Surrogacy reflections 25 years on

I was invited to present at the second national Surrogacy Australia conference last weekend. It gave me an opportunity to reflect on the experience of gestating my niece, who I gave birth to in 1988. It was an IVF surrogacy first for Australia, and, as far as we know, a world second. I overall derived great satisfaction and a sense of empowerment from being able to have a vision of something I wanted to achieve, and direct the system – in this case, the reproductive technology system, combined with overcoming legal and ethical hurdles – to achieve my goal. No, I’m not demure, and in the thrall of a dominant older sister. We worked together, with the aid of family and the wider community, to achieve a goal. In this presentation I write about privilege, human rights, and birth stories, and illustrate it with photos and artworks made by Bendigo artist, Iain Stewart. The presentation is available on academia.edu.

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