Paul Ryan’s relatively small family and Mitt Romney’s quite large one reveal the reproductive minefields for Republican candidates who presumably are expected to show obedience, in their personal lives, to the party’s extremist platform.
A well-known surrogacy attorney in California used her networks and well-financed practice to dupe families into paying over $100,000 for a child based on a fraudulent scenario. Basically, those looking to secure a child were told that a surrogacy arrangement had fallen apart—the intended parents backing out of the arrangement. This was false and a story constructed for fraud.
The question that we keep hearing now is this: “Does this point to the need for additional regulation of surrogacy?” Our feeling is no. Regulation does not necessarily promote good practice.
Two prominent reproductive law attorneys now await sentencing by a US district court after pleading guilty to charges connected with an elaborate surrogacy and baby-selling scheme. What measures will be taken by the fertility industry, policy makers, women’s health advocates and others to ensure the well-being of everyone involved with assisted reproduction practices?
Thai police recently announced that they had rescued 14 Vietnamese women, aged 19 to 26, from a criminal “baby breeding” ring.
Washington considers compensated surrogacy, SBA List and FRC demand House vote against keeping goverment running unless bill is anti-family planning, Sen. Murkowski supports Title X, Nebraska woman denied labor inducement, Idaho poised to ban abortion in state exchanges, and an “expose!” that isn’t really.
On her show, Oprah presented global surrogacy as a promising practice, spotlighting a US family that obtained their baby through medical tourism in India. But she left out the social complexities involved.
Two men can be listed on the birth certificates of their twins in Connecticut, Saletan looks at the Gosnell case, the “state of the unborn,” Rep. Smith’s new protected class of people, and Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) declares forced ultrasound bill to be an “emergency.”
While the celebrity couple is to be congratulated on this obviously joyous occasion, it leaves one to wonder when surrogacy will be truly regulated in the USA and abroad.
As global surrogacy grows largely unregulated, the effects of celebrity surrogacy arrangements may have deeply adverse consequences for poor women worldwide.
