Announcing a new medical tourism hot-spot. For same-sex couples the world over seeking to have children, Portland, Oregon has become the go-to destination thanks to its gay-friendly surrogacy options.
Couples that cannot legally pursue surrogacy in their native countries make the trip to Portlandia where the world’s top clinic, Oregon Reproductive Medicine, is based. Ten years ago, ORM might have seen one gay couple in a year but now, according to marketing director Jonathan Kipp, “it’s absolutely a normal day to have gay couples in our hallways every week.”
ORM is ranked tops in the world due to its egg and sperm donor options, quality of medical service, and most importantly, high success rate — 85% of ORM’s surrogacy attempts result in childbirth.
“They are really very highly rated,” Ron Poole-Dayan, executive director of Men Having Babies, told USA Today. The group, a non-profit support network for biological gay fathers and fathers-to-be, has some 1,000 couples — 40% of which are European.
“They all, without exception, cannot do surrogacy or egg donation in their countries,” said Poole-Dayan, himself a father — along with his husband — of 12-year -old twins through surrogacy.
Portland also loves them some gays, having scored a perfect 100 on the HRC’s Municipality Equality Index, measuring cities’ LGBT-friendly laws and policies. International travelers therefore can feel welcome and safe there.
The small Oregon town of less than 600,000 also makes dollars and sense for prospective parents. In places like New York or Los Angeles, making a baby costs $130,000 to $170,000, but in Portland, it’s only around $90,000. Only being a relative term, obviously. Coupled with the abundance of healthy young women with healthy young eggs and healthy young wombs, Portland has a lot to offer to same-sex couples looking to star in their own real-life versions of The New Normal.
Let’s just hope they have better luck.
Daggerman
…this is such a relief, although I can imagine it won’t be to all the stupid
and sheltered fascists out there—no matter what your sex is if you can bring a
child up by letting it know it’s loved and you can give it a ‘fair’ well balanced
education there is no reason why same sex couples shouldn’t bring up kids…
QJ201
I really wish we could get all the unwanted kids into homes (e.g. cut the legal bullshit). Makes me really uncomfortable knowing someone just spent 20K to have a baby…when there are unwanted kids literally dying or being abused all over the planet.
Ruhlmann
@QJ201: Well said.
CaptainFabulous
Oh, only $90K to have a surrogate baby? When the cost comes down to roughly that of what it costs a straight guy to knock up a chick and spit out a kid (a couple of drinks), you let me know. At $90k it’s most certainly a perk of the wealthy, while the rest of us that would love to find a way to have kids are reminded, yet again, that we are somehow unworthy because we like the wrong sex and aren’t wealthy.
LaTeesha
@QJ201: That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever read. First, why is it anyone’s responsibility to rescue unwanted kids? How people choose to procreate is their own personal business. Second, your statement demonstrates a profound lack of understanding or concern for these unwanted kids. These kids have often suffered horrific abuse and/or neglect. These kids need to be placed with couples or individuals who have the patience, skills, and internal strength required to provide the environment, structure, and love that they desperately need. To assume that all couples or people have these skills is a mistake. Placing “unwanted” children with a couple or individual simply because that couple or individual wants to be a parent would be a huge disservice to these already vulnerable kids.
LaTeesha
@CaptainFabulous: With that attitude you aren’t ready to parent a house plant much less a child.
Ruhlmann
@LaTeesha: You presume he doesn’t understand that and your statement sounds like the condescending attitude postured by Christian adoption agencies towards gay and lesbian couples. Are you saying LGBT parents don’t have patience, skills or internal strength?
CaptainFabulous
@LaTeesha: I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that straight couples were required to go thru counseling to determine their parental fitness before becoming parents.
TinoTurner
Stop this surrogacy bullshit!!! God damn it, why are people so incredibly greedy and self-centered? TRY to look at an adoption website and read the kids profiles looking for a family without it breaking your heart. Why are gays adding to the worlds population when they could be REAL heros and adopt or even foster? It sure as hell doesn’t cost $90k! Fuck this surrogacy bullshit….this is clearly a business, a greedy one.
Make a REAL difference in this world and save a kid that needs someone to love them.
LaTeesha
@Ruhlmann: If you’ll come down off that high horse you might could understand plain English. There’s nothing wrong with having a baby through surrogacy. It’s completely stupid to think that people (straight or gay) who want to have a baby will also have the strength and skills to care for a child that’s been abused or abandoned or neglected. Suggesting that people adopt “unwanted” kids instead of having a baby shows a profound level of stupidity and a complete lack of understanding of what “unwanted” kids need. “Unwanted” kids and newborns are not interchangeable nor are they substitutes for each other.
