Reproduction for Lesbians

Humans are sexually dimorphic; ie, there are two sexes  (female and male) with characteristic sex-based differences. Sexual dimorphism in any species can be characterised according to inheritable differences in appearance (eg, colour, shape, size, and structure). Female humans are chracterised as having large egg cells (oocytes), in contrast to males’ much smaller perm cells. But lesbans have always known there re two sexes–and which one we are attracted to!

Historically, lesbians have had children (ie, reproduced) by either having sex with men or by assisted reproduction. In the 1970s, lesbians began to innovate self-insemination technique at home using the simple techology of a turkey baster (Wikler & Wikler 1981).

Modern medicine has developed a range of high tech procedures that are very stressful for women undergoing one. These are heavilypromoted to women, including lesbians, but much can go wrong, irrespective of whether it’s ‘altruistic’ or commercial, including where profits may be put before ethics by commercial providers.

Surrogacy  is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as ‘the action of having a baby for another woman who is unable to do so herself’. However, gay men are resorting to exploiting women for having a child by surrogacy and they are cashed up enough to use commercial surrogacy services, often in countries where poor women can be more easily exploited. It’s not surprising that a gay man (Alex Greenwich, MP) included surogacy in his proposed LGBTQI+ legislation.

Women’s rights are under attack globally with pressure to legalise surrrogacy and to allow it to be a commercial transaction.

In the UK in 2023, the Law Commission of England and Wales published its joint report with the Scottish Law Commission, outlining recommendations for a new system to govern surrogacy, The UK government responded in April 2025, stating it will ‘consider this issue in the future.’

In 2023, Alex Greenwich began his campaign for an LGBTQI+ ‘Equality Bill in NSW.’ Some of it was passed. This allowed not only falsification of official records to replace ‘sex’ with ‘gender identity’ but also commercial transactions for surrogacy arrangements with women overseas. Although it has been illegal in the past, there have been no prosecutions ‘despite  overseas commercial transactions having been carried out.

In December 2024, the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) announced it would review Australia’s surrogacy laws and report to the government by the end of July 2025. CoAL and a range of other women’s organisations made submissions to the ALRC in July, in both a joint submision with AAWAAA and individually (see CoAL’s submission below)

Below is a copy of CoAL’s submission to the Australian Law Reform Commission’s review that outlines our concerns.

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 Submission to the Australian Law Reform Commission on Surrogacy

11 July 2025

The Coalition of Activist Lesbians (CoAL) is writing this submission because of surrogacy’s negative effects on women, and on children born by surrogacy. We are also writing it, because gay men play a significant role in promoting surrogacy and in using the ‘services’ of women as egg donors and as carriers – i.e. as bearing a child through pregnancy and to birth. It is therefore important to have a voice speaking up about that and for which we cannot be accused of being homophobic. We work with organisations that include gay men.

We support the words of Julie Bindel and Gary Powell who write:

We are a lesbian and a gay man who have been involved for many years in the struggle for gay and lesbian equality and for broader human rights issues. We both unequivocally oppose all forms of surrogacy as unethical; as legally, medically and psychologically dangerous; and as an abusive commodification of women and of babies that also carries significant and barely-reported health risks for the women and babies involved (Bindel and Powell, 2018).

Under Australian law it is not allowable for a person to sell themselves into slavery, and yet the practice of surrogacy shares many of the same features of slavery. At the centre of the surrogacy industry is a system of classism, racism, ableism and misogyny.

Class

Class is one of the most visible features of surrogacy. We see film stars (Nicole Kidman), pop stars (John Elton) exercising and displaying their wealth and power by obtaining a child by surrogacy.

Racism

Less visible but a major issue of power within surrogacy, racism plays out wherever poor women become ‘surrogates’ for white or western women and men.

At a clinic in Anand in northern India, women give birth to Western children. White women’s eggs are inseminated with white men’s sperm, and the embryo is implanted in the wombs of Indian women. The children will show no traces of the women who bore them. They will neither bear her name nor get to know her. After giving birth to the children, the Indian women surrender them (Ekis Ekman, 2013, p. 125).

Ukraine has become a mecca for surrogacy, despite the war with Russia. In the book Broken Bonds: Surrogate Mothers Speak Out women who have been surrogates in Romania, Russia, Georgia and Hungary have written about their experiences (Lahl et al, pp. 25-26; pp. 43-46; pp. 71-74; pp. 107-110; pp. 117-120). This is not the way to contribute to an equitable society in Australia. In the US it is African American and Hispanic women who are frequently used by the surrogacy industry and if white women are, they are poor white women (Lahl et al, pp. 121-126).

