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As demand for surrogacy soars, more countries are trying to ban it

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Many feminists and religious leaders regard it as exploitation

NATALIE SMITH was born without a uterus. But her ovaries work normally, which means that, with the help of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and a “gestational surrogate”—a woman willing to carry a baby for someone else—she and her husband were able to have children genetically related to both of them. In 2009 they became parents to twins, carried by Jenny French, who has since had babies for two other couples. Ms French was motivated by her own experience of infertility between her first and second children. The experience created a lasting link: she has stayed friends with the family she helped to complete and is godmother to the twins.

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Ms Smith was lucky to live in Britain, one of just a handful of jurisdictions where surrogacy is governed by clear (though restrictive) rules. In some other European countries, it is illegal. American laws vary from state to state, all the way from complete bans to granting parental rights to the intended parents, rather than the woman who carries the baby. In most of the rest of the world, until recently, surrogacy has been unregulated, leaving all concerned in a legal vacuum. The variation in laws—and costs—has created a global surrogacy trade rife with complications and pitfalls.

Now many of the developing countries whose low costs and lack of legal restrictions had made them popular surrogacy destinations are trying to end the business. Thailand barred foreigners from paying for surrogacy in 2015. Nepal banned it, even when unpaid, later that year. India, where surrogacy had been a booming business for more than a decade, suddenly barred foreign clients a few months later. A bill before its parliament would allow only unpaid surrogacy by close relatives.

These new laws were intended to protect surrogates from exploitation. These poor and often illiterate women could earn an amount equivalent to ten years’ wages for a single pregnancy. Governments feared that some did not understand the contracts they were signing. Unscrupulous clinics often placed multiple embryos in their wombs with the aim of making pregnancy more likely, without making the risks clear. Some overused Caesarean sections and neglected post-partum care.

The Economist, May 11, 2017

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Source: Time for Families

7th Circuit Victory for Lesbian Worker Shows Why Judges Matter

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Trump hopes to stack the courts with “originalists” who think granting LGBT rights is ludicrous.

On April 4, 2017, in a case called Hively v. Ivy Tech Community College, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits workplace discrimination based on sex, protects lesbian, gay, and bisexual employees. Reversing several of its earlier decisions, the Seventh Circuit became the first federal appeals court to conclude that “discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is a form of sex discrimination.”

This landmark ruling advances one of the most important goals of the LGBT movement — obtaining nationwide anti-discrimination protection for LGBT workers. Along with the confirmation of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court, this ruling underscores just why the courts are so important to the future of our movement.    Discrimination
 
For years, LGBT advocates and allies have worked hard to pass state and federal anti-discrimination laws. In 2015, Sen. Jeff Merkley and Rep. David Cicilline introduced the Equality Act, a comprehensive federal bill that would prohibit sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations. But faced with conservative majorities in many state legislatures and the U.S. Congress, our progress on the legislative front has been grueling and slow. In contrast, the federal courts have become increasingly receptive to claims by LGBT people brought under federal sex discrimination laws. 

In addition to the Seventh Circuit’s ruling in favor of a lesbian plaintiff in Hively, a number of federal courts of appeals have recognized that Title VII and Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in public schools, protect transgender people. Across the country, federal courts are hearing these sex discrimination claims and, increasingly, ruling in favor of LGBT plaintiffs. In these cases, one of the most common themes is that courts must apply our nation’s laws to reflect society’s growing recognition that LGBT people deserve equal dignity and respect and must be included on equal terms. In Hively, Judge Richard Posner, a prominent and highly respected conservative jurist, wrote a separate opinion to point out the importance of judges taking these societal changes into account: “We understand the words of Title VII differently not because we’re smarter than the statute’s framers and ratifiers but because we live in a different era, a different culture.”
 
