HONG KONG – Protests? What Protests? While there was concern that Growing Families first Asian seminar in Hong Kong last Saturday (19 Oct) may be risky, given the ongoing protests, a well-chosen venue and the need for education available meant 25 intended parents turned out to engage with our four resolute sponsors from ORM Fertility […]

While many countries without access to surrogacy, many seeking to create biological family are venturing offshore. It has left some resorting to ‘unofficial’ traditional surrogacy, using the surrogates eggs and home insemination. Others have had a local friend offer to carry for them, and taken her overseas for the embryo transfer. For the majority, the […]

Three Australian jurisdictions – NSW, ACT & Queensland – have laws criminalising overseas surrogacy. However like the long outdated provisions criminalising abortion in NSW, these are laws which have never been prosecuted. In fact even when the rare case has been referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions, they have declined to take action. There […]

Each October scores of attendees come together in six different Australian capital cities – singles, couples, gay and heterosexual, some in their twenties, some in their fifties. They share a common goal – to create family with the help of yet unknown angels – donors and surrogates. It is these more complex journeys to parenthood […]

Inspiring StoriesTotally inspiring stories abound in the Australian surrogacy & donor communities about the journeys taken by intended parents and the surrogates who assist them. For me, there is huge joy in being able to help hopeful singles and couples to create family. Some of them had given up hope before attending an event with […]

While Hong Kong, Bangkok and Sydney are popular destinations for good quality IVF, increasing numbers need a surrogate and such services are harder to access. Yet a global audit of surrogacy agencies in 2018 showed China to be in the top three user nations of cross-border surrogacy globally. In the Hong Kong context, while legislation […]

In my capacity as an expert on cross-border surrogacy globally, I was invited to an International Forum In Cambridge, UK on 29-30 June this year. Experts were weighted towards lawyers and non-profits from the UK, US & Australia, with reasonable representation from Switzerland,  China, Hong Kong, South Africa & New Zealand and much smaller representation of […]

There are thousands with health or fertility issues or a lack of the necessary anatomy that might once have prevented them raising a genetically connected child. Not anymore. When Film-maker and activist Lance Black and Tom Daley announced they were going to be dads via surrogacy in the UK press, there had been mixed reactions. […]

Australia’s eighth annual surrogacy & donor conference for intended parents for the first time had a whole day devoted to domestic surrogacy. A record crowd of 180 intended parents attended from around the country, to network,  and hear from experts, panels of surrogates, parents, egg donors, and donor-conceived children. The success of the event would […]