Why subscribe?
Going through a surrogacy is hard. Going through a surrogacy in a foreign country is harder. Throw in a pandemic. Then add war.
You’re wondering what’s happening with international surrogacy in Ukraine, and so am I. Ukraine Surrogacy Dispatches started in February 2022 as an ad hoc newsletter trying answer that question with small irregular updates.
I will share whatever I find about what is happening with families, surrogates, agencies, clinics and others involved in surrogacy in Ukraine.
The newsletter will be sent out as news arises and it will wrap up when there is nothing left to say. Please note, it is very sporadic at the moment.
This is a paid-only newsletter. There are two ways to get access.
You can become a paying subscriber to HeyReprotech, which includes free access to Ukraine Surrogacy Dispatches.
Or you can subscribe directly to Ukraine Surrogacy Dispatches. (Again, please note that publication has been sparse recently.)
About Alison Motluk
I am a Toronto-based writer with a long-standing interest in assisted reproduction. I write about the science and medicine that make it possible, about the policies and attitudes that influence how it’s carried out, and about the social fallout, both for the individuals directly involved and for our wider society.
My work has been acknowledged with six National Magazine Awards, two awards for investigative reporting from the Canadian Association of Journalists, and an RTDNA award, among others.
I hold two degrees in International Relations, an undergraduate degree from the University of Toronto, which focused on the Soviet Union and East Europe, and a masters degree from the London School of Economics, which focused on the politics of the world economy. I studied Russian for three years, including five months at Leningrad State University.
My interest in assisted reproduction dates back more than 15 years, to when I first learned about donor offspring who wanted to meet family members connected through their sperm donors. One of my early stories on that subject was about a 15-year-old boy who was the first in the world to track down his anonymous sperm donor using only the internet and his own spit.
I became, and remain, deeply interested in the stories of donor offspring. These are people breaking entirely new social ground. My two-part documentary, “Brave New Family,” which aired on CBC Radio’s IDEAS in 2007, was about sperm donor offspring — what it’s like to be one, to be the parent of one and to search for (and sometimes find) members of your donor tribe. Over the years, I have also written about donor grandparenthood, extended families created through sperm donation, and what people do when they stumble upon an anonymous donor’s real identity.
I have also been interested in legal and policy issues surrounding reproductive technology. In 2004, for instance, the Canadian government passed a law that, among other things, prohibited payment for eggs, sperm, embryos and surrogacy. While the intent was well-meaning — to prevent exploitation, to avoid the commercialization of human life — the consequences were disastrous. Doctors, lawyers, would-be parents and donors were for 15 years effectively operating in a legal grey space. I chronicle some of that in “The Human Egg Trade” and “Anatomy of a Surrogacy.” HeyReprotech followed as regulations finally came into force in 2020.
I am very interested in the medical risks to egg donors, which remain largely unstudied. I wrote "Is Egg Donation Dangerous?" and produced the radio documentary "Wanted: Egg donor in good health" on the topic. I also broke the story of the egg donor who, after having 45 eggs removed from her ovaries in Toronto, flew home to Florida and had a stroke.
For most of my career, I have worked as a science journalist, first interning at The Economist, then as a staff writer at New Scientist, and later as a freelancer, contributing to Quirks and Quarks, Nature, The Walrus, CMAJ News, O, The Oprah Magazine and others.
I’m drawn to reproductive technology for the same reason I lend it such a critical eye: because it is such a fast-moving and exciting area of science. I greeted the claim of ovarian stem cells with excitement even as I watched their premature commercialization with care.
I have no financial or personal ties to the fertility industry. I am female, heterosexual, married and have two children conceived without medical assistance. I am pro-choice and pro-contraception. I support gay marriage and gay parenthood. I endorse medical intervention in reproduction where needed. I know that people can make their own best choices. I believe that, in general, impartial regulation works better than industry self-regulation. I also believe that transparency is almost always better than secrecy.
Thanks for reading.
Alison