LaTeesha
@TinoTurner: – Another idiot statement from someone who doesn’t care or understand about the needs of kids available for adoption. Stop pretending that you do, Tino. If you truly cared about kids available for adoption then you wouldn’t try to dump them on people who most likely don’t have the skills to parent kids who’ve endured abuse or neglect. Just because a couple or individual wants to have a baby doesn’t mean they are suited for parenting a child available for adoption. Parenting a child who’s been abused or neglected requires a special skill set. I commend those people who are honest with themselves and recognize they’re not suited for parenting such kids and instead move on to surrogacy. That’s not selfish. That’s honest and does much more to protect these already vulnerable kids than you’re moronic suggestion that they be dumped on people simply because these people want a kid.
TinoTurner
SOME kids have special needs NOT all of them. I HAVE done my research, you have not. SOME people want the most helpless of souls but that does not mean you are obligated to. You sound like an unreasonable person with too much time on your hands. You think raising a kid from scratch wouldn’t have its owns problems?
CaptainFabulous
@TinoTurner: So do you flip out like this on your straight friends when you find out one of them is pregnant, and go on a rant about how they shouldn’t be bringing a new baby into the world when there are so many children who need to be adopted? Or do you save your outrage for only for when it’s two gay men who seek to have a biological child together?
LaTeesha
@TinoTurner: You haven’t done any research if you believe the nonsense you are spouting. Kids who have been removed from their home and placed for adoption have endured much abuse and neglect. To think that hasn’t deeply affected them is moronic, naive, and abusive to those already vulnerable children.
There are two types of prospective parents – people who want to have a kid and people who have the skills to care for children who have been abused. Sometimes these two groups overlap, but not always. I commend all people who recognize they lack the skills to parent a child that’s been abused and instead move on to other ways of becoming a parent – such as surrogacy. That’s the compassionate thing to do. It’s not compassionate to adopt a child that you’re not suited to parent.
And there’s nothing wrong with admitting you’re not suited to raising a child that’s been abused. Lacking that skill set doesn’t make you a bad person. Most couples and individuals don’t have that skill set. What makes you a bad person is abusing a child. The real solution is for abusers to wake up and stop having children.
TinoTurner
@CaptainFabulous: I save my outrage because gays dont need to do everything the same exact way as straight people. You’re talking about a kid with no family, no one to love, no one to tell them that they’re good enough, no bedroom of their own. Quit it with your krap, you’re talking about a human soul
TinoTurner
@LaTeesha: You sound fat. So much hatred over an innocent soul that just wants to be loved and all you are doing is vouching for an INDUSTRY, a baby factory essentially when there are perfectly healthy kids who need a home. Get off your high horse….NOT ALL KIDS are damaged. Some are, yes…..NOT ALL. Idiot.
CaptainFabulous
@TinoTurner: OK, just so we’re clear: if a straight couple wants to have a baby that’s completely ok — no questions asked, no outrage, no rant. They just breed and pop out a kid.
But if a gay couple wants to have a baby, then it’s time to go all batshit crazy on their ass for wanting a biological child of their own instead of adopting.
Heteros get to live by one set of rules where they are free to do whatever they want while the homos are held to a completely other, higher standard, that requires them to be saintly. Got it.
redcarpet
@CaptainFabulous: The cost isn’t really the insemination, its in the surrogate. You are essentially renting a person for 9 months, there are certain obligations that you must meet. I don’t see how that cost can come down much.
LaTeesha
@TinoTurner: You are making kids awaiting adoption a commodity by suggesting that they serve as substitute children for couples who want a baby via surrogacy. Your degrading view of such children is shocking.
Ruhlmann
@LaTeesha: “If you’ll come down off that high horse you might could understand plain English” Like dat der? Sorry I couldn’t help myself. I have worked with mentally challenged and emotionally disturbed children. I have seen first hand the abuses relatives visit upon their defenseless charges. There is nothing wrong with surrogacy of course. Neither is there anything wrong with adoption. I am sure anyone considering adoption has considered and been enlightened concerning the problems of same. To dismiss adoption entirely for the reasons you state is ignorant or misinformed. Success isn’t guaranteed but neither is failure and to give everything to a child who has nothing is immeasurably rewarding to both adult and child. I have seen it over and over. Now untwist your knickers let off some of that gas.
viveutvivas
@LaTeesha, your point would make some sense if most unadopted babies in the U.S. were abused or neglected. However, most are not, the thing that makes them untouchable is that they’re just black.
