The high cost of surrogacy, an increasingly popular option for couples looking to expand their families biologically, has led some prospective same-sex parents to turn to crowdfunding.
Kyle and Jack Maurelli, a gay couple living in New York state, began a GoFundMe campaign in July after their insurance company told them they didn’t qualify for the infertility coverage necessary to cover the cost of an embryo transplant. Having a baby through surrogacy can cost up to $250,000, according to Family Equality, a nonprofit that advocates for LGBTQ families.
“We successfully created embryos, however, our path to parenthood has been fraught with financial challenges due to the exorbitant expenses associated with fertility treatments like surrogacy and in vitro fertilization (IVF),” the Maurellis, who married in 2019, wrote on their GoFundMe page. “Despite both of us working tirelessly, the overwhelming burden of these costs totaling approximately 180K and climbing is proving to be an insurmountable obstacle.”
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The couple’s insurance company, Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, told NBC News NOW that it “covers fertility services as mandated by New York state law.” On the state’s website, infertility is defined, in part, as “the incapacity to impregnate another person or to conceive, due to the failure to establish a clinical pregnancy after 12 months of regular, unprotected sexual intercourse or therapeutic donor insemination, or after six months of regular unprotected sexual intercourse or therapeutic donor insemination for an individual who can conceive at 35 years of age or older.” This would not apply to male same