Baby Market in Belgium

Stephanie Raeymaekers attended a trade fair for would-be gay dads in Brussels where surrogate mothers were called “carriers” and egg donors “genetic material contributors”. A child's right to know his or her parents was almost completely overlooked. 

BRUSSELS -- For the second time around a surrogacy fair organised by the American company Men Having Babies landed on Belgian soil. This time it took place in a slightly more upscale venue. The ground floor at The Brussels Hilton became a stage where 220 potential customers from 12 European countries were welcomed.

Like last year, I was present. Me: the first in our generation to provide adults with a semi-biological child. It was the start of a lucrative business when fertility doctors discovered that the techniques used on a pig farm could also be useful for infertile heterosexual couples.

From the 1950s Belgian wombs were being filled with the sperm of unknown men. Fertility techniques improved and not much later they tapped into new target groups: single women and lesbian couples.

Branding unwanted childlessness as discrimination and injustice, several branches of the LGBT community are lobbying for gay men and transgender women to have biological children of their own.

Last Sunday almost everything was on offer: interpreters, gadgets, price lists, different formulas, the dos and the don’ts… But most of all, straight-to-your-heart-and-into-our-wallet sales pitches from companies which are able to connect anyone directly with eggs, surrogacy agencies and lawyers to make “a dream come true”. Lawyers handed out the metaphorical road map with instructions on how to by-pass laws to get your purchased child(ren) “legally” in your own country.

Towards an ethical framework

This year Men Having Babies also presented an “ethical framework” to convince opponents of their sincere and honest intentions. They claim to be a non-profit organization aiming to provide tools and means for gay men to pursue their right to have a biological family. The fact that their biggest sponsors happened to be the very fertility centers and law firms that pitched to the 220 attendees wasn’t viewed as a conflict of interest.

Surrogacy was described as “the act of a woman, altruistic by nature, gestating a child for another individual or couple, with the intent to give the child to the intended parents at birth”.

I have a very different perspective. I would describe it as the outsourcing of a personalized pregnancy that aims the trading/adoption of a donor-conceived child to those who ordered it whilst paying a fee for expenses.

New terms were launched to keep the transactions as business-like as possible: the surrogate mother was called “a carrier”, the egg donor “a genetic material contributor”. Some agencies also offered a money-back guarantees(no kidding) and “Multiple Cycle Package” deals.

Several times speakers advised against adoption. They said that nowadays there are not many young children to adopt and the probability that the mother may decide to keep “your” child is too great a risk. Surrogacy, once again, brought salvation.

Speakers strongly advised the participants to use eggs from a woman other than the surrogate, because the birth mother will then be more likely to give up the baby.

An enforceable 50-page contract also offers reassurance that you can take the child home with you after it is born. The contract even allows payments to stop if the surrogate does not comply with the terms of the contract. I must also mention that many contracts have a non-disclosure clause: they prohibit women from speaking publicly about any malpractice they endured.

A lot of time and attention was spent on the topic of conceiving as healthy a child as possible. Gender selection is included in this “service”. My consternation was huge when a fertility doctor asked the audience who would chose to abort a child with a defect. Most hands went in the air. Just for the record: abortion can also be enforced by contract.

Belgian hypocrisy

Apart from “I want my child to be as healthy and perfect as possible”, discussion of the welfare of the child was – as it is in Belgium – limited to the legal uncertainty that is created when there is a legal conflict between genetic lineage and legal parenthood. Only twice (and very briefly) were the right of the child to knowledge of his or her ancestry and identity mentioned. But these were immediately countered by economic and practical arguments.

Once again certain Belgian politicians have sought the media limelight to express their personal disgust regarding this event. Yet their dismay is hypocritical. They refuse to acknowledge that similar practices are taking place all the time in IVF clinics with the same ethical framework to justify them. Apparently a policy is ethical when the price is low, transparency is not needed and fancy brochures are not being handed out.

An ethicist once told me that something is not ethical when someone’s action harms another. Isn’t the intentional creation of a human being who has been deprived of vital information about themselves and a meaningful relationship with their biological family harmful? In my view the only ethical standard that needs be applied when considered whether or not to allow surrogacy and donor conception.

