Babies Without Borders: Human Rights, International Commercial Surrogacy and the Regulation of Reproduction

Speaker: Yasmine Ergas, Director, Gender and Public Policy Specialization, SIPA; Associate Director, Institute for the Study of Human Rights, Columbia University. 

When :  Wednesday, April 16th
              12:15pm - 1:15pm
Where : Case Lounge, Room 701
              Jerome Greene Hall
              435 W. 116th St.

Non-pizza lunch will be served
RSVP not required, but encouraged - email cgao@law.columbia.edu

Who is a mother? How should gestation be understood? In commercial surrogacy are women selling their services as gestators or are they selling the end-products of the gestation, i.e. children? And, when many states are involved, who can decide and on what basis? These questions have become increasingly urgent as conflicts among legal systems have placed children born as a result of international commercial surrogacy arrangements at risk of being “marooned stateless and parentless.” Is an international agreement possible? And, how might it be guided by international human rights law?

For more information, contact the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at 212-854-0167 or gender_sexuality_law@columbia.edu