Think surrogacy is all about cute babies, happy families and selfless women? Think again. In March I spoke on Mother Erasure at the ‘Broken Bonds and Big Money’ International Conference on Surrogacy, held at RMIT. Featuring a stellar line-up of international and local speakers – with input from two Australian women used in surrogacy – […]
‘Broken Bonds and Big Money’ will draw attention to the human rights abuses committed through surrogacy arrangements against so-called ‘surrogate’ mothers, egg ‘donors’ and the children resulting from surrogacy Broken Bonds and Big Money is an international conference to draw attention to the human rights abuses committed through surrogacy. The aim of the International Conference […]
I’m honored to be launching the latest book by a woman who is (with Susan Hawthorne) not only my own publisher but who I count as one of my dearest friends. Dr. Renate Klein, author, researcher, biologist, social scientist, and feminist activist of 30 years. Renate – whose work was my first introduction to feminist […]
Don’t repeat what happened to us On March 5 the Senate Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs held a roundtable on surrogacy. Myf Cummerford was conceived in 1980 using an anonymous sperm donor, part of the AI program at the Royal Woman’s Hospital. She wants the committee to consider the experience of herself […]
A New Form of Women’s Oppression Swedish journalist and feminist Kajsa Ekis Ekman, author of ‘Being and Being Bought: Prostitution, Surrogacy and the Split Self’ will be speaking at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas on the weekend. I’m looking forward to hearing her – and meeting her. This piece appears on the Festival of Dangerous […]
Surrogacy industry a return to the dark days Adelaide couple Mark and Matt, both 29, have acquired Thai-designed newborns Tate and Estelle through commercialised surrogacy overseas. According to Adelaide’s Sunday Mail, the dual boy-girl delivery an hour apart by caesarean section to separate surrogate women for gay parents is believed to be an Australian first. These […]
Time to end the subterfuge WHEN Lauren Burns listened to the Prime Minister’s national apology to those who suffered forcible adoption, she wanted to ask: what about me? It wasn’t that the 29-year-old Melbourne woman didn’t find the speech moving. She believes the mothers and children so cruelly separated deserved the apology. But she, and […]
Cold term cannot disappear central experience of pregnancy and birth Gestational carrier is an ugly term THE objectification of women’s bodies and commodification of childbirth came together yesterday in a single antiseptic phrase contained in the announcement of a second child for actress Nicole Kidman and her musician husband Keith Urban. The baby’s birth three […]