As disgusted as one might be by the American event, it is time to reflect, and to acknowledge that for decades we Belgians have been violating human rights on own soil when we enabled the commercialization of “Plan B parenthood” at the expense of children who are conceived to fulfil the dreams of an adult.

Stephanie Raeymaekers is the chair of Donorkinderen, a Belgian organisation that promotes cross-border registration of donors and the right of donor-conceived persons to know their parentage. The above article is reproduced from the Donorkinderen blog.

Related reading: Abducted Babies For Sell

Australia Seeks Legislation on Surrogacy

A government report has backed calls for an international treaty on surrogacy and for uniform legislation within Australia banning commercial surrogacy.

A Senate committee tabled its conclusions this week. In a nutshell, it backs altruistic surrogacy, but not commercial surrogacy. In a society where marriage and the family are changing rapidly, with many children lacking genetic connections with parents, surrogacy can be a solution for infertile couples, it contends.

However, the report left a number of issues in the too-hard basket. They include changing birth certificates to include all people who could qualify as parents – genetic, gestational and intended and making use of commercial surrogates overseas illegal.

Research shows that about 250 children from commercial surrogacy arrangements are brought back to Australia every year. Australia is powerless to stop this, argues the committee. The best the government can do is to give advice about the dangers of offshore arrangements and the possibility of abusing the human rights of the women involved.

Everyone agrees that fundamental principle of surrogacy must be the “best interests of the child”. However, there is a stark division on what those are. Some people told the committee that surrogacy in any form could never be in the best interests of the child because it creates confusion about his or her identity and is inconsistent with the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child. Others declared that it could be consistent. The committee sat on the fence.

Another issue is reimbursement for “reasonable expenses” for altruistic surrogates. The committee backed “appropriate reimbursement”.

From here.

Commercial surrogacy is a complicated and controversial topic. Ethical concerns arise on many grounds: the cost of adoption, the welfare of the infant; and the potential for exploitation of poor women.

In India the commercial surrogacy grosses over $1 billion each year. In October 2015, the Indian government announced pending legislation that would ban foreigners from exploiting poor Indian women or traveling to India on what the government called "reproductive tourism."  Read more here: How Commercial Surrogacy Became a Massive International Business

Related reading:  Eggsploitation; Poverty Spurs Surrogacy in India; Surrogate Twins Denied French Citizenship; Surrogacy Option

Surrogate Twins Denied French Citizenship

A drama surrounding twins born overseas to a surrogate mother has raised hopes of legalising surrogacy in France. The nation's highest court this week denied citizenship to twin girls, the children of Dominique and Sylvie Mennesson. They were born in 2000 to a surrogate mother in California from sperm from Mr Mennesson and a donated egg from a friend of Mrs Mennesson. A San Diego court decided that the girls had French citizenship under state laws.

However, French authorities disagreed and a decade-long legal battle ensued. A lower court removed the twins from the civil registry. The parents appealed, but finally lost in the Court of Cassation. The court decided that recognition of filiation is against French law, although nothing prevents the children from living with the couple.

The Mennessons were crestfallen at the verdict and declared that they will appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. France is debating a law on bioethics, but the current draft does not even mention surrogacy.

A lawyer who specialises in cases of surrogacy, Caroline Mécary, said that several hundred children are living in France without citizenship because their surrogate mothers were not French.

Dominique Mennesson told Le Monde that it was an appalling outcome. "This means that the twins will always remain ghosts and are deprived of all rights associated with French registration. As they did not have French nationality, when they come of age, they may not remain on French territory. When they grow up, as for residency, employment, voting, they will have none of the rights of the French and the Europeans because they are Americans according to this decision." ~ AP, Apr 7

India to Legalize Surrogacy

India has become a world centre for surrogate motherhood. Now the government proposes to legalise commercial surrogacy. The Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) [Regulation] Bill 2010 will allow unmarried women to act as surrogates for both couples and singles, including homosexuals. It is a radical measure in socially conservative India which could deliver big profits to the country's aggressive IVF industry.

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

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

A Mumbai clinic which specialises in services for gay couples, Rotunda, welcomed the news. "Renting a womb could soon become a completely legal and hassle-free experience, both for Indian as well as foreign couples looking for surrogate mothers in the country," it said in a press release. ~ Hindustan Times, June 21
 
For related news, go here.

