When journalist Gianna Tobani traveled to India to explore the country’s rapidly growing, yet unregulated, gestational surrogacy industry for HBO documentary series Vice, she didn’t anticipate ‘how dark’ the story would get. For nearly two years, the producer and host has been reporting on current issues across the globe and has covered everything from the detention center at Guantanamo Bay to the effect of climate change on polar bears – but nothing could have prepared her for the moment when someone offered to sell her a baby over dinner while she was working undercover in India.
Tag: gestational surrogacy
Study Finds Ten Years After Being Gestational Carriers, Women and Families Doing Well
Researchers speaking at the 68th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine today unveiled a study showing that a decade after serving as gestational carriers, both the women who served as gestational carriers and their families were doing well and had positive feelings about the experience.
Georgia Woman Angie Stockton Gives Birth to her own Grandson
Athens – A Georgia woman Angie Stockton, 45, has given birth to her own grandson after she agreed to act as a “gestational carrier” for her daughter Krista Saxon, who was unable to carry her baby through pregnancy.
The baby, Tucker Landry Saxon, was born on Saturday weighing seven pounds, 12 ounces. He became the fourth baby to be born to his grandmother in the U.S. and the first in the state of Georgia. According to Online Athens, Stockton gave birth to Tucker Landry Saxon at Athens Regional Medical Center. Read full article.
NJ Governor Vetoes Surrogacy Bill
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie vetoed legislation yesterday intending to establish a legal framework for gestational carrier arrangements in the state. In vetoing the legislation, Christie argued that the state had not yet fully examined profound questions that surround creating a child through a contract, and that further study of the issue was necessary. The sponsors of the bill refuted the need for further study citing the year long legislative process which involved input from various stakeholders and public hearings on the issue.
Christie Vetoes Bill that Would have Eased Tough Rules for Gestational Surrogates
TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie today vetoed a bill that would have relaxed New Jersey’s strict surrogate parenting law, saying the state hadn’t yet answered the “profound” questions that surround creating a child through a contract.
According to the governor’s statement explaining the veto obtained by The Star-Ledger, “Permitting adults to contract with others regarding a child in such a manner unquestionably raises serious and significant issues.”
“In contrast to traditional surrogacy, a gestational surrogate birth does not use the egg of the carrier,” the governor wrote. “In this scenario, the gestational carrier lacks any genetic connection to the baby, and in some cases, it is feasible that neither parent is genetically related to the child. Instead, children born to gestational surrogates are linked to their parents by contract.”
“While some all applaud the freedom to explore these new, and sometimes necessary, arranged births, others will note the profound change in the traditional beginnings of the family that this bill will enact. I am not satisfied that these questions have been sufficiently studied by the Legislature at this time,” according to the statement.
The bill (S1599) would have eliminated the three-day waiting period for parents of children born to surrogates to be listed on their birth certificates. It also would have required the “gestational carrier” to surrender custody of the child immediately upon the child’s birth.
The state has not updated its surrogacy law since the Baby M case in 1988, which defined the legal relationship between a surrogate using her egg and a husband who used his sperm to conceive a child. But that case involved artificial insemination, not in vitro fertilization, which is what sparked this bill involving a Union County couple.
The state Bureau of Vital Statistics initially allowed the couple to be listed on their son’s birth certificate after the three-day waiting period. But state went to court to block it because the intended mother had no genetic or biological tie to the infant – conceived with an anonymous donor egg and her husband’s sperm. She had to adopt the baby despite a surrogacy contract recognized by a judge.
The Life of a Surrogate- An Independent Contractor or Not?
by S. Fenella Das Gupta, Ph.D., Neuroscience
In the U.S., there’s a deep ambivalence surrounding the issue of gestational surrogacy, a process in which a woman carries and delivers a child for another couple or person.
It’s a …
Parents Hope Reborn with Gestational Carrier
Kim Christian knew when she was 32 that she could not bear children. For the next decade, she and her husband, Dan Rominski, saved and planned for fertility treatments…So the Montvale couple gambled — legally and medically. They crossed state lines to make a deal with a 30-year-old Illinois woman who agreed to bear a child for them.
Carrying Dreams: Why Women Become Surrogates
Surrogacy is an idea as old as the biblical story of Sarah and Abraham in the book of Genesis. Sarah was infertile, so Abraham fathered children with the couple’s maid. Today, there are many more options for people who want to grow their families — and for the would-be surrogates who want to help.
Recommendations for Practices Utilizing Gestational Carriers
As part of their on-going mission to help member physicians provide the best in patient care, the joint Practice Committees of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) and the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART) are pleased to announce the publication of a new document- Recommendations for Practices Utilizing Gestational Carriers.
The Highs and Lows of Foreign Surrogacy
Adrienne Arieff went through three miscarriages before she learned she was unable to carry a child. Her search for a solution brought her to India, where she found a woman willing to carry her and her husband’s embryo in a controversial practice known as foreign gestational surrogacy.