News

We are pleased to announce the publication of Global Surrogacy Practices, co-authored by CGS Executive Director Marcy Darnovsky and CGS Fellow Diane Beeson (see more identifying information  below). The 54-page report is based on presentations and discussions at the International Forum on Intercountry Adoption and Global Surrogacy, a landmark conference that brought together nearly a hundred scholars, women’s health and human rights advocates and policymakers from 27 countries at the International Institute of Social Studies this past summer. 

The Forum took place in the wake of international headlines about disturbing cross-border surrogacy incidents, including one case in which an Australian couple abandoned their baby son, who has Down syndrome, with his Thai surrogate mother.

“The Forum provided an unprecedented opportunity for advocates and scholars working on intercountry adoption and on intercountry surrogacy to jointly consider the many concerns that have emerged in connection with these practices,” said CGS Executive Director and report co-author Marcy Darnovsky. 

“The conversations centered on ways to improve international standards around the evolving practices of cross-border adoption and surrogacy, in which children typically move from poorer to wealthier countries,” said Kristen Cheney, Forum organizer and Senior Lecturer in Children & Youth Studies at International Institute of Social Studies.

Global Surrogacy Practices is one of six reports resulting from the Forum. The others are an Executive Summary by Cheney, and reports on (1) Implementation of the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption and the Best Interests of the Child, (2) Intercountry Adoption, Countries of Origin, and Biological Families, (3) Intercountry Adoption Agencies and the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption and (4) Force, Fraud and Coercion. 

The Forum and resulting reports were partially developed to inform the ongoing work of the Hague Conference on Private International Law on its 1993 convention on intercountry adoption, and its consideration of the issues raised by intercountry surrogacy.

Brief accounts of the Forum have been published at The Drum, an online news site of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and on the blogs of the Center for Genetics and Society and of Our Bodies Ourselves. 

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Marcy Darnovsky, PhD, is Executive Director of the Center for Genetics and Society.

Diane Beeson, PhD, is a Center for Genetics and Society Fellow; Professor Emerita of Sociology, California State University, East Bay; and co-founder and Associate Director of the Alliance for Humane Biotechnology.

The Center for Genetics and Society (CGS) is a non-profit public affairs and policy advocacy organization working to encourage responsible uses and effective societal governance of human genetic and reproductive biotechnologies.

Contact:
Marcy Darnovsky
1-510-625-0819 x305
mdarnovsky[AT]geneticsandsociety[DOT]org