1) Medicare needs to be given to women undergoing IVF for surrogacy to make it easier for people to conduct surrogacy in Australia where we have superior medical facilities and surrogacy is conducted among economic equals. Read this blog to see real life surrogacy stories. We are everyday women who deserve the chance of a family just like anyone else.
2) People are heading overseas to Thailand etc, in part, because Australia makes it so hard. It’s complicated, and there are not enough protections for Intended Parents or Surrogates. There needs to be clearer regulation to ensure that a surrogate and a surrogacy patient understand what their rights and responsibilities are. Banning surrogacy is not the solution – it will only drive it underground.
3) Altruistic surrogacy is legal in Australia, after careful screening with psychological reports & in many cases police checks. Parents need to be deemed suitable, as do surrogates. A judge awards the parenting order after the baby is born, in a court.
4) We have a community of women undergoing surrogacy who all have legitimate medical reasons for needing surrogacy. We are cancer survivors, or born without a functional uterus, or have some other serious medical condition that means we rely on the goodwill of another woman to have a baby. Our community supports women through cancer – we have giant pink ribbon days and our sportsmen wear pink – then what? We survive, thrive and want to have a family, and our community stops supporting them – there is no Medicare available when you want to have a family. This is clearly unfair and needs to change.
5) In Australia, discussions about genetic abnormalities and the risks in birth are completed with a psychologist and written in a contract. The baby Gammy story would not happen because we ensure that there is support for all involved. This is why we need to make surrogacy easier in Australia. A good start is giving women Medicare for IVF procedures for surrogacy.
medicareless 
I love the way that it is mentioned
“after careful screening with psychological reports & in many cases police checks. Parents need to be deemed suitable”
the way I read this is that the people who are intending on spending the money, time and effort to go through surrogacy have to be screened to see if they are fit to be parents – including police checks. However, any Joe Bloggs can go and get pregnant and have kids without screening…..
Hi there,
Thank you for taking the time to comment Anthony. While it is true that any Joe Bloggs can have a baby without a Police check – and certainly many criminals are parents – you have to see from the perspective of society as a whole. Joe Bloggs does not need another woman to grow his baby – he just gets his wife or girlfriend pregnant.
I agree that the police checks could be considered invasive. Perhaps even that ‘everyone deserves a chance of a family’ – but viewed in the context of child molestors using surrogates to grow a baby for them – I care more for the protection of the child over protection of the IPs.
Additionally, the checks are much less about suitability of people becoming parents and much more about their candidature or suitability to be good partners in a surrogacy arrangement as well as being parents. Altruistic surrogacy requires a great deal of commitment, it requires support, financial dedication, emotional stoicism, and a healthy relationship. The psychologists’ reports aim to uncover any mental illness that could potentially become an issue on what is sometimes a very hard and long journey. Again, this is in the best interest of all involved. Personally, I found this very useful in having ethical and moral conversations. The counseling was a great conversation starter.
Also – the police checks allow protection for both IPs and Surrogates. The surrogate gains the knowledge that the IPs are who they say they are (they’ve not been convicted of say, Fraud – which could be a concern for a surrogate) and the IPs are in the same boat, knowing that their surrogate is not a potential blackmailer. Having a criminal record does not mean you cannot enter into a surrogacy arrangement, either. It just provides the surrogate and the IPs with more information to go on as to whether or not a surrogacy arrangement would be suitable. It is certain that a convicted pedophile would not be able to find an altruistic surrogate, as an example. I dare say someone that had a criminal record for traffic offences on the other hand, would have no trouble.