Legal costs and red tape pushing cost of surrogate baby up to $80K
Desperate would-be parents are being forced to fork out tens of thousands of dollars in a bid to have a baby via surrogacy due to astronomical legal costs and onerous red tape.
NSW
Don't miss out on the headlines from NSW. Followed categories will be added to My News.
DESPERATE would-be parents are being forced to fork out tens of thousands of dollars in a bid to have a baby via surrogacy due to astronomical legal costs and onerous red tape.
The practice in Australia has become so expensive that people are entering into illegal arrangements overseas because it is cheaper and easier than “altruistic” arrangements at home.
And former chief justice of the Family Court Diana Bryant has revealed the existing laws have “numerous problems” and are in urgent need of an overhaul.
In NSW it’s illegal to enter into paid surrogacy locally or overseas but even altruistic surrogacies are tangled up in complicated red tape that, coupled with there being no Medicare rebate for IVF, pushes the average cost up to $80,000.
Surrogacy legal fees in Australia are 707 per cent higher than those in the Ukraine — a hotspot for families seeking a baby.
The average legal costs for surrogacy in Australia are $21,000, compared with just $2600 in Ukraine, $4100 in Cambodia, $12,000 in Canada and $18,000 in the US.
Cancer survivor Chloe Simmons, 31, is undergoing IVF and her mum Sherrie Zammit, 49, will be her surrogate — but the crazy hidden legal and bureaucratic fees surrounding surrogacy are a huge financial burden.
LATEST NEWS
Bailed film star swaps prison for luxury
Manslaughter charges over Greenacre school deaths
Ray Meagher: Why I never had kids
“You get ready to pay it all for IVF and have the surgery, and then the lawyers stop you in your tracks,” she said. “It’s a massive disincentive.”
At the age of 21 Ms Simmons underwent a hysterectomy and had her right ovary and fallopian tubes removed after she was diagnosed with a rare cancer.
Her son Isaac Tasic, now 10, was a baby at the time and now Ms Simmons desperately wants to have a child with partner Dimitri Pixomatis.
Ms Simmons has been quoted a legal bill of $13,750, with the family having to enter into a contract and also go to Supreme Court after the baby is born to put Ms Simmons on the birth certificate.
The law firm also requires her to set aside $3000 in a bank account and she has to pay about $9000 in legal fees for her mother.
“I expect I will have to pay more,” she said.
“We will pay at least $20,000 when you add up all the hidden fees.
“There’s inquiry fees, court filing fees, counselling, process service fees, clinical records from hospitals, medical reports, witness expenses, barristers’ fees and others. The legal costs made us think twice. I already have a child and I can’t take away things from him to do this.”
MORE: Sally Obermeder welcomes a daughter via surrogacy
Surrogacy Australia president Sam Everington said the costs for altruistic surrogacy in Australia were so expensive that about 75 per cent of people who used surrogates were now travelling overseas — with legal costs a significant factor.
“It’s sad because the situation in Australia is that surrogacy is limited only to those who are wealthy,” Mr Everington said.
Ms Bryant, the most senior Family Court Justice for more than 17 years, said Australia should consider legalising commercial surrogacy.
“I think it’s important to find a way to allow commercial surrogacy either in Australia or in an overseas country by making it dependant on various conditions being met,” she said.
NSW Attorney-General Mark Speakman said he was preparing to release the government’s review into the 2010 Surrogacy Act in the next few months — the same thing he said a year ago.
MORE: ‘Australian surrogacy laws need to change’
Amanda Macaulay also struggled with surrogacy costs while trying to have her daughter Macy, who was born in 2017.
Her father-in-law is a retired solicitor which meant she was able to do her legal costs herself, however if she hadn’t she would have been facing fees of about $21,000.
“At the point we’d already paid so much so were looking to save money anywhere we could,” she said.
Leading surrogacy lawyer Stephen Page said people were at risk of facing child trafficking charges when entering into paid overseas surrogacy agreements.
“Our system is driving people abroad,” said Mr Page, who estimated in the average year there were about 40 children born via surrogacy in Australia compared with 250 born to Australians overseas.