Men Having Babies’ goal of Fertility Equality gets a boost from The New York Times! "A movement has formed around the idea that one’s ability to build a family should not be determined by wealth, sexuality, gender, or biology" declares the July 22, 2020 article by David Kaufman, titled “The Fight for Fertility Equality.”
In a recent ruling significant for American LGBTQ parents, a federal judge ordered the State Department to recognize the U.S. citizenship of children of same-sex couples born abroad. As reported in many media outlets, including Time and CNN, this ruling gives U.S. citizenship to a married Maryland gay couple’s daughter, who was born via surrogate in Canada.
A high-priority issue for MHB Advocacy is Fertility Equality, and in particular how insurance coverage of medical treatment is highly discriminatory against men building families through surrogacy. A recent Refinery 29 article calls attention to these hidden costs, including the way that the prevailing definition of "infertility" excludes LGBTQ prospective parents.
Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, hundreds of prospective surrogacy parents are unable to enter the US and take care of their genetic newborn children. And subsequently, hundreds more are prevented from returning to their home countries after the babies are born due to disruption caused by limited access to necessary official documents. Read below about how these parents can best cope with these challenges, and what Men Having Babies and other advocates are attempting to do in order to solve or at least ease these problems.
Paternal-Bond? Now that families are evolving with the help of third party assisted reproduction, egg donation and surrogacy many have wondered how the connection changes when the parents of a new baby is a gay male couple. Is there as strong a bond as there is with a birth mother?
The Intended Parent Spotlight is featuring Lukas and Peter, some of the recipients of the Stage II program to give a glimpse into who they are and what Stage II means to them. Peter and Lukas are a sweet couple that has encountered many emotional and financial setbacks and are now starting over on their journey to fatherhood. If you are getting started on your surrogacy journey and want to apply for GPAP support you can do that here. Or, if you’d like to support recipients in the program see below for a link to donate for this specific recipient or the general grant fund.
Donated services, grant funding support, and a dedicated team at Men Having Babies helping ensure you can make it through your surrogacy journey – the GPAP Stage II program sounds perfect! But is it a good fit for you? Along with the benefits of Stage II there are restrictions, extra considerations, and extra time involved in being in Stage II.
