Surrogacy itself seems to have come out of the mommy closet, to judge from recent media coverage. The New York Times and the Boston Globe have both reported on the practice of outsourcing wombs to poor Indian women. On a recent cover of Newsweek, the abdomen of a pregnant woman appeared with the words "Womb for Rent" emblazoned upon it. The issue's lead story, "The Curious Lives of Surrogates," ignited a small media frenzy with its sensationalistic revelations about military wives cashing in as surrogates -- in part by bilking their government-provided health plans.

The attention has rekindled the debate over the morality of renting wombs. While most people are reluctant to stand in the way of women who want to use modern medicine to help them conceive, others are more wary. Jennifer Lahl, the director of the California-based Center for Bioethics and Culture says "The surrogate isn't seen or treated as the patient. She's the cow, the womb."

Labels: shameless self-promotion, third-party repro

• One of the booths I noticed right away was that of Pacific Reproductive Services (a "lesbian-owned sperm bank" based in Sam Francisco, natch). They had a rather prominent flyer advertising their services to male-to-female transgender clients who are interested in freezing their sperm prior to their sex-change operations. Sadly, no one picked up a flyer while I was around. The booth had a hippie, alternative vibe; both the reps had body piercings (a nose ring and a tongue ring, as I recall).

• I talked a bit with a friendly communications rep for the California Cryobank, based in L.A., about some of the challenges facing clinics. The rep--this one sans piercings--talked about the many new services the clinic was offering clients, in part to keep up with the fierce competition among sperm banks.

CA Cryobank already has an unbelievable sperm donor catalog available on their website, complete with baby pictures, personal information (e.g., physical description, medical history, education) staff impressions, and handwritten essays from their donors. To this, they've added a number of premium services, including handwriting analysis (which the rep insisted was crazy accurate; he said they tested it on some of their staff before offering it to their customers), a personality test, and audio CDs. Currently, they're working on producing short films with the donors. The films will include voice-overs and show the donor (neck-down only to protect his identity) participating in favorite activities, like playing soccer.

I asked about privacy issues for anonymous donors. One of the donors listed his major as "Danish Literature." Surely, I said, there aren't many schools offering this major, and combined with the other information available, you could probably track the guy down after some avid googling? The rep agreed this was a concern, and said the clinic had hired a few private detectives to check the profiles and flag possible problems.

• Of course, donor anonymity might not be much of an issue for too long. Almost every clinic at the conference offers an "identity-release"or "open-donor" program to clients. Generally, the donors in these programs agree to have their identities released to their offspring when they turn 18 (though one program releases the donor's identity three months after the child is born).

The Sperm Bank of California (located in Berkeley) was the first to offer such a service, and other clinics have quickly followed suit. (Pacific Reproductive Services now claims the "most willing to be known donors.") The demand has largely come from gay and lesbian couples and single mothers.

UPDATE: On the rise of "open donor" programs, there's a paper on the subject by UC Davis prof Joanna Scheib (who I interviewed moments ago). Just in case you wanted actual data for once: Scheib, J.E. & Cushing, R.A. (2007). Open-identity donor insemination in the United States: Is it on the rise? Fertility & Sterility, 88, 231-232.

Labels: infertility, the baby business, third-party repro