I find these surrogacy gays very narcissistic.
CaptainFabulous
@viveutvivas: Why would you find them narcissistic? I’m genuinely curious. When heterosexuals want to procreate and have a biological child that’s natural, normal, and encouraged. But when homosexuals want the same thing, and have to turn to surrogacy because neither of them own a womb, suddenly it’s an outrage, travesty, a middle finger to adoption, and narcissistic. And this is coming from people in our own community!
CaptainFabulous
And I understand the reason for costs involved. Still doesn’t mean I have to like it. But in many ways it’s no different than a heterosexual couple that’s having trouble getting pregnant. If you don’t have really good insurance and can’t afford IVF or other treatments, you’re shit outta luck.
WOWfactor
Adoption may be ideal but it is simply not as easy as surrogacy. One of the impacts of the countries signing the Hague Convention treaty is that international adoption is now closed to openly gay and lesbian parents. In my state of New York, the only children available for adoption are over 10 years of age. Most likely, these children have been in the foster care system for most of their lives and have special challenges. It is even likely that their biological families are still in their lives.
Another option is open adoption in which the gay or lesbian parent has to be chosen by the birth mother. The birth mother may insist on regular visits with the child. Frequently, the birth mother may choose to cancel the adoption during a state’s required post partum waiting period.
The final, albeit more expensive option, is to hire a private adoption attorney to find an expetant mother who wants to give her baby up for adoption. Once again, no matter how much money perspective parents have given the attorney and the mother, the state allows her to change her mind with no penalties. The parent’s money is simply gone.
Surrogacy may not be for everyone but, unfortunately, neither is adoption.
NotStr8Acting
TO ALL YOU HOMOPHOBES…….WE GAYS DON’T OWE YOU SH-T! You want gay people to clean up heterosexuals mess and ALWAYS be the ones to be the noble ones, and always be the ones to sacrifice….
WHY THE EFF ARE YOU NOT MANDATING HETEROS ADOPT AND NOT HAVE CHILDREN?
Why the EFF is it when heteros breed it’s seen as a gift and joy and constantly celebrated on social media anytime another hetero announces she’s spitting out a brat from her twat?
But if gays want the same thing we’re being uppity gays? EFF OFF YOU FILTHY HOMOPHOBE
We gays owe hetros jack! You had those babies, why aren’t we holding heteros responsible for that?
Homophobia is a disease.
Scott Johansen
Homophobia on this site is very real. If the same expectations placed on gay people to cure the world of all it’s problems was placed on black people, there would be screams of racism from here to Capitol Hill for even suggesting one demographic who is being highly discriminated in society (as gays are) be held responsible for the saving of the problems perpetuated by the privileged (heterosexuals) who are denying us our rights.
I as a gay man am treated completely unfairly in society and in legislation in the country I pay taxes to and until that changes, don’t you dare approach me and lecture me and my community about who we are.
And viveutvivas, you are the biggest troll on the gay blog spectrum and everyone knows it. The fact that you are calling out gay couples for making the personal decision for surrogacy should be a reminder to anyone who agrees with your talking point that they are aligning themselves with a militant and extremist homophobe. If you ever approached me in my face, or any gay person for that matter within earshot of me, and spewed your ignorant homophobia, you’d be missing teeth and begging for mercy. Easy to be a tough guy behind a computer. I’d pay you to try it face to face.
Reality101
My girlfriend and I made the decision for a surrogate as she couldn’t have a child and I didn’t want to get pregnant. We made that decision for a multitude of reasons, none of which is the business of the few homophobes on here who demand to limit the freedom and rights of gay couples by virtue of being gay couples. You are no better than the worst Huckabee Conservative Bible Thumping preacher who wants to guilt gay people into walking in lock step to a heterosexual mandated agenda. I’m a grown ass women in a loving relationship, with many components and factors involved in wanting to have the blessing of surrogacy, none of which involve the terrible things gay couples who chose that path have been called above.
I realize trolls are a staple on this site and towle road. But it takes some kind of nerve and a real ignorant low to judge same sex couples for the path they chose in having a child. Beyond homophobia, it’s downright hateful and ugly and a complete slap in the face to families like mine. But I wouldn’t expect any differently from the sock puppets polluting most gay blogs.
viveutvivas
@CaptainFabulous, I find it equally narcissistic when a straight couple uses surrogacy.
viveutvivas
@Scott Johansen, your mother leave you unsupervised with the computer in the basement again?
