He was skeptical of fertility clinics that supposedly import altruistic donor eggs to comply with Australian laws, and said it could be “just a little bit of magic with the paperwork”.

As of March 2020, Australian citizens and permanent residents have been prohibited from leaving Australia without a travel exemption from the Australian Border Force. An ABF spokesman said 41,487 compassionate exemptions had been granted as of May 31, but there were no statistics on the detailed reasons.

The spokesman said that people wishing to travel overseas for surrogacy or adoption are required to provide evidence, while requests to travel abroad to begin IVF treatment are generally not approved.

The Sydney woman who put up posters to help find a selfless egg donorRecognition:Janie Barrett

Cherie, 49, from Northern Queensland, who only wanted to use her first name, traveled to Greece last August for IVF egg donation and gave birth to a daughter, a sister of her toddler, last month.

“Probably the hardest part was just going through quarantine afterwards, in a small room with no windows, no fresh air, with a 15-month-old child and really bad food,” said Cherie.

Eleanor, 50, from the Victoria area, who only wanted to give her first name, also traveled to Greece last year, spent $ 30,000 on treatment, shipped her husband’s semen, and bought business-class airfares to help her return could guarantee, and the mandatory quarantine.

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She found out that IVF treatment had failed during quarantine.

Pru Hein, 38, of Frankston, Melbourne, found that she was sterile after her appendix burst and had severe peritonitis at the age of 33. She spent five years on a waiting list for donor eggs and her name just came up.

She has since traveled to South Africa for fertility treatment and now has a two-year-old son who was conceived with an egg cell and her husband’s sperm. She wants to get the embryos, but will wait until after the pandemic.

“I’m a little afraid to leave while COVID is rampant over there, so I’m holding back,” said Ms. Hein. “It’s not the safest place in the world either – last time I was with my partner and felt safe, but I don’t know if I want to go alone.”

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Ms. Hein said she would prefer her children to have the option to contact their birth mother when they are older, but if anonymity is more convenient for donors, this should be an option.

Sarah Dingle, a donor-conceived woman and author of Brave New Humans, described the idea of ​​a charity to help women organize travel exemptions, essentially to circumvent Australian law, as “awful”.

Dingle said children have a right to know their birth parents and she also has grave concerns about the well-being of women involved in the “naturally exploitative” world of commercial egg donation and surrogacy.

“If it’s not right to pay an 18-year-old in Australia for her eggs, we shouldn’t pay an 18-year-old in Ukraine,” said Dingle.

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