Depending where you live in the world, surrogacy can be legal, illegal, or shades in-between. For example, surrogacy is illegal in all forms in France, but legal just a stone’s throw away in England. Even within the United States, surrogacy laws differ depending on location. For example, Louisiana prohibits compensated surrogacy and has unclear rules on who is named on the birth certificate, yet Nevada allows nearly all forms of surrogacy and type of arrangement.
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Surrogacy law around the world
Unfortunately, surrogacy has attained a bad reputation in the developing world where surrogacy is used to exploit and profit from vulnerable women. The problem was bad enough in India to where it is now illegal for foreign intended parents to use an Indian surrogate mother. The reason is simple – women were being used as baby factories in nearly slave-live conditions, many times against their will. Nobody argues that rules need to be put in place to protect people in these horrific situations. Thankfully there are places in the world where surrogacy is not only fully legal, but is done to the benefit of everyone involved.
International surrogacy
One surrogacy agency with an increasing international clientele is Conceptual Options. Located in the surrogacy-friendly state of California, they not only serve the United States, but are an international surrogacy agency as well. Intended parents from around the world, in many cases surrogacy being illegal in their country of origin, find they can take advantage of California’s surrogacy laws and bring a child home legally. California makes no restrictions based on the laws of the intended parent’s country of origin, they recognize parents through surrogacy to have the same legal rights as parents through traditional means. In fact, in many cases a country of origin has on way of knowing how a child was conceived when passing back into its borders. Conceptual Options specializes in international surrogacy and has helped hundreds of intended parents build a family.
How to find an egg donor
Finding an egg donor on your own is nearly impossible, it is best handled by a surrogacy agency. A well-established surrogacy agency will have a database or hundreds, or even thousands, of women willing to donate an egg. This allows the intended parents to select from a wide variety of traits their future child is predisposed to have. For example, the intended parent might look for an egg donor with the same hair and eye color as themselves, or someone with a college degree or history of athletics.
How to find a surrogate mother
Same as how to find an egg donor, this is best handled by an agency. Not everyone is a good fit to carry a child through surrogacy – both medically and legally. Agencies use surrogate mothers who have passed a screening process, have had at least one prior successful birth, and are fully prepared to give the child away after birth. Find you own surrogate mother and you might end up losing the child or in a difficult legal situation.
Building a family is one of the most rewarding experiences a person can have. If you need assistance growing a family of your own, don’t hesitate to reach out to a surrogacy agency for help.
For more information, please visit:
Conceptual Options
13025 Danielson St. Suite 200
Poway, CA 92064
858.748.4222