Rich white people spending small fortunes on hiring the bodies of economically disadvantaged women to serve as incubators for their spawn in an overpopulated world just so that they can have a little mini-me. And I’m homophobic? Jesus, you guys need to go back to school, take some ethics and women’s studies courses, and think about this again a little deeper.
WOWfactor
@viveutviva: Taking in account your ability to expess your written thoughts, I doubt you successfully completed any college courses on women’s studies or ethics. A woman should be free to do what she wants with her body. If she chooses to be a gestational surrogate, who are you to judge? And parents pursuing surrogacy are all rich, white people? Where is the statistical data to support that or was that simply a brain fart on your part?
LaTeesha
@viveutvivas: I find people like you who would dump a baby on a couple that doesn’t want it to be incredibly selfish.
WOWfactor
@NotStr8Acting: AMEN!
Deepdow
@viveutvivas:
Actually, and I *know* the media would have us all believe that the world is overpopulated (no wonder misanthropy and ‘humans as virus’ opinions are so rampant) but the fact remains that it is our infrastructure which is the human thing which serves to make it appear that humanity is overpopulated. Were you to take all humans on earth alive now and place us shoulder to shoulder, we would not fill L.A. county.
When you hold such opinions any kind of antipathy is possible.
MK Ultra
It’s a personal decision, guys and gals.
Everybody’s circumstances are different. None of us can truly know the inner dynamics of the couple, and every couple is different. For some, surrogacy may be the best option. For others – adoption.
I don’t think it’s anyone’s business which route a gay couple chooses to start a family.
Scott Johansen
@viveutvivas: No, but did your PIMP let you have internet access again, you ratchet c-unt?
Whats funny about you is, you consistently play the race card in ALL your posts then have the nerve to be the homophobic wench you are. You really think we can’t see through your Bible thumping agenda, you jesus wack job?
Level with us, how many of your exes left your messy behind for a hot man? I wouldn’t blame them! now you’re bitter at gays and turned to “OH LORD JESUS!” I know scorned women like you. Bittr your man left you and is much happier with another man. Go look in a mirror and fix your victim mentality of being bitter at the many educated, well rounded extremely successful gays out there. It’s not our fault you are a loser in the game called life.
NotStr8Acting
@viveutvivas: Little troll, you’re not even a good troll. What an amateur. One search of your comments on this site and they are riddled with a cesspool of pathetic envy over all the FABOULOUSNESS that is us gays. I can paint a picture of the exact type of sorry life you have. Your type is all too predictable. Yes, you better believe we gays are as talented, bright, affluent, tenacious, determined and everything more you mustered up. You mad? And we’re all those things with the presence of ignorant clowns like you. How’s that for some ethics?
You think singling gays out to be everyone’s charity case while straight couples are making a mess in every corner is NOT going to get you called out on here? So you’re pathetic and dumb. Cute combo.
What your type doesn’t like is, in spite of all the ish from your Church clan against my gay brothers and sisters, we STILL made it. STILL succeeded. STILL managed to find love. STILL won in legislative battles. And STILL concocted ways of having our families. You really thought you could weaken the strength that is the LGBT? Pick a new battle. We don’t lose. Every gay person I know is a fighter, and we eat little trolls up like you for dinner.
You wanted gay rights to go in direct correlation with things that could either benefit you or society. Oh no, Miss Thing. I’m not fighting for equal rights on this planet that you don’t own, to help you, or take off slack for the worlds problems, or have you use my existence as a means to help benefit the things you want cured. Me being openly gay, will never mean me having to be a scapegoat for the worlds problems created by a demographic in society who is incapable of ever being introspective and accountable for their own bull…..yeah, I’m talking about heteros. The ones who truly ruin society and the family structure divorcing like it’s going out of business. Cheating like it’s the last day on earth. And using abortion like it’s birth control. You go take your basement knock off lecture and apply it to your little hetero clan responsible for all the mess you point out bitch. Don’t you dare use me to make an example for the drivel you and yours are responsible for creating- all while having a national debate about MY rights in this zero sum games of yours.
Dionte
Girls use to ask me to have a baby for free, I waited too long, now they gonna want money.
the other Greg
As a longtime reader/poster here, I wonder if maybe some people are confusing “vivuetvivas” with someone else? I could be wrong but I can’t recall him ever saying anything pro-religious, EVER, so I don’t know why anyone would jump to that conclusion.
