By KAHLA PRESTON
If an Australian woman is using IVF in order to get pregnant, she can access financial assistance from Medicare.
But if she is undertaking IVF as part of a legal surrogacy arrangement, she is not entitled to a medical rebate for her cycles – even if she is medically incapable of carrying a child herself.
Once her child is born through IVF surrogacy, she is eligible for paid parental leave and the baby bonus because the Government recognises her as that child’s mother. But she gets no help with the financially crippling costs of undertaking IVF in the first place.
When Jillian Spears approached her doctor about undertaking IVF surrogacy, using her own eggs rather than donor eggs, she was outraged to learn of this inconsistency. Now, she’s fighting to bring the inequality to the Government’s attention.
Jillian, 40, recently began her first IVF cycle in the hope of having a child with Alex, her partner of almost three years. In 2007 she had a hysterectomy due to an ongoing case of endometriosis, and while she was able to keep her ovaries only one appears to be producing quality eggs.
Having decided against adoption and fostering, the Brisbane couple began researching another option: surrogacy.
Seeking a surrogate abroad is illegal under QLD’s current laws, so they decided to keep the procedure local.
Fortunately, Jillian’s sister – already a mother of four – generously volunteered as surrogate mother.
“Ultimately it’s very, very hard to find a surrogate. So we’re blessed,” Jillian explains, adding that publicly advertising for a surrogate mother is prohibited under local law.
Top Comments
Everyone should have a right to have a child. The surrogacy industry must have organized in a proper way. Surrogate mothers should suffer or feel any inconveniences. And of course they must have medical control and special medical indications
that let a woman to be a surrogate mother. When I suffered infertility the unique option for me was surrogacy. I did surrogacy in Ukraine, and I did not regret at all. We had a wonderful surrogate mother. Our surrogate mother was under medical control and lived in good conditions. She also signed a contract with us and was aware about everything. I am sure it is better not
to take a risk and do surrogacy in Ukraine or maybe other country but not in Thailand or India, where surrogate mothers live in horrible conditions. I cannot imagine how people could go in India or Thailand to have a children. How could they trust future child to a dirty Indian woman with numerous diseases. I
know that people went there because of low prices. But rich people… I think there are enough variants even for low price. Surrogacy was the only chance for us to become happy parents. We studied all the information about the countries where such program is conducted, pricing and so on. As a result, we decided in favor of Georgia, it met us with a great comfort, beauty and hospitality. In the New Life clinic we found none defects. There we found high level of medical treatment, European service, and attentiveness of staff to patients, good doctors. Everything was perfect but there was no result... In a word, being disappointed in three clinics, we realized that we just cannot financially be able to buy more than one attempt. And we found Ukrainian BioTexCom Centre. The price pleasantly surprised us - we paid 30 thousand euros for the surrogacy program. But, it is important to note, this price included accommodation, meals, transfers, meeting
at the airport and all medical procedures. And not a penny more! We were amazed that after the first attempt our surrogate mother got pregnant! She's a nice woman who carefully and responsibly applied to the baby she carried for us. In addition, after delivery, clinic’s manager set a question with documents at rest. That is to say, everything was done completely legally and without
nerves, negative emotions and bribes. We left Ukraine at the end of the program with no problems and did all the paperwork for the child easily. Today we are happy parents!
This is really bad news for those who need to undertaking IVF as part of a legal surrogacy arrangement. We can agree to the terms if the lady opting for surrogacy is fit but still go for surrogacy programme but if she is no able to conceive naturally and not physically capable then i think it must have a medical arrangement.
Source: http://www.ramasofathospita...