Surrogacy forum first
Melbourne will host Australia’s first national conference on surrogacy next month.
The conference is run by Surrogacy Australia — a not-for-profit association set up in late 2010 — to help prospective parents get to grips with the issues around starting a family.
Surrogacy Australia spokesman Sam Everingham told the Star Observer the event aims to help people make informed decisions.
“There are so many hundreds of couples, particularly gay couples, in Australia using surrogacy to have children, but doing it without much in the way of objective information,” Everingham said.
“Most of us were going online and doing Google searches.
“A lot of us have done some hard yards accessing surrogacy overseas and realise some objective information and openness about the processes is needed in Australia.”
The two-day conference will feature local and international experts on surrogacy, including lawyers, doctors, counsellors, and surrogates.
Speakers will cover topics including trends, legal and ethical concerns, and processes in countries where commercial surrogacy is available.
Everingham, who has 10-month old twin girls via surrogacy with his partner Phil, said couples can lack an understanding of the difficulty of surrogacy arrangements, both emotionally and financially.
“It’s very common to go through three or four or five attempts with a surrogate to get pregnant,” Everingham said.
“It’s very common for surrogates to miscarry, in early or late stages of pregnancies, so couples need to be able to prepare to deal with the grief and loss.”
Currently it is illegal to enter a commercial surrogacy arrangement in Australia, and in some states it is an offence to advertise that you are looking for a surrogate.
In 2010 New South Wales legislated to make it a criminal act for NSW residents to enter into a commercial arrangement, either locally or overseas.
Everingham said this has had a big impact on prospective families.
“[Restricted] access means we really need to start talking publicly about this because there are starting to be lots of families exposed to criminal prosecution in NSW and it’s been clear from [a recent Surrogacy Australia] survey that the criminal laws aren’t stopping people from accessing surrogacy.”
The surrogacy conference is at Rydges Hotel, Melbourne, May 26 – 27.