How would having doubts about surrogacy = being pro-religious anyway? Usually it’s the religious wackos who are pro-surrogacy (at least when it’s done by str8s).
As for V’s statement that surrogacy tends to be a project of rich white people, well duh. Surrogacy is expensive. Obviously those paying for it are (relatively) rich. Obviously relatively rich people are disproportionately white, except in Singapore and Tokyo. Obviously the women who agree to be hired as surrogates are relatively poor or they wouldn’t be doing it in the first place. None of this makes surrogacy “bad” or even questionable, necessarily, but these are mundane facts.
Adoption isn’t cheap either, of course.
@Deepdow: “Were you to take all humans on earth alive now and place us shoulder to shoulder, we would not fill L.A. county.”
Really, this proves the earth is NOT overpopulated? Where would we sleep – Bakersfield?
WOWfactor
@the other Greg: @the other Greg: not the brightest bulb in the box, are you?
the other Greg
@WOWfactor: Why, what’s wrong with the mundane facts I pointed out? I don’t agree with vivuetvivas here (& have had my little disagreements with him over the years), but several people here are acting crazy. I hope they’re not parents, but I doubt that anyone in this thread is actually a parent (lucky for all of us!).
Does hetero society unanimously support surrogacy, and glorify it? That’s the oddest statement that’s been made here. I haven’t noticed that either. Plenty of straight people seem to have a vague “ick” factor about surrogacy. It’s not just gays like V who favor adoption over surrogacy.
Also see #29: “@CaptainFabulous, I find it equally narcissistic when a straight couple uses surrogacy.”
Is there something ambiguous about V’s statement? If someone thinks it’s “narcissistic” that doesn’t mean they want to outlaw it. That doesn’t even necessarily mean they want taxpayers to stop subsidizing it, as is done in many states.
Tunica
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P86.HTM
“Techniques that entail the dissociation of husband and wife, by the intrusion of a person other than the couple (donation of sperm or ovum, surrogate uterus), are gravely immoral. These techniques (heterologous artificial insemination and fertilization) infringe the child’s right to be born of a father and mother known to him and bound to each other by marriage. They betray the spouses’ “right to become a father and a mother only through each other.””
Deepdow
@the other Greg:
Yes, the human population on earth could fit comfortably within L.A. county were we all standing shoulder to shoulder. You seem to be misinformed about county lines in California The world is not overpopulated with us, rather our infrastructure has overburdened the world. The concept that the number of humans is now somehow viral is radically anti-human and plays into ignorance.
the other Greg
@Tunica: Heh heh… well if the Vatican calls something “gravely immoral” (!) that’s usually a sign it’s not a bad thing, whatever it is.
I was unaware of that one, but it’s not surprising, and at the same time you prove my point in #41 that not all of hetero society glorifies surrogacy for heteros. Where would anyone get a crazy idea like that?
the other Greg
@Deepdow: That sounds like The… Worst… Sci-Fi… Story… Ever!
SO WHAT if we could fit shoulder-to-shoulder in LA county? How long do you want us to hold that position? What would we DO all day? Would we pee on the person in front of us? Would we sleep standing up, like cows? You’re the one who’s forgotten about “infrastructure”!
And I’ve never heard anyone, ever – except for straight, right-wing religious whack jobs – contend that the world is NOT in danger of overpopulation.
AnEnTDTD
Wow. I can’t tell if there are a lot of trolls pulling our legs on this thread or if everyone is truly as sensitive and impatient as they let on.
Regardless: I personally know the couple in that photo up at the top of the page. They are two of the happiest daddies I know with their twins who share their DNA. I also know a gay couple who adopted a beautiful BLACK baby girl who is now 2 years old who is flourishing and beautiful and loved loved loved; they too are incredibly happy and proud of their daughter.
Yes there are numerous adoptive children out there and there are countless humans (gay, straight) trying to become parents (I myself have been struggling), but any choice is a personal one that should NEVER be dictated by the peanut gallery. If I get pregnant again, so be it. I am perfectly happy with my one daughter who amazes me daily. Had I not been able to have her, I may have chosen adoption, I don’t know. BUT! That is MY choice. And as a member of this society (as are my gay friends and FAMILY), it is my right to have any options available to me to have a child if I so choose. And no amount of someone else’s opinion can tell me or anyone else how capable and/or ready to have a child I or anyone will be.
Peace. And aren’t my friends in that photo cute????? Much love.