A visiting US fertility expert is urging Australia to lift "repressive" restrictions on paying women to be surrogate mothers and egg donors.
Ahead of his Perth seminar tonight, Michael Feinman said Australia had world-class IVF programs but bans on paying women to donate eggs or be surrogates impinged on reproductive freedom when demand was growing.
"Unfortunately, Australia has stigmatised this process by labelling it 'commercial egg donation' and 'commercial surrogacy', which makes it sound like these are women of ill repute being paid to do something, when in reality they are highly educated, non-indigent women who are simply being compensated for their time and effort," Dr Feinman said. "While there are wonderful women here willing to be egg donors and surrogates without compensation, it is hard to find those people."
California-based Dr Feinman, in Sydney for the Families Through Surrogacy conference, said the trend towards delaying motherhood and more gay couples wanting to be parents were driving a growing need for egg donors and surrogate mothers.
Currently, there can be no financial gain to the surrogate mother, apart from expenses related to the pregnancy, and egg and sperm donors can be paid only a nominal amount to cover their costs.
Dr Feinman said it was a paradox to have laws affording women choice when terminating a pregnancy but restricting it for those who wanted a baby.
"It's like the Prohibition era in the US," he said. "I have been coming here for 20 years to take care of patients and if you change laws that will dry up for me, but I would welcome it because I think it is hard for Australians."
Dr Feinman said the strict laws led Australian couples to look for surrogates in places such as India, Nepal and Thailand, which could be problematic.
The US system was more expensive but included legal and psychological assessments and transparency.
Sources: http://news.yahoo.com/fertility-laws-lashed-unfair-213252645.html
Ahead of his Perth seminar tonight, Michael Feinman said Australia had world-class IVF programs but bans on paying women to donate eggs or be surrogates impinged on reproductive freedom when demand was growing.
"Unfortunately, Australia has stigmatised this process by labelling it 'commercial egg donation' and 'commercial surrogacy', which makes it sound like these are women of ill repute being paid to do something, when in reality they are highly educated, non-indigent women who are simply being compensated for their time and effort," Dr Feinman said. "While there are wonderful women here willing to be egg donors and surrogates without compensation, it is hard to find those people."
California-based Dr Feinman, in Sydney for the Families Through Surrogacy conference, said the trend towards delaying motherhood and more gay couples wanting to be parents were driving a growing need for egg donors and surrogate mothers.
Currently, there can be no financial gain to the surrogate mother, apart from expenses related to the pregnancy, and egg and sperm donors can be paid only a nominal amount to cover their costs.
Dr Feinman said it was a paradox to have laws affording women choice when terminating a pregnancy but restricting it for those who wanted a baby.
"It's like the Prohibition era in the US," he said. "I have been coming here for 20 years to take care of patients and if you change laws that will dry up for me, but I would welcome it because I think it is hard for Australians."
Dr Feinman said the strict laws led Australian couples to look for surrogates in places such as India, Nepal and Thailand, which could be problematic.
The US system was more expensive but included legal and psychological assessments and transparency.
Sources: http://news.yahoo.com/fertility-laws-lashed-unfair-213252645.html
Mumbai (Bombay) Time
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