surrogacy

Surrogacy - No, it is not Friday yet! But, I am taking a much needed holiday, so Friday updates are today.

The debate on a bill that would allow same sex couples to adopt children in New South Wales has started in Australia. There should be a vote of the Legislative Assembly sometime this week.

(repost from my personal blog www.tertia.org)

When I first started the egg donor and surrogacy program here in South Africa, I would get enquiries from gay couples and singles from overseas. Many of them would start their email with "I am not sure whether you deal with gay couples...." and the first few times I was all like "huh? What do you mean?" Of course I deal with gay couples, why wouldn't I? And then I realized how often gay couples were discriminated against. And what a tough time they had accessing the things we take for granted.

After her hopes of getting pregnant were crushed, Caroline Van Den Heever turned to surrogacy to keep alive her dream of starting a family
My house is full of noise and activity – shouting, laughter and colourful paintings pinned to the noticeboard. Not so long ago, it was deathly quiet and I hated it. That was before my husband Jan and I had our three amazing children, born through surrogacy and egg donation in a journey that took us across the world and to the limits of our emotions.

Surrogacy & LGBT Issues - Great article posted today written by the AFA's own Ken Mosesian. In fact, it was posted on David Mixner's site, Live from Hell's Kitchen. In fact, David Mixner was once named the most powerful gay man in America by Newsweek, and his credits are extraordinary, as his site shows. With Prop 8 weighing heavy on our minds these days, it is important to remember how the lack of laws are affecting the children of LBGT couples - more to come on that next week.

http://www.theafa.org/

http://www.davidmixner.com/

Having a child is the most natural thing in the world. In an ideal scenario, it’s a situation born of love, commitment and the desire to procreate. But what if the usual trappings of that romantic impulse to give life aren’t available to you?
To put it into context, The UK Adoption and Children Act 2002 gave same-sex couples the right to jointly adopt children, and in the same year the English Court of Appeal judged that a same-sex couple could be seen to be “living together as husband and wife”.

Nurture – South Africa’s largest Egg Donor program is the creation of two fabulous South Africans who have experienced the heartbreak of infertility first hand – Melany as an egg donor, and Tertia as an infertility patient who went through 9 IVFs to achieve her dream. Assisted by a fabulous group of women, the gals at Nurture make a formidable team who combine the best of heart and soul to provide truly excellent service.

Surrogacy attorney, author and radio host Theresa Erickson will be interviewing Fernando Akerman, M.D., associate medical director of the Fertility and IVF Center of Miami (www.miami-ivf.com) on Thursday, August 12 at 11 AM PST/2 PM EST on The Surrogacy Lawyer: Considering IVF and Third Party Family Building, Ms. Erickson’s new radio program on VoiceAmerica.

http://www.voiceamerica.com/voiceamerica/vshow.aspx?sid=1767