Hi Rulers! Before we get into it, I wanted to say a quick goodbye to former Women Rule co-authors Gigi Ewing and Dana Nickel. You have both done incredible work for this newsletter and I’m so excited to watch you thrive in your future endeavors! I’ll stop there to prevent myself from getting emotional. Now, let’s get to it: Assisted reproduction is having a moment in U.S. politics. On Feb. 18, President Donald Trump issued an executive order requesting policy recommendations on lowering costs to in vitro fertilization and making it more accessible. But federal protections for IVF remain in limbo. IVF was propelled into the political limelight last year when an Alabama Supreme Court ruling granted frozen embryos legal personhood. The state later ruled to protect IVF providers. The Alabama ruling was yet another example of how Roe v. Wade’s fall has complicated the legal landscape when it comes to fertility care. And though IVF is highly favored — even among anti-abortion advocates — its future is undetermined. For Ginanne Brownell, a London-based American journalist, assisted reproduction started as a personal journey but soon grew into something bigger. Originally from Michigan, Brownell’s yearslong journey with surrogacy and IVF led her to the advocacy space. Brownell now has twins through surrogacy — a boy and a girl — who recently turned 7. She joined the Michigan Fertility Alliance, a grassroots organization in her home state focused on infertility issues. Brownell also helped write and pass the Michigan Family Protection Act, which decriminalizes surrogacy in the state and allows for compensated surrogacy. The law goes into effect April 1. In her new book, Elusive Mommyhood: An Investigative Reporter's Personal Journey into IVF and Surrogacy, Brownell explores the common misconceptions surrounding surrogacy and IVF and the practices’ complicated history in the U.S. and abroad. A mix of personal anecdotes and reporting, the book aims to serve as a “tell-all” on assisted reproduction, something she wishes existed before undergoing the process herself. Women Rule spoke with Brownell about her new book, released Thursday, and her work as an assisted reproduction advocate. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Looking back on your personal experiences with surrogacy and IVF, coupled with the research that you did for this book, what do you wish you had known before starting your journey with assisted reproduction? I wish that I would have known that the statistics or the numbers that they tell you about when it comes to fertility, health care, especially IVF; you need to look behind the numbers. Because, you look at a clinic for example, and they'll say 85 percent of our babies are IVF born babies. And then you realize that's 85 percent of pregnancies that actually worked. I kind of thought going into it, “Okay, if I can't get pregnant naturally, then we'll do IVF,” and that is not always going to be a solution that works. And I wish that I would have known that going into it, because I think that would have saved me a lot of heartache. So I wish that I would have had something like this [book] to actually read, to kind of go like, okay, this isn't a guarantee. You write about the ethical dilemmas surrounding surrogacy, specifically including how much agency surrogates have, and the debate over whether surrogacy equates to the “sale of children.” How do you think the ethical dilemmas surrounding surrogacy have impacted the ability to initiate related policy in the U.S.? I think it's good that we're talking specifically about the U.S. In the U.S., the problem is that agencies are not licensed. There are organizations that do have ethical guidelines, [American Society for Reproductive Medicine] has ethical guidelines, Center for Reproductive Rights has ethical guidelines for surrogacy globally. What we need to have are better laws. And that was why, when we were working on our bill in Michigan, we were very keen to make sure that it was going to be legislation that was the best possible legislation. Because, Michigan, as you know, it kind of was this legislation that was built to stop one person, and then it just kind of never got updated. And I think the same is true for different states. If they do have laws that are created, assisted reproduction changes so quickly. And so it's like, how do you keep the law up with technology? If you're looking at doing surrogacy, I think it's really important to feel like you're working with a legitimate agency. It's really important that you know your surrogate has agency. I mean, my surrogate is Julie. She has an MBA, and she runs a housing charity and had thought about doing surrogacy for five years. And I think that was one of the things that drew me to her, was I thought, “Here's somebody who's really thought a lot about this.” And I think some people, you know, go into it so desperate to have kids that they're like, “Let's just do this.” And they don't think about the implications of like, not only you as