In stark contrast, President Trump is seeking to pack the Supreme Court and the federal bench more broadly with judges who, in the chilling words of our newest Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, believe that courts should look “backward, not forward.” The Seventh Circuit decision in Hively illustrates the importance of having judges who, unlike strict originalists like Gorsuch, understand the need to take societal change into account. Of the 11 judges who heard the case, eight ruled in favor of the plaintiff, Kimberly Hively, who was denied full-time employment and eventually lost her job after she gave her girlfriend a goodbye kiss in the car on her way into work. Judge Diane Sykes, who authored an opinion on behalf of the three dissenting judges, took the majority to task for departing from what she considered to be the “original” meaning of Title VII. Citing former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the most conservative and anti-LGBT judges in our nation’s history, Judge Diane Sykes wrote: “Is it even remotely plausible that in 1964, when Title VII was adopted, a reasonable person competent in the English language would have understood that a law banning employment discrimination ‘because of sex’ also banned discrimination because of sexual orientation? The answer is no, of course not.” 

April 10, 2017 – Advocate.com, by Shannon Minter and Chris Stoll

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Will Your 529 Plan Hurt Your Child’s Eligibility For Financial Aid?

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 The thought of paying for a child’s college education can send convulsions through any parent. Today is 529 Day, and these plans are a popular college saving solution, but the uncertainty of how the account will impact financial aid makes some hesitant to open a 529 plan.

You can only imagine my excitement (sad I know) when I saw a Facebook post from my high school friend and Jazzercise extraordinaire, Teresa.  She was touting the benefits of having a 529 plan from firsthand experience and even correcting a misunderstanding about 529 plans’ impact on financial aid.

In her post, Teresa wrote about the importance of starting a 529 plan for your child. Her son, a brilliant future engineer, received partial financial aid and scholarships to college. The remaining amount of college expenses he owes will be fully covered by her 529 plan, making her son one of the few millennials that will leave college debt-free.

Most of the comments to her post were advocates of the 529 plan, but one of the posts initially was “anti-529 plan” due to concerns about the effect on financial aid, until Teresa, the 529 plan guru, came to the rescue and explained the effect of 529 plans on financial aid in a way that would make any financial planner proud. As I read her post and the comments, I realized that not everyone is aware that there are several factors that go into how a 529 plan affects a dependent child’s financial aid package. In general, how 529 plans are counted towards your child’s financial aid package depends on the financial aid form used, who owns the 529 plan, and your child’s college’s formula on how 529 plans are counted towards financial aid packages.529 plan

Financial Aid Form Used

My guidance to any parent with a child attending college is to ask your child’s college  what financial aid forms are required. The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form is the most used financial aid form, especially for college students seeking federal need-based financial aid. How a 529 plan is reported for dependent students and counted for financial aid typically depends on the owner of the 529 plan.

529 Plan Owner’s Effect on Aid

529 plan owned by a custodial parent. In general, on the FAFSA form, a 529 plan owed by the custodial parent(s) typically counts as an investment and it may reduce need-based aid by a maximum of 5.64% of the asset’s value. Teresa knew that depending on your income, your 529 plan may have no impact on your child’s financial aid package. Withdrawals from 529 plans used for qualified higher education expenses owned by the custodial parent are not typically reported as parent or student income. Since only a small amount of the 529 plan is counted and none of the withdrawals, custodial parent-owned 529 plans generally have the least impact on your child’s financial aid package. Typically, parents are one of the owners whose 529 plans get the most favorable treatments, so ideally the custodial parent should own the 529 plan.

529 plan owned by the non-custodial, non-married parent, living separately. 529 plans owned by the non-custodial parent are not generally listed on the FAFSA form. Once the funds are withdrawn, those funds are typically considered to be student cash support (untaxed income) on the FAFSA form. Up to 50% of the value of the student’s income (after allowances) could be part of the Expected Family Contribution (EFC, page 10). Consider funding a 529 plan owned by the custodial parent or (if your 529 plan allows) transfer ownership to your college-bound child since a 529 plan owned by a child is considered a parental asset and gets the more favorable treatment on financial aid forms.

