Surrogacy in USA

Surrogacy in USA is expensive and not affordable by everyone thus making it inaccessible. Just because one is infertile does not mean they will get affordable surrogacy. Too often the average American who is not a celebrity of sorts or a business tycoon or a huge net worth and just a working class hard working American goes to international places where the dollar travels farther in hopes to create a family through IVF/Surrogacy. Have the laws caught up with technology like IVF? Is it a crime to want to have an IVF child? Was it acceptable for gay fathers or single fathers to have IVF children in 2003? Do the laws also support it in parallel?

As soon as an American goes outside the country to have a child through IVF/Surrogacy to love and cherish for life, immigration laws get triggered because the child is born outside the USA. The immigration laws are different and the laws have to be respected. Just like it is not an excuse to steal, fraud a child by a working class American who cannot afford surrogacy in the USA, not having a “biological link” to a child born outside the US is no excuse to break the laws by claiming as theirs, one has to still follow the laws. Or is it OK to break the laws? USA is a very compassionate country who believes in respecting laws but for an immigrant, intersex, IVF family of 2000s, these words still ring hollow. If one can show compassion to an intersex person, why can’t we show compassion to an innocent, voiceless IVF child?

There are eight different ways parentage can be assigned in an IVF/surrogacy situation which varies from case to case while there is only one way to assign parentage in a natural born pregnancy. Are the (lack of ) laws trying to fit a square peg into a round hole? And if so, what are the effects of these lack of laws when it comes to immigration issues and is it adversely affecting innocent, voiceless IVF children who committed no crimes other than being born through IVF/surrogacy internationally. Is it a crime to be married to an intersex person and wanting to have children which would be either through adoption or IVF since the intersex condition is infertile? It is one thing to want to have a child at any cost but it is another to deny rights to an innocent, voiceless child. There are several families who may not report crimes because of compassion or love for their loved ones, that does not mean the crimes did not occur. Marriages fail all the time but it does not SPLIT innocent siblings where they can never meet, it does not place innocent brother and sister in legal limbo. Do humans [IVF children] who are in legal limbo have any protection of their legal rights and their legal identity?

If an American goes outside the US for international IVF/surrogacy and uses donor eggs and sperm but carries the IVF child to term herself, is she a legal mother who can sponsor her IVF children or not? As per prevailing immigration laws, she is not. Should she abandon the IVF child and return to her life in the US or should she live in exile outside the US and raise her IVF child lovingly as she had dreamed? And yes, the money for the IVF procedure was paid for by income in the US for which taxes were paid in the US. If the IVF child is abandoned due to lack of laws created from money sourced from after -tax US income, whose responsibility and accountability is it for the welfare and well-being of the IVF child?

If an American father goes outside the US for international IVF/surrogacy and uses egg donor and surrogate and his own biological sperm to have an IVF child BUT the IVF clinic swaps the sperm sample accidentally resulting in a DNA mismatch. As per prevailing immigration laws, the IVF child has no legal standing in the US. Again is this the fault of the IVF child, the intended US parents or the IVF clinic? Will it occur again? What will be the legal recourse? What if the IVF child is abandoned by the intended US parents as they may not want to move to another country to live, who is responsible and accountable for the welfare and well-being of the IVF child created by money sourced from after -tax US income?

If an immigrant father goes outside the US for international IVF/Surrogacy and uses egg donor and surrogate and his own biological sperm but a divorce is filed in the US by the infertile spouse with no mention of the ongoing IVF pregnancy outside the US. As per prevailing immigration laws, a biological immigrant father cannot bring his IVF child to the US without a “mother”. Are single fathers or gay fathers or spouse of intersex fathers allowed to love their children equally?  More importantly, what are the rights of the IVF child? The US court also hands out a divorce decree which is enforceable worldwide without taking into account the global scale of the case and welfare of the IVF child who technically and legally is born during the marriage. Whether an intersex marriage is a “same-sex” marriage or whether it is void or legal is a separate discussion. If the same child had been abandoned in the US, it would be a crime and there would be repurcusions on the abandoning parent. Are the rights of the  IVF child LESS? Is the basic, not equal, human dignity and respect for the IVF child less? By denying the rights of the child, are we dehumanizing them to justify the position?

We would have to ask the IVF child about the repurcusions of being in legal limbo. Like when she asks why she cannot get a passport or why is she land-locked? What was her crime? Or when she asks why she can only see her IVF brother on the computer and not in person who is also confined and land-locked and cannot travel outside the US. What is his crime? By denying a legal identity, the result is innocent voiceless IVF children living as slaves to secrecy and lies and being punished for crimes they did not commit even if the intent to enslave is not there.

The crimes here are relentless lying, secrecy and fraud by a person who happens to be intersex, infertile, immigrant and needs a child at any cost. There are several intersex or infertile people in this world but they do not hurt and abuse innocent children. People who abuse innocent children are criminals regardless of your race, skin color, gender, sexual orientation or otherwise. And if a criminal who happens to be intersex, infertile and an immigrant, they have a great story where they achieved all this in 2000s when it was illegal, question is can other intersex, immigrant, infertile people also do the same? Where is the greater good because the lack of laws still exist? Question is could they have achieved this great story without breaking the laws and without splitting innocent IVF brother and sister and placing them in legal limbo? Could they have achieved this in a time when equal rights for gays and IVF children and families exist?

It is hard enough to save up for IVF/surrogacy whether in the USA or anywhere in the world. It is hard enough to find a compassionate donor and a surrogate. It is hard enough to raise an IVF child while the other parent is recovering from their medical treatment with severe trauma and depression. It is hard enough to be frauded, lied, abused, and violently treated in forced silence but to have it repeated on innocent children, it has got to stop. To snatch the freedom from innocent children has got to stop. “Mr./Ms. USA, Tear Down These Walls” [of secrecy, lies and fraud]. We are remnants of an era when anti-gay, anti-IVF laws exist and for as long as the IVF children cannot meet, it is a ongoing reality for us and not something of the past. What we need is truth with compassion and it has to begin with innocent, voiceless children and equal rights for IVF children and families and intersex families.