Gay Aussies
Flocking to U.S. for Surrogates

More than 100 gay Australian couples have paid $80,000 to create a baby using surrogate mothers in the United States, according to one Los Angeles-based fertility clinic.

"We've seen more than 125 gay couples from Australia who have gone home with a baby," the Fertility Institute's medical director, Jeffrey Steinberg, told the Australian Associated Press.

"We're up to six to eight a month now, which is a four-fold increase over two years ago. That makes Australia one of our biggest markets, neck-and-neck with Britain," he said. It is illegal for gay couples to have children through surrogacy in Australia.

Clients of the Fertility Institute pick an egg donor from a list of 400 university students. The eggs are then implanted in a different woman, who bears the child. Most of the gay Australians who use the clinics services are affluent, professional men who "desperately want a child," Steinberg told AAP.

Surrogacy laws in Australia vary from state to state, and while the country is moving toward making laws consistent nationwide, it is unlikely to legalize surrogacy for gay couples, according to AAP. (The Advocate)