529 plans owned by relatives and friends (grandparents, aunts, etc). 529 plans owned by anyone who is not a custodial parent follow similar rules. The 529 is not counted as an asset on the FAFSA form, but like non-custodial parents, withdrawals from the 529 plan are counted as student non-taxable income and up to 50% of the value of the withdrawal could impact financial aid. If you are a relative or family friend with a 529 plan for a child, consider waiting until the child files their last FAFSA form to withdraw the funds from the 529 plan.

by Tania Brown, Forbes.com, May 29, 2016

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Source: Time for Families

Same-Sex Parenting Studies: Research Proves Sexual Orientation Of Parents Doesn’t Matter

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More studies proves that it doesn’t matter at all whether or not kids have same-sex parents.

Rachel Farr, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky, conducted the study, which was recently published in the Developmental Psychology journal.studies

Farr studied 100 families who adopted children at infancy. Half the parents were same-sex and the other half were opposite sex. She concluded: “Rather than family structure, available research on early child development indicates that family processes matter more to child outcomes.”

A child’s behaviour is more influenced by: parenting stress, parenting approaches and couple relationship adjustment.

She writes: “Regardless of parental sexual orientation, children (in the study) had fewer behaviour problems over time when their adoptive parents indicated experiencing less parenting stress. Higher family functioning when children were school-age was predicted by lower parenting stress and fewer child behaviour problems when children were preschool-age.”

by Kristy Woudstra, Huffington Post Canada – January 5, 2017

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No One Is Safe From the Gender Binary—Even Gay Families

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Guess what I got for Christmas from my kids?  A T-shirt that reads “The Daddy of all Daddies.” This was sweet, and I’m glad to win any competition, no matter how imaginary. But it was also weird in a way. If I’m the “Daddy of all Daddies,” where does that leave their other father?

The easy answer, and likely the one that animated my daughters’ purchase, is that I’m “Daddy” and David is “Papa.” (How we arrived at who’d have which title is a matter for another column.) But there’s a more complex one, too, which I’m guessing was in the back of their minds: I’m the dad, and David is the mom.

I don’t even have to imagine this as their thinking, really, because one of the kids said as much out loud a few weeks ago. David had just given her medication to help her deal with a cold, and, quite abruptly, she announced that he was “more like the mom” and I was “the dad.” Wait, what? How can our kids (of all people!) be hypnotized by the rigid gender dichotomy that our family undermines by our very existence?2nd parent adoption, second parent adoption, second parent adoptions, second parent adoption new york

It’s not even as though we follow roles that break down in quite the way of “traditional” mom/dad couples. My job’s hours are pretty flexible, so I have lots of time to spend with the family. I do my share of the laundry and generally clean up after dinner. David does the cooking. And when it comes to caring for them when they’re sick—which, after all, triggered the mom/dad comment—it’s a pretty even deal. In fact, I had to interrupt writing this column to mop up some vomit.

I admit the home workload isn’t strictly a 50/50 proposition. David’s design business is part-time at this point, and he does more around the house than I do. But our roles are flexible and nongendered enough that calling us Mom and Dad is just weird.

It’s also true that our neighborhood is very gender-progressive. Our next door neighbors both work full-time, but the dad’s home a lot more, does more than half the cooking, and is forever busy around the house. On the next block is a dad who mainly works from home while mom goes off to her full-time engineering job. Another mom is a high-level nurse practitioner whose husband is an ice sculptor. And so on. In sum, there is no shortage of gender-role busting all around us. Why isn’t all that enough to steer our kids away from such reductive ways of thinking?

Because even those important, living examples of role flexibility are still overwhelmed by the morass of gender traditionalism swirling around them.

