For decades China has been a top destination for Americans seeking to adopt a child from abroad, but now its own citizens are making the reverse trek across the Pacific to fulfill their parental dreams — through surrogacy.
After cancer left her unable to bear her own children three years ago, one Chinese woman in her late 30s — who asked for anonymity — decided to research her options.
Her eggs were still viable, but her choices were few with surrogacy illegal in China, so she and her husband set their sights abroad, ultimately picking the US.
After a trip to Los Angeles last year to transfer their eggs and sperm and an extended visit to their surrogate’s home state of Tennessee for the birth and subsequent formalities, she and her husband are now the happy parents of three-month-old twins, at a cost of US$150,000.
“I wanted to do everything properly,” she said by phone from the US. “We have a lot of underground [fertility] therapy agencies in China, but I just don’t trust the doctors.”
With the cost standing at about 34 times average urban incomes in China, it is a process reserved mainly for the rich.
A dozen US-based surrogacy agencies contacted say they have seen a marked rise in Chinese clients over the past three years.
The Agency for Surrogacy Solutions in Encino, California, recently had its contract translated into Chinese and is working with a Chinese-speaking consultant to recruit potential customers.
“A third of our clients are Chinese,” agency president Kathryn Kaycoff-Manos said, up from virtually none three years ago. “It’s huge, and we get calls every day.”
Stuart Bell, the co-owner of Los Angeles-based Growing Generations, one of the world’s largest surrogacy agencies, added Beijing and Shanghai to his Asia itinerary for the first time in September, meeting about 10 potential clients in each.
“There seems to be a lot of infertility going on in China,” he said, and frustration over the options available.
The Chinese Population Association estimates 40 million people are infertile in the country — one in eight of the child-bearing population, four times the proportion 20 years ago.
Two-thirds of the semen at Shanghai’s main sperm bank failed to meet WHO standards, the Shanghai Morning Post reported, with experts citing heavy pollution as a main contributing factor.
About 60 percent to 70 percent of Chinese clients seek surrogacy for medical reasons, US agencies say, but there are other motivations related to Chinese law.
Gay couples looking to have children cannot adopt in China and are turning to the US, as are government employees sidestepping China’s one-child policy, they say.
Wealthy Chinese who want more than one offspring are largely able to do so simply by paying a fine, with the average penalty in Beijing estimated at 100,000 yuan (US$16,400) Xinhua news agency saod. For government employees the calculation is more complicated, as their jobs are in jeopardy if they are discovered to have had a second child. Other motives include older professional women who put off having children for the sake of their careers.
California is the destination of choice for most Chinese couples because of its well-established surrogacy industry and welcoming legal framework, Los Angeles-based attorney Andrew Vorzimer said.
The Golden State generally allows both client parents to be named on the birth certificate, excluding the surrogate and enabling the child to be recognized as theirs under Chinese law.
However, the process is long and convoluted, and Chinese clients risk stigmatization if the truth emerges.
“Even if they have children through therapy in the US, when they bring them back home, they won’t mention about the therapy at all,” the new mother said. “They don’t want people to know.”
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese