As to whether the identity of the donors should be withheld, their view was that this information should in the long-term be made available to any child who results from the procedure.
Of 43 surrogate families in a British study, nearly two-fifths involved full surrogacy, where the embryo is provided by the commissioning couple and therefore the carrier of the child does not have any genetic link to the child. Just over three-fifths involved partial surrogacy, where the male partner has donated his sperm through a process of insemination or IVF. The egg is provided by the host herself.
Two-thirds of the surrogate mothers were unknown to the commissioning couple prior to the surrogacy arrangement, while the remaining third of surrogate mothers were either a sister or a friend of the commissioning mother.
Researcher Fiona MacCallum said: "It is often assumed that surrogate mothers will have difficulties handing the child over following the birth.
"In fact, we found only one instance of the surrogate having slight doubts at this time."
- Rita de Brun
By Rita de Brun
Monday February 04 2008
Six years ago, Dublin couple, John Mc-Mahon and Gerard Whelan became the proud fathers of triplets. The event came about with the help of Anita Brush, a surrogate mother from California.
Fiercely protective of their family unit, John talks about their experience only to help others considering surrogacy. The closeness and affection between John, Gerard and Anita is obvious and they all agree that they knew instinctively when they met, that they would have kids together.
They had a good feeling about Anita when they met. "We liked each other instantly," says John. "We all knew that our meeting was meant to be.
"Of course, when we discovered that we were having not one or two but three children, we were totally blown away but quite overjoyed, and we trusted Anita to do whatever she could to keep our babies safe.
"We knew she wouldn't drink, smoke or take drugs, as she simply wasn't the type. She's a genuinely caring person, so we knew she would take it easy and try to hold on to the babies until term;,and she did," John adds.
"Anita is a close friend of our family and often comes to stay with us. She and the children get on really well together. We have a very deep and special bond with her and we know that without her, we wouldn't have our kids, so we'll always be grateful."
At 41, Anita Brush has a figure that most women in their early twenties would be glad of. On looks alone, nobody would ever believe that she is a mother of 11.
"Ten years ago, my then husband was training to be a teacher, so I needed to go back to work," says Anita. "I wanted a job that would allow me to be around for our children, and something that would have a positive impact on others.
"I had previously worked in childcare and always loved children. Also, I enjoyed being pregnant and wanted to help childless couples."
Anita had three children of her own, the youngest being two, when she first became a surrogate mother.
"My first pregnancy was for a heterosexual Japanese couple," she recalls. "Then the following year I had a baby for a heterosexual American couple. The triplets arrived in 2001. Then, two years later, I had twins for a gay couple in the Midwest, and in October of the following year, I had a third child for that same couple. In all, I had eight babies in seven years for four couples."
Then, she laughs: "Well I didn't set out to have that many, you know."
Anita says that for her, the highs were in not having to worry about the practicalities of raising a child.
"I get immense enjoyment out of being pregnant, but I have no difficulty handing the baby over to the parents at the birth," she adds. "They take over the responsibilities, and I go home to my family.
"Of course, my body isn't aware of that arrangement, so I have to get used to the hormonal changes that happen after giving birth," she concedes.
"And there have been times, following the births, when I've felt the need to hold a baby close. When that happens, I just hold my friend's babies for a while and that does the trick."
As to her own children, and the impact of her surrogacy on them, Anita believes that their experience was positive.
"Their lives have been enriched by the wonderful people we've met along the way. We keep in touch with all the families, and this has been very positive for my kids. Also, they had me at home with them all the time, and that was a big plus for all of us."
Two years ago, Anita, as a guest on Good Morning America, cautioned women never to become a surrogate mother for financial gain. "Do not do this for the money," she said. "If you want to classify this as a job, it's 24 hours a day, seven days a week."
For five pregnancies, she earned a total of $130,000, and it couldn't have been easy.
"I drank a gallon of whole-milk every day for the benefit of the triplets and I gained 80lbs," says Anita laughing. I used to feel a little queasy, but never sick and it was worth it."
Describing herself as very accepting of varying points of view, Anita says that her life experience has shown that there is no such thing as an ideal family type.
"What counts is the love between the members of that family, and that's what makes Gerard, John, and their children a beautiful family."
Surrogacy in Ireland
MOST of us are familiar with Cork woman Maureen O'Connor who, with her partner Justin Pearlman (right), offered €5,000 in their search for a surrogate mother
While their story attracted substantial media coverage, there are no doubt far more Irish families who have children with the help of surrogate mothers than we know.
Most Irish couples considering the surrogacy option head overseas because there is no specific law or protections governing the process here, should complications arise.
Fiona Duffy, partner at Patrick F O'Reilly & Co Solicitors, explains that there is no specific legislation in place governing the law on surrogacy in Ireland.
But the topic was considered by the Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction. Although their report, which was produced in April 2005, made many recommendations, none have yet been implemented.
At present, the surrogate mother will be registered as mother on the birth certificate. If she is married, her husband will be named as father. If she is single, the commissioning father can apply to be registered as father.
If she is not married, she alone is the guardian of the infant. This may be so even though there is no genetic link between her and the child.