Let’s go back to 2007, when the kids were just 2 years old. We’d just completed the adoption process and wanted to have their Social Security cards re-issued with their new last names and with David and me listed as their legal parents. What ensued, though, was homophobic hilarity of both the internal and external types. The Social Security forms had spaces for two parents: “mother” and “father.” The nice-enough guy who processed the form advised that there had been a few other same-sex couples in this situation, and the solution was simply to choose one parent to do an on-the-spot, limited-time gender change. In other words, he was asking me to lie to the government by designating one of us as “mother” although the application itself was the bigger liar. Then he said: “And since you’re the one standing here, you get to be the father.” I muttered something now lost to the ages and did as he’d suggested.

Not 30 seconds later, of course, I had second thoughts: Why was he making anysuggestion besides “fill in whichever blank you wanted.” And why did I accede to this absurdity rather than doing the only respectable queer thing—signing myself in as “mother,” and then turning on my heel and striding imperiously away, perhaps while quoting Mommie Dearest?

I understand that the forms have been changed since 2007, but the essentializing assumptions that underlay them are much tougher to drive out of our collective mental beehive. Just this past weekend, I heard a trailer for some NPR show featuring a lesbian comedian who declared, to forced laughter, that having two sons was the ultimate joke on her and her wife. I’m sure that if I’d searched out the actual show from which this inanity was plucked, I’d have heard the requisite disclaimers (“Oh, our children are our lives … ”), but I’d already had enough. I thought we LGBTQ parents were supposed to be knocking down these pegs rather than mining them for cheap laughs. Yeah, there’s this “lesbians hate men” trope, but really? And the “joke” feeds into intractable stereotypes about how boys need dads, and girls need moms—even though the comedian was probably trying to make a different point.

Before I work myself into hysterics, though, it’s worth acknowledging the more benign take on all this. Maybe my daughter was just expressing, in the terms available to her, that David’s more likely to express his feminine side, or is more comfortable doing so. But I have trouble with that explanation when gender division is made normative from birth. Retail establishments still divide clothing and toys by gender, and the advertising that parades in front of kids’ eyes almost invariably features moms doing mom things, and dads doing dad things. That I don’t even have to tell you what they’re doing makes the point well enough. Our daughters have managed to develop their own gender styles despite all this hounding, but as they reach adolescence, that’s only going to get harder to maintain. The “Papa is the mom” comment could be an early sign of what’s to come despite our tiresome reminders otherwise.

By John Culhane – slate.com, January 24, 2017

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Thanks, Obama: A Gay Dad’s Love Letter To POTUS

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“Under your stewardship, the US has become an LGBT city upon a hill.”

Dear Mr. President,

Sweeping rhetoric aside, it wasn’t love at first sight. As a social studies teacher, I was delighted by the possibilities of hope and change, but I found something a little opportunistic about a relatively young politician cutting the political line and surrounding himself with Kennedys. I was skeptical to say the least.

But you were persistent. Your intellect, humor and charm warmed me, and you clearly had an LGBT game plan, one that I recognized long before your “evolution” happened publicly. In June 2009, you issued a directive on same-sex domestic partner benefits and opened the door for the State Department to extend a full range of benefits to same-sex domestic partners of members of the Foreign Service. In October of that same year, you signed the long-stalled Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law. In December, 2010, backed by studies conducted by the Pentagon, you showed a willingness to spend significant political capital by repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” I admired your long game ― methodically chipping away at the wall of homophobic policies ― and found you to be the savviest of quarterbacks. I was smitten.same-sex married couples

Your administration sought input from national LGBT non-profits like Treatment Action Group and Family Equality Council, organizations on whose Boards of Directors I serve, to ensure as part of the Affordable Care Act that insurers could no longer turn someone away just because he or she is lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. Obamacare also made it easier for people living with HIV and AIDS to obtain private health insurance and Medicaid. Most notably, you developed and released the first comprehensive National HIV/AIDS Strategy for the United States. Your administration changed passport and student loan application forms to become more gender inclusive. Next time I fill out my children’s governmental forms, I will not be forced to complete a box labeled “mother” like I did last time. Now, families like my own are allowed to re-enter the country as the unit that we are. These gestures may have gone unnoticed by the general public, but not by those of us who for decades have felt the simple desire to be treated like everybody else.

