It's been almost seven years since Australia legalised gay marriage. But stark inequalities remain when it comes to starting a family. In Western Australia, it is illegal for same-sex couples and single men to access surrogacy, leading many to travel overseas and interstate in the pursuit of parenthood.
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00:00And what's in my tummy?
00:04Baby baby.
00:06Tasmanian mother of six, Jess O'Dwyer,
00:09is having yet another baby.
00:11But this one's not hers.
00:14Whose baby is it, Brooklyn?
00:16Uncle Joel's.
00:18Eighteen months ago, Jess saw a Facebook post
00:21from a single gay man desperate to be a dad.
00:24That's how I was introduced to Jess and Ryan.
00:27Joel had a few frozen embryos,
00:29made via IVF with donated eggs from a childhood friend.
00:33But he needed a surrogate.
00:35In this case, like, Joel doesn't have the oven,
00:37but he's got the ingredients.
00:39He's mixed it all together.
00:41I've got an oven I'm not using.
00:43Commercial surrogacy is illegal in Australia.
00:46It has to be altruistic.
00:48Yeah, just like helping people, so that's my main thing.
00:51Eventually, her husband and kids came around to the idea.
00:55Yeah, it was a little bit odd, but, you know,
00:57it was, like, crazy that she's doing that, like,
00:59good honour kind of thing, like, commendable.
01:01Up until January last year,
01:03Joel had been living and working as a schoolteacher
01:06in WA's remote Pilbara region for more than a decade.
01:10But WA is the only state in Australia
01:13where same-sex couples and single men cannot access surrogacy.
01:18So he moved back to his home state of Tasmania.
01:21It's unfair.
01:23There's a lot of beautiful people out there
01:25who are deserving of families,
01:27and it's a shame that they're losing people who love Western Australia
01:30to different states just so they can start a family.
01:33In 2018, the WA government commissioned Sonia Allen
01:37to review the state's surrogacy laws.
01:39Western Australian laws have certainly been discussed
01:43as being discriminatory
01:45and potentially contrary to the Commonwealth sex discrimination laws.
01:50The government promised change.
01:52Well, look, I think we need to get on with this.
01:54I mean, there's a whole range of people in our community
01:57that are, at this stage, barred.
02:00She's shocked it hasn't happened yet.
02:02To be honest, I'm extremely disappointed.
02:05The WA health minister declined an interview,
02:08but in a statement said the government remains committed to these changes
02:12and will introduce a bill as soon as possible.
02:15But with only a handful of sitting weeks left in the parliament,
02:18it's now clear the government won't pass
02:20its promised surrogacy reforms before the next state election.
02:24I think it's a lack of courage.
02:26One of Australia's leading surrogacy lawyers says
02:29WA's laws are pushing more people overseas, which can be risky.
02:34Since 2008, fewer than 30 children have been born via surrogates in WA,
02:40while in the same period,
02:42hundreds of WA parents travelled overseas
02:45to access foreign surrogacy services.
02:48That's deeply worrying.
02:50We have some of the best IVF clinics in the world,
02:53and we should be proud of who we are
02:55and enable everyone to be able to do it here
02:57rather than having to go overseas.
02:59Back in Tassie, Joel is preparing for his son's arrival in March.
03:03It's a debt I could never repay.
03:05It's something that I could never put into words,
03:07my appreciation and respect that I have for Jess and for Ryan
03:10for allowing me to experience this miracle.