Lauri and Kathryn are
in Australia in support of Families Through Surrogacy, who is hosting a multi
city seminar series on what’s new in surrogacy.
Here are some of Lauri's notes:
Our first seminar session was in Sydney – very well
attended – probably about 40 people.
Kathryn and I spoke about “Costs of Surrogacy in the US” – why it’s so
expensive and how to keep costs down.
And “what makes a good surrogacy match” --- how an agency should match
IPs with surrogates, what’s important, etc.
Lots of interest from the audience and looks like SSA will be
helping lots of Aussies to do surrogacy in the States. We loved talking with the Aussies, what a
great group of people!
Surrogacy is legal in Australia but it is uncompensated, and
very difficult to make happen.
Sam Everingham from Families Through gave a presentation that
reviewed the current status of all international countries for surrogacy; it
was a wonderful presentation with new facts and information, click here for the pdf, FTS surrogacy presentation.
The take away from the presentation is the US is quickly
becoming the only really legal place to do surrogacy; there are some other
options, like Cambodia, Greece and Nigeria.
But all of these countries have serious downsides. Sadly Mexico is pretty much closed, ending
its surrogacy program. Thailand is closed, India is now closed and Nepal is “sort
of open” but is very questionable.
Next, we did conference in Gold Coast, which had a much
smaller turnout, but we spoke with a few people who made strong impacts on
us. One mother in law, probably in her
60s, was a surrogate for her daughter in law – how amazing!! – but she lost the
baby at 23 weeks. So tragic and heart wrenching.
We had a short break in Cairns, where we went diving at the Great
Barrier Reef, it so wonderful!
Next stop for the seminar is in Adelaide, then on to Perth, and
finally in Melbourne.
We’ll keep you posted of all the information that comes out
the seminar!
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