My orphan paper- Surrogacy Australia conference

The other day I had just finished my paper for the Surrogacy Australia conference on 6 and 7 April 2012 in Melbourne, when I was contacted by the organisors to be told that there was a grand change of plan.

No longer would I be presenting my paper about who is a parent for international surrogacy arrangements (or more properly put, Australia’s bizarre schizoid view about who can be a parent- you might be for some purposes but not others), but instead I was asked to chair the legal session and to moderate a panel of lawyers discussing surrogacy. All a great honour, and I am very lucky and humbled that I was asked. But there was my orphan paper. Luckily it will still be published as part of the conference papers. I will also post it on my blog.

And who are the lawyers on the panel? They are:

• Professor Jenni Millbank, in my view Australia’s leading academic legal expert on surrogacy
• Steve Snyder, chair of the American Bar Association’s Assisted Reproduction Technology Committee, and head of IARC surrogacy in Minneapolis
• John Weltman of Circle Surrogacy in Boston
• Amit Karkhanis of Kay Legal from Mumbai

Disclosure

I am very lucky that I have had the opportunity to work with or consult with Jenni, Steve, John and Amit.

I am an associate member of the American Bar Association. Steve and John are members. Amit is an associate. I also serve as one of two international representatives on the American Bar Association’s Assisted Reproduction Technology Committee.

Jenni and I are members of the International Surrogacy Forum.