OR gay US businessman Brad Fister, experiencing the joy of fatherhood meant flying half way around the world to India where he first held his baby daughter, born to a woman who had signed away any right to her child.
Commercial surrogacy is a booming industry in India, and in recent years the ranks of childless foreign couples have been swelled by gay partners looking for a low-cost, legally-friendly path to parenthood.
In the United States, laws governing adoption and surrogacy vary from state to state, while in India the service is legal, loosely regulated and - so far at least - non-discriminatory on grounds of sexual orientation.
For Mr Fister and his partner Michael Griebe, a crucial attraction is that surrogate mothers in India are generally willing to renounce any legal claim to the child.
'We decided to have a baby a year and a half ago but the problem in the United States is mothers often do not relinquish the rights to the child,' Mr Fister told AFP before leaving the southern city of Hyderabad with his baby daughter last month. 'It was all so simple here and if we decide to have another we would return,' he said.
A DNA match had secured a US passport for the child, who was born with Mr Fister's sperm using in vitro fertilisation (IVF). Mr Fister and Mr Griebe used a Chicago-based agency, Surrogacy Abroad, which specialises in finding surrogate mothers in India and has a growing number of gay couples on its client roster.
- Sitiemilia , Singapore.
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