‘25 degrees of separation’ Versus the ‘ease of doing it closer to home’: Motivations to Offshore Surrogacy Arrangements Amongst Australian Citizens

Abstract

At present, onshore commercial surrogacy is illegal in all Australian states and territories. By contrast, offshore commercial surrogacy is legal in all bar one territory and two states. As a result, significant numbers of Australian citizens undertake travel each year to enter into commercial surrogacy arrangements. The present paper reports on findings derived from interview data collected with 21 Australian citizens who had children through an offshore commercial surrogacy arrangement, either in India or the United States. Framed by an understanding of the vulnerability that arises from the demand of reproductive citizenship, the analysis focuses specifically on whether or not the participants would have entered into an onshore commercial surrogacy arrangement had this been legal at the time. The findings suggest that for some participants, undertaking surrogacy 'at a distance' was perceived to be safer and provided a degree of privacy, whilst for other participants surrogacy closer to home would have removed some of the more challenging aspects of offshore arrangements.With these findings in mind, the paper concludes by considering Millbank's (2014) suggestion that Australian states and territories should legalise onshore commercial surrogacy, and the barriers that may exist to the uptake of such potential legal change.

Italian gay fathers' experiences of transnational surrogacy and their relationship with the surrogate pre- and post-birth

“…Contrary to the difficulties expected in establishing an emotional connection with the developing surrogacy child due to the geographical distance (Ziv and Freund-Eschar, 2015), the fathers experienced anxiety and frustration only when they perceived the pregnancy as absent and hidden in their everyday life. As a result, they needed more time to feel pregnant and created a 'surrogacy storybook' to overcome the so-called 'tyranny of distance' (Riggs, 2015) from the foetus.…”

Experiences of surrogates and intended parents of surrogacy arrangements: a systematic review

“…Twenty-four studies reported on people participating in commercial gestational surrogacy; five studies reported on altruistic gestational arrangements; and 12 studies included a combination of arrangement types, although they were predominantly commercial and gestational. Six studies did not specify all surrogacy characteristics (Zandi et al, 2014;Riggs 2015;Riggs et al, 2015;Ivry and Teman, 2018;Lindheim et al, 2019;Golboni et al, 2020;Malmquist and Höjerström, 2020).…”

“…Intended parents pursued international surrogacy because arrangements were outlawed in their home country (Carone et al, 2017a), access was restricted to heterosexual couples (Lustenberger, 2017), they were unable to find an altruistic surrogate (Everingham et al, 2014;Jadva et al, 2018), the agreement was unenforceable (Everingham et al, 2014;Jadva et al, 2018) and because international arrangements provided a degree of privacy (Riggs, 2015). Factors that were important to intended parents when deciding which country to pursue surrogacy in included the ability to develop a relationship with the surrogate (Carone et al, 2017a;Jadva et al, 2018) and low costs (Lustenberger, 2016;Jadva et al, 2018).…”

Procreative consciousness in a global market: gay men's paths to surrogacy in the USA

“…Following the rise in reproduction by lesbian women, as well as biomedicalization of lesbian family-making practices (Mamo, 2007, Nordqvist, 2012), the last decade has brought a steady increase in cases of intentional gay father families through surrogacy, both in the USA (Gamson, 2015, Goodfellow, 2015, Lewin, 2009), and in other jurisdictions whose citizens travel abroad for surrogacy (see, e.g., Carone et al, 2016 for Italy; Courduriès, 2016 for France; Gamble, 2016 and Golombok, 2015 for the UK; Murphy, 2015 and Riggs, 2015 for Australia; Nebeling Petersen, 2018 for Denmark; Smietana, 2017b for Spain). Gay fathers may constitute well under 50% of all intended parents through surrogacy alongside a majority of heterosexual parents (e.g.…”