Ableism

In Australia, in 2014, we heard a great deal about the case of Baby Gammy, a child born with Down Syndrome. The philosophy of eugenics plays a major part in the surrogacy industry. Any embryo, foetus or child perceived as ‘less than perfect’ (Place, 2019; Hawthorne 2020) can be eliminated. Whenever we hear of acts such as ethnic cleansing, and mass rape it is generally regarded negatively. But the erasure of a future person with a disability is not seen that way by many. Surrogacy enables the intending parent(s) to specify the genetic characteristics of the child and that the child should not be born with a disability. Foetal reduction will be carried out on women whose pregnancies suggest a possible disability. In the case of Baby Gammy, the birth mother was literally left ‘holding the baby’.

Misogyny

Surrogacy could not exist if women were not reduced to ‘breeders’. Renate Klein in her book Surrogacy: A Human Rights Violation (2017) writes at length about the inherent misogyny in the surrogacy industry. Her view is reinforced by the contributors to the international anthology Towards the Abolition of Surrogate Motherhood (2021) with contributors from a dozen countries.

These writers highlight the negative effects on the more than one woman involved in the process: the birth mother – the surrogate – the egg donor and the new mother. Furthermore, the child born of surrogacy may ask later in life why s/he was a bought baby and who gave birth to her/him?

Rights

Whose rights are paramount? There are many competing rights at issue. But it is clear from the parameters of the Commission that, in the main, the rights of the procuring parents are being presented as more important than the rights and potential injuries to the birth mother, potential donor and the resulting child. Are the rights of men more important that the rights of women or children? As Renate Klein points out the surrogacy industry violates Article 7 and Article 35 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (Klein 2017, pp. 100-101).

Spanish writer, Raul Solis (2017 cited in Klein, 2017, pp. 153) coins the word ‘gaypitalismo’ to express his concern that gay men are swapping ‘being oppressed’ with becoming the oppressor after years of support from lesbians and heterosexual feminists in their battles against criminalised homosexuality and their life and death battle with AIDS We note with concern that th is year’s NSW ‘Equality Bill, originally instigated by Alex Greenwich, a gay MP who does not consult with feminist lesbians, included a section that weakens previous NSW restrictions on commercial surrogacy.

CoAL’s conclusion

The ALRC’s call for submissions is important. But the way it is framed ignores many of the arguments that have been made around the world. Such debate is critical in framing policies that take account of the harms that can result from making it easier for the surrogacy industry to grow in Australia. CoAL stands for supporting the rights of those subjected to classism, racism, ableism and misogyny ahead of those who have more resources and options than individuals and groups they are oppressing through their consumerism of bodies. As we argue above, surrogacy – altruistic, compensated and commercial – should be abolished in Australia.

References

Bindel, Julie and Gary Powell. 2018. ‘Gay Rights and Surrogacy Wrongs: Say “No” to Wombs-for-Rent” ‘. Stop Surrogacy Now.

Devillers, Marie-Josèphe and Ana-Luana Stoicea-Deram (eds.) 2021. Towards the Abolition of Surrogate Motherhood. Mission Beach: Spinifex Press.

Ekis Ekman, Kajsa. 2013. Being and Being Bought: Prostitution, Surrogacy and the Split Self. North Melbourne: Spinifex Press.

Hawthorne, Susan. 2020. Vortex: The Crisis of Patriarchy. Mission Beach: Spinifex Press. pp. 37-56.

Klein, Renate. 2017. Surrogacy: A Human Rights Violation. Mission Beach: Spinifex Press.

Lahl, Jennifer, Melinda Tankard Reist and Renate Klein (eds.) 2019. Broken Bonds: Surrogate Mothers Speak Out. Mission Beach: Spinifex Press.

Place, Fiona. 2019. Portrait of the Artist’s Mother: Dignity, creativity and disability. Mission Beach: Spinifex Press.

Solis, Raul. (25 March 2017). ‘Los Vientres de Alquilar: La cara mas brutal del “Gaypitalismo”‘. Paralelo 36 Andalucia; https://www.paralelo36andalucia.com/los-vientres-de-alquiler-la-cara-mas-brutal-del-gaycapitalismo/

Dr Susan Hawthorne,
Convenor.Coalition of Activist Lesbians

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Reading List (incomplete)

Dempsey, Deborah (2003) ‘Lesbians’ right to choose, children’s right to know, Sperm wars: the rights and wrongs of reproduction, ABC Books, Sydney.

Rensenbrink, Greta (2010),   ‘Parthenogenesis and Lesbian Separatism: Regenerating Women’s Community through Virgin Birth in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s.’ Journal of the History of Sexuality 19, no. 2: 29.

Wikler, Daniel & Wikler, Norma J (1991), ‘Turkey-baster Babies: The  Demedicalization
of Artificial Insemination,’ The Milbank Quarterly, Vol. 69, No. 1.