The commission recommended that a child born through surrogacy should be presumed to be the child of the commissioning couple.
As to whether the identity of the donors should be withheld, their view was that this information should in the long-term be made available to any child who results from the procedure.
Of 43 surrogate families in a British study, nearly two-fifths involved full surrogacy, where the embryo is provided by the commissioning couple and therefore the carrier of the child does not have any genetic link to the child. Just over three-fifths involved partial surrogacy, where the male partner has donated his sperm through a process of insemination or IVF. The egg is provided by the host herself.
Two-thirds of the surrogate mothers were unknown to the commissioning couple prior to the surrogacy arrangement, while the remaining third of surrogate mothers were either a sister or a friend of the commissioning mother.
Researcher Fiona MacCallum said: "It is often assumed that surrogate mothers will have difficulties handing the child over following the birth.
"In fact, we found only one instance of the surrogate having slight doubts at this time."
- Rita de Brun
Embryos Created from 3 people!
Embryos created with DNA from 3 people By MARIA CHENG, AP Medical Writer
LONDON - British scientists say they have created human embryos containing DNA from two women and a man in a procedure that researchers hope might be used one day to produce embryos free of inherited diseases.
Though the preliminary research has raised concerns about the possibility of genetically modified babies, the scientists say that the embryos are still only primarily the product of one man and one woman.
"We are not trying to alter genes, we're just trying to swap a small proportion of the bad ones for some good ones," said Patrick Chinnery, a professor of neurogenetics at Newcastle University involved in the research.
The research was presented at a scientific conference recently, but has not been peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal.
The process aims to create healthy embryos for couples to avoid passing on genes carrying diseases.
The genes being replaced are the mitochondria, a cell's energy source, which are contained outside the nucleus in a normal female egg. Mistakes in the mitochondria's genetic code can result in serious diseases like muscular dystrophy, epilepsy, strokes and mental retardation.
In their research, Chinnery and colleagues used normal embryos created from one man and one woman that had defective mitochondria in the woman's egg. They then transplanted that embryo into an emptied egg donated from a second woman who had healthy mitochondria.
The research is being funded by the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, a British charity.
Only trace amounts of a person's genes come from the mitochondria, and experts said it would be incorrect to say that the embryos have three parents.
"Most of the genes that make you who you are are inside the nucleus," Chinnery said. "We're not going anywhere near that."
So far, 10 such embryos have been created, though they have not been allowed to develop for more than five days. Chinnery hoped that after further experiments in the next few years the process might be available to parents undergoing in-vitro fertilization.
"If successful, this research could give families who might otherwise have a bleak future a chance to avoid some very grave diseases," said Francoise Shenfield, a fertility expert with the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. Shenfield was not connected to the Newcastle University research.
Similar experiments have been conducted in animals in Japan, and has already led to the birth of healthy mice who had their mitochondria genes corrected.
Shenfield said that further tests to assess the safety and efficacy of the process were necessary before it could be offered as a potential treatment.
A bill to allow the procedure to be regulated as a therapy for couples — once it is proven to work — is expected to be discussed in Britain's House of Commons in March
LONDON - British scientists say they have created human embryos containing DNA from two women and a man in a procedure that researchers hope might be used one day to produce embryos free of inherited diseases.
Though the preliminary research has raised concerns about the possibility of genetically modified babies, the scientists say that the embryos are still only primarily the product of one man and one woman.
"We are not trying to alter genes, we're just trying to swap a small proportion of the bad ones for some good ones," said Patrick Chinnery, a professor of neurogenetics at Newcastle University involved in the research.
The research was presented at a scientific conference recently, but has not been peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal.
The process aims to create healthy embryos for couples to avoid passing on genes carrying diseases.
The genes being replaced are the mitochondria, a cell's energy source, which are contained outside the nucleus in a normal female egg. Mistakes in the mitochondria's genetic code can result in serious diseases like muscular dystrophy, epilepsy, strokes and mental retardation.
In their research, Chinnery and colleagues used normal embryos created from one man and one woman that had defective mitochondria in the woman's egg. They then transplanted that embryo into an emptied egg donated from a second woman who had healthy mitochondria.
The research is being funded by the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, a British charity.
Only trace amounts of a person's genes come from the mitochondria, and experts said it would be incorrect to say that the embryos have three parents.
"Most of the genes that make you who you are are inside the nucleus," Chinnery said. "We're not going anywhere near that."
So far, 10 such embryos have been created, though they have not been allowed to develop for more than five days. Chinnery hoped that after further experiments in the next few years the process might be available to parents undergoing in-vitro fertilization.
"If successful, this research could give families who might otherwise have a bleak future a chance to avoid some very grave diseases," said Francoise Shenfield, a fertility expert with the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. Shenfield was not connected to the Newcastle University research.
Similar experiments have been conducted in animals in Japan, and has already led to the birth of healthy mice who had their mitochondria genes corrected.
Shenfield said that further tests to assess the safety and efficacy of the process were necessary before it could be offered as a potential treatment.
A bill to allow the procedure to be regulated as a therapy for couples — once it is proven to work — is expected to be discussed in Britain's House of Commons in March
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