intended parents, but your surrogate. … I think that my whole thing is that I think it's so important that you build that relationship with that person. And you may not end up best friends, but you need to feel like you know you're treating them with the respect that they deserve, just as they are treating you the same. I think some of the ethical dilemmas are in terms of stereotypes that there are about surrogacy. So when you say surrogacy, people think that they know what it means, but they actually don't. People look at Bollywood superstars, or they look at Silicon Valley billionaires, and they think, “Oh, okay, that's who does surrogacy.” Or they look at problems [with surrogacy] that have gone wrong in places like Thailand and India. And the stereotypes in films and in books. Surrogacy needs a new marketing campaign manager. For example, in the U.S., there was this idea that, and that's why second wave feminists were sort of against surrogacy, was this idea that it was going to be Black and brown women who are poor, who are being taken advantage of. And at the end of the day, we find out that in the U.S., the majority of women who are surrogates are middle class, have some level of tertiary education, have jobs like teachers and doulas. So I think that those ethical conversations oftentimes are [where] people kind of go like, “Oh my God, look what happened in Cambodia.” And then they kind of equate it with what happened here. As you talked about in the book, that significantly impacts the ability to create any form of international law surrounding surrogates. Unfortunately, because some countries don't recognize surrogacy, their children are left stateless, and the problem that I'm concerned about is in the U.S. I mean, look, this 14th Amendment thing [with Trump’s proposal to do away with birthright citizenship], hopefully it's going to fly out the window. Potentially if you're a couple from Germany, and you work with a surrogate in California, and your child is born… They don't have U.S. citizenship, and if they decide to do this with the 14th Amendment, you're going to create a child who's stateless because Germany doesn't recognize surrogacy if the U.S. isn't going to give them citizenship on birth. You’re potentially going to make [children] stateless. That really frightens me. Do you think the commercialization of surrogacy has helped or hindered its perception? I never use the term commercialization, because that's a term that the anti-surrogacy people have kind of brought into the argument. So I think you have compensated surrogacy; you have not compensated surrogacy. And when we worked on our bill, it was very important that we had compensation in our bill. And we got a lot of fight back from some people on that, but our argument was that if a woman or a person who wants to go through a surrogacy, why shouldn't they [be compensated] if they want to? And everybody else in the process gets compensation, the lawyers, the judges, the doctors, the nurses, the doulas, everybody else. So why shouldn't the person that's actually doing the hard work also be compensated? Where do you think surrogacy currently stands in the reproductive rights policy sphere? Surrogacy is such a small percentage of fertility health care. I'm very curious, for example, because you have two people in the administration that I know of who have chosen to do surrogacy. [Treasury Secretary Scott] Bessent and Elon Musk. How do they justify it? And Trump has said we're going to go back to the states on these issues. And so one of the things that Michigan Fertility Alliance and a couple other grassroots organizations in different states last week announced is that we're forming a new coalition called State Strong, advancing family building across the United States. And we're working as a resource for grassroots organizations that are working on fertility health care. Because I think that's where these fights are going to be, are on the state level, because with surrogacy, it is both family law and contract law, which are handled by the states. I don't think we'll ever have a federal policy on surrogacy. And if you create fetal personhood laws, then that's also going to play really directly into not only IVF, but obviously surrogacy, because you need IVF for surrogacy, and that is where I think a lot of people in this space are really worried. The Michigan Protection Act goes into effect on April 1. How are you feeling? I am feeling really proud. I feel like of all the things that I've done in my life, aside from raising my children, who are now seven, the MFPA is the thing that I'm most proud about. I've been a journalist for 30 years, and I've written stuff about things that I think are really important. And I never would have thought that I would have ended up doing advocacy. Right now, it feels good, but we can't rest on our laurels, and we’ve got to keep our eyes open. Because you just never know what's coming down the river.
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