TY - CHAP
T1 - Circumvention, crisis and confusion
T2 - Australians crossing borders to Thailand for international surrogacy
AU - Whittaker, Andrea
PY - 2016
Y1 - 2016
N2 - The spread of ARTs throughout the world, combined with the ease of international travel and local restrictions, has produced a growing trade involving Australians travelling for international commercial surrogacy. Surrogacy may be used to enable couples who are unable to gestate a pregnancy due to medical reasons, such as the absence of a uterus in a woman, inability to carry a pregnancy, cases of recurrent failed implantation, recurrent idiopathic miscarriage or when a single male or same-sex male couple use ARTs to have children. Travelling for surrogacy services has been described as a form of ‘circumvention travel’, i.e. travel to receive medical services that are banned or restricted elsewhere or unavailable for those whose status makes them ineligible for treatments (as is the case with many treatments for infertility due to age, marital status or sexual orientation). These include certain states of the US, Ukraine, India and, until recently, Thailand. Those travelling for reproductive services sometimes self-describe as ‘reproductive exiles’, drawing attention to what they consider to be the ‘forced’ nature of their travel (Inhorn and Patrizio, 2009).
AB - The spread of ARTs throughout the world, combined with the ease of international travel and local restrictions, has produced a growing trade involving Australians travelling for international commercial surrogacy. Surrogacy may be used to enable couples who are unable to gestate a pregnancy due to medical reasons, such as the absence of a uterus in a woman, inability to carry a pregnancy, cases of recurrent failed implantation, recurrent idiopathic miscarriage or when a single male or same-sex male couple use ARTs to have children. Travelling for surrogacy services has been described as a form of ‘circumvention travel’, i.e. travel to receive medical services that are banned or restricted elsewhere or unavailable for those whose status makes them ineligible for treatments (as is the case with many treatments for infertility due to age, marital status or sexual orientation). These include certain states of the US, Ukraine, India and, until recently, Thailand. Those travelling for reproductive services sometimes self-describe as ‘reproductive exiles’, drawing attention to what they consider to be the ‘forced’ nature of their travel (Inhorn and Patrizio, 2009).
M3 - Chapter (Book)
SN - 9781138932357
T3 - Routledge Studies in the Sociology of Health and Illness
SP - 113
EP - 127
BT - Assisted Reproductive Technologies in the Global South and North
A2 - Rozee, Virginie
A2 - Unisa, Sayeed
PB - Routledge
CY - Abingdon Oxon UK
ER -