The fallout continues from yesterday’s article in The Age. The authors of a blog I regularly visit, Amani and Bob’s Indian Surrogacy (who chronicled their own surrogacy journey in India), weigh in:

Yet another article about the horrors of surrogacy overseas. The doctors who make people parents read these articles and get so upset. I am shocked the president of Surrogacy Australia recounts two horror stories to push publicity for the Surrogacy Australia conference. Isn’t Surrogacy Australia a non-profit support group for families pursuing surrogacy overseas (as well as altruistic in Australia, if you can find a surrogate, and a known egg donor and you have $80K). Support my a**

Surrogacy Australia has lost the plot, they are not supporting people who want to do surrogacy overseas, just recounting the negative in a system that is flawed but overwhelmingly positive. This kind of thing can happen and does happen in other countries through natural conception, IVF, surrogacy or not. The more of these stories that appear in the Australian media, the closer we are to losing this option thanks to the continuing negative press.

My parents read these sorts of articles and then have to field a barrage of questions from their elderly friends about their exploitive daughter who ripped off a poor Indian woman to have their grand-children.

What about the two babies in the pic below? Are they not a positive story with a happy ending? What about the 550 babies born healthy and well through SCI – of which 200 are Australians? What about the many hundreds of positive stories of family creation from other clinics?

Commercial surrogacy in Australia? Yeah right, we’ll see that allowed well after gay marriage is legalised – next century.

I will be cancelling my membership with Surrogacy Australia. It’s agenda is ridiculous – trying to set up commercial surrogacy in Australia, and shut off the route to surrogacy overseas for those that come after those of us who have succeeded, and potentially create a group of disenfranchised children who were born at a time when surrogacy os was allowed, but was then banned because it was all too horrible.

How do I explain that to my son and daughter?

Some of the comments to Meg’s article were quite illuminating as well, including this one highlighting a glaring inconsistency in the original article and alleging a conflict of interest:

And why doesn’t Mr Everingham mention in the article that he is a client of Surrogacy Centre India, your employer as well. He goes to great links to make damning comments about the surrogacy process and the poor ethics but doesn’t name his clinic? What???? This is scandalous. And Dr Shivani is the guest speaker at his Surrogacy Australia conference. What a bunch of flakin’ vultures, if this isn’t a conflict of interest I don’t know what is. Despicable!