Surrogacy Option

According to IVF experts, infertility affects about one out of every six couples worldwide. Infertility, however, is more than just the inability to conceive after 12 months of trying. It also includes women who can’t carry a pregnancy to term.

In the past, adoption was a way out for such women. But now, this notion is regarded as an archaic one as there are other better options for infertile couples who can opt for advanced infertility treatments and egg/sperm/embryo donation.

Gestational surrogacy
Most intended parents prefer gestational surrogacy because the chances of the surrogate laying claim to the baby are slim. They also feel more in control because they can choose the genetics of the baby. An advantage to having an egg from an ovum donor or the intended mother is that for the surrogate mother, it does away with the complex emotional issues of being a gestational/genetic donor mother. Many surrogate mothers find that their family is more receptive to such a surrogacy.

Using an egg donor
Parents who choose to have a gestational surrogate carry their child cannot genetically contribute to their offspring. Nor do they wish to have their surrogate mother be the genetic mother. These parents usually rely on outside assistance via sperm or egg donation.

While sperm donation has been around for years, egg donation is relatively new. In this process, a screened egg donor undergoes hormone therapy (usually injections) over many weeks which cause her ovaries to release more than one egg.

Between one and 15 eggs are usually harvested during a surgical procedure. They are then inspected for quality and either frozen for use later or immediately mixed with sperm for the intended father or a sperm donor.

From here.

Poverty Spurs Surrogacy in India

Surrogacy may be of 2 types – partial (when the sperm is fertilized with the egg of the surrogate mother and born to term) or total (when sperm and the oocyte of the commissioning or genetic parents are fertilized in vitro and inseminated into the womb of the surrogate mother who bears the fetus to term). Surrogacy arrangements may be commercial (when the commissioning parents pay for expenses as well as monetary compensation to the surrogate mother) or altruistic (where only expenses are taken care of by the commissioning parents. This is an arrangement often entered into with known members or family members of the commissioning parents)

With the issuance of ART Guidelines by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, surrogacy arrangements have been made permissible in India. There is, however, no any law on the issue.

News reports show an increasing trend of surrogacy arrangements being entered into. (particularly in Anand district in Gujarat) In most cases the women enter into such arrangements to overcome financial constraints. There is also an increasing trend of foreigners commissioning Indian women to act as surrogate mothers.
Surrogacy arrangements are primarily facilitated by ART clinics. However, the ART clinics are not meant to negotiate monetary transactions between the parties. Hence such arrangements are entered into by the contracting parties.

There is no study of the manner in which such practices takes place most of the information is based on anecdotal accounts and news paper / media reports.

Discussion
First and foremost, surrogacy has not gained popularity and is not pervasive in India, being a country which is over populated and has one of the richest genetic pools in the world. On the other hand countries which consider surrogacy as a major public issue are those where the population itself is declining and the genetic pool correspondingly declining as is the case in many European countries.

Next, the issue is of recent origin, linked to the availability of reproductive technology- the oldest living child born out of in vitro technology is not over 30 years of age, who has recently written about her experience. However, although surrogacy has not assumed the proportions of a major public policy concern, the question of infertility among individuals desiring a genetic child exists and therefore has to be dealt with by the law.
It follows from this that any law will focus on the right of individuals who are infertile and desire to have a genetic child. The issue then has to be viewed from the point of view of an individual. Does the “right to life” guaranteed in the Constitution include the right to procreate? Are there international instruments or norms on these rights? Does the right to procreate include the right to artificial insemination and creating a child through surrogacy?

It is submitted that fundamental rights does not extend to the right of access to reproductive technology and in particular, does not extend to the right to have an embryo implanted in another woman’s womb.

However, the mere fact that it is not a fundamental right, does not lead to the conclusion that it is unlawful or that it cannot be legislated upon. Even if it is a fundamental right, restrictions can be put upon it in accordance with law. Here, while imposing restrictions by law, public policy does have a role to play in preventing any exploitative arrangements. Even commercial arrangements can be invalidated in the interest of fairness, more so, an arrangement which deals with human genetic material and the bringing into the world of a new human being.

This brings us to the question, whose rights are we dealing with?

Read it all here.