For Easter in 2011, my partner and I took our twins to the White House Easter Egg Roll. As a formerly closeted man who fearfully came of age during the Reagan years, I had a near out-of-body experience watching my two-year old children frolic carefree on the lawn of the White House and in the shadows of history. I felt a sense of belonging I had never before imagined, and I left the South Lawn with renewed optimism in the direction of our country. At that moment I felt the need to become active in your campaign for reelection, something I hadn’t considered since college. So I made nightly phone calls to swing states, talking to prospective voters about how the Obama administration had quite simply changed my life. I will never forget the voter from Scranton, Pennsylvania who told me she “couldn’t stand having that nigger in the White House.” I remember marveling at how the election of a black man to the highest office in the land had not moved us into a post-racial world. Neither of our fights is yet won.

I brought my twins to D.C. to witness your second inauguration in 2013; they turned four that very day. While they innocently thought that everyone had gathered at the Capitol for their birthday, our family did receive a present on that bitter cold morning just the same. I was floored by your mention of Stonewall in the same breath as Seneca Falls and Selma – incredulously asking everyone around me “Did he really just say that?” Yes, the President of the United States just gave legitimacy to my struggle as a gay man, and you’re damn right I shed a tear or two in appreciation. Our family returned to D.C. later that winter to be part of a rally at the Supreme Court when the Windsor case was being heard. This was more of a pilgrimage than a road trip. When I was a young man, I couldn’t fathom being comfortable enough with my sexuality to bring a boyfriend home, let alone think about marriage, the most ‘normal’ of American institutions. Now I was a grown partnered man, bringing his kids to the site where history was being made. Your administration’s decision to no longer defend the indefensible DOMA, paved the way for the court’s eventual decision. I just had to be in the room where it happened.

In December 2014, I was honored and surprised to receive an invitation to a White House Christmas reception. Even my mother, who is not a supporter, couldn’t contain her pride. Walking the halls of the White House with a glass of champagne that sparkled in equal measure with my awe, this teacher truly felt that he was in The People’s House. Unable to resist the urge to finally meet you in person, I strategically positioned myself along the receiving line. I cannot imagine that you remember having met me, but frequently find myself secretly hoping that you do. I gave it my best unscripted shot: “I know a lot of people blow smoke up your ass because you’re the President, but I want to keep it real. I’m a gay dad, and my husband is probably behind me snapping photos right now. Our twins were born the day after your inauguration. Our lives have benefitted immeasurably because of your leadership. Anytime the recalcitrant Congress tries to thwart you, I want you to think of me and my family. You are making a difference.” You put your hand on my shoulder and said, “Thank you. That means the world to me.” But really, you had me at hello.

The last two years of your administration have, for the LGBT community, demonstrated a stronger sprint to the finish line than American Pharaoh at Belmont. On the day the Supreme Court issued its decision in Obergerfell v. Hodges (2015), you directed that the White House be illuminated in the colors of the gay flag, a gesture so breathtakingly unbelievable that it left me scouring the Internet to determine its veracity. The photo went viral, sending a message of surreal optimism to gays in all corners of the world. But you didn’t stop with this rainbow exclamation point. This past year, you opened up the military to transgender soldiers and took aim at those who would deny transgendered students access to the bathroom they deem appropriate in public schools. One day transgender intransigence will be in the trash heap of history – next to segregated lunch counters – and we will look back to your actions as the tipping point. As a final salvo, this past June you directed the National Park Service to dedicate Stonewall, the site of riots and arrests of innocent gay people which is widely seen as the dawn of the modern gay rights movement, as the first National Monument focused on LGBT history. We’ve taken our children several times since, each time with a cone from Big Gay Ice Cream Shop, to reflect on just how sweet progress tastes.

by Frank Bua – huffingtonpost.com, January 8, 2017

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Fearing the Trump era, same-sex couples rush to adopt their own kids

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As soon as the presidential election results were in, Megan Moffat Sather of West Seattle got a call from her lawyer: It was time to adopt her 6-month-old daughter, Winslow.

