I read
this article about Senator Stephen Conroy and his wife Paula Benson (Victoria, Australia) who finally got legal recognition of their status as parents to their child who was born by
surrogacy. What surprised me most was the following paragraph:
Victorian law says that a woman can be a surrogate only if she is medically
infertile, a ruling that has been widely described as bizarre.
Even after reading that it was 'described as bizarre', I still thought there must be some mistake in the sentence. Perhaps only couples who were medically infertile were eligible to choose surrogacy? The surrogate mother??? So I went to look it up...
A slew of articles (like this one from The Age or this one also about Senator Stephen Conroy & his wife in The Brisbane Times) confirm that this is indeed the case...
Surrogacy laws in Israel are complicated too - for religious reasons. As far as I know, only gestational surrogacy is allowed. Then, a surrogate must be an unmarried woman (if a married woman were to carry a child created with the sperm of a man who is not her husband, the child would be considered a mamzer - not a good thing...) In addition, she must be the mother of at least one child of her own (though I have heard that this is standard in other countries too). I don't know how many babies are born by surrogacy each year in Israel, but the numbers are still very small.
Apparently, as it says in the articles - "the law has not kept up with science". I hope legislation will help those couples whose best chance to have a child is via surrogacy, while protecting all sides - the surrogate, the intended parents and especially the baby.
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interesting search of the day: early symptoms of pregnancy in the father.
None that I know of. Perhaps finding multiple pee-stick wrappers lying around? Hearing barfing noises? Got any other ideas?
Labels: news, surrogacy