“I have to go through something that I think is actually humiliating,” Moffat Sather said. “I have to pay my own money for someone to come into my home and to judge whether or not I should be able to be the parent to my own child.”gay parents adoption

Jen Moffat Sather is Winslow’s biological mom. Megan Moffat Sather is not. They’ve been together 14 years and also have a son together.

But in the current political climate, Megan is afraid her rights as a parent might not be recognized if the family travels outside of Washington state.

One fear she expresses is that at some point in the future a hospital in some other state, for example, might exclude her from decisions involving her family. “It’s wrong, it’s absolutely wrong,” she said.

So Megan has embarked on a process called second parent adoption.

 

By David Hyde, KUOW.org, January 12, 2017

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Do kids think of sperm donors as family?

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How do we define a parent — or a family?

Bioethicist Veerle Provoost explores these questions in the context of non-traditional families, ones brought together by adoption, second marriages, surrogate mothers and sperm donations. In this talk, she shares stories of how parents and children create their own family narratives.veerle-p

Click here to watch the Ted Talk.

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Gay men increasingly turn to surrogates to have babies

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more gay couples are embracing surrogacy

Cliff Hastings and Ron Hoppe-Hastings sailed through the vows at their 2011 civil union ceremony, until they got to the part about entering into fatherhood together.

“We cried our eyes out,” says Hastings, 41. The topic of parenthood was emotional for them, he says — they both really wanted kids — but there was more to it than that: “We didn’t know what the options were. We both thought that having kids might be more of a pipe dream than an actual reality.”

Today, Hastings and Hoppe-Hastings are the proud fathers of 11-month-old twin girls conceived with the aid of an egg donor and grown in the womb of a surrogate, a woman who carries a baby (or babies) for other people, often heterosexuals with fertility issues.surrogacy

No one tracks how many gay men are having babies via surrogates, but observers say that the numbers are growing.

“I’ve definitely seen an increase,” says Dr. Eve Feinberg, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.

“As gay marriage has become legal, I think it’s become much more socially acceptable for men to pursue fertility treatments and have babies.”

Five years ago, surrogacy for gay men was “unheard of” at Fertility Centers of Illinois, Feinberg says. When she left the practice in July, 20 to 30 male couples were pursuing surrogacy in a given year.

An informal survey of fertility clinics in more than 10 cities conducted for the Tribune by FertilityIQ (www.fertilityiq.com), a website where patients evaluate their fertility doctors, found that 10 to 20 percent of donor eggs are going to gay men having babies via surrogacy, and in a lot of places the numbers are up 50 percent from five years ago.

Cost remains a big barrier, according to FertilityIQ co-founder Jake Anderson, with costs for gay men, who typically need a surrogate and an egg donor, coming in at about $100,000 to $200,000. But with employers increasingly paying for fertility treatments for heterosexual couples, and lesbians pushing for insurance benefits that include them, gay men will likely gain more insurance coverage as well, according to Anderson.

“We think this is going to be pretty darn commonplace,” he says. “Maybe not tomorrow, but five years from now, 10 years from now, everybody will know a few people who have built their families through gay surrogacy.”

Hastings and Hoppe-Hastings, who are married and live outside Champaign, Ill., thought that they would adopt their children. But then, about three years ago, one of Hastings’ high school classmates posted pictures on Facebook. She was pregnant, and when Hastings congratulated her, she explained that she was a surrogate, carrying a baby for a heterosexual couple. The friend got Hastings in touch with the agency that had arranged her surrogacy, Family Source Consultants in Chicago.

by Nara Schoenburg, Chicagotribune.com, November 23, 2016

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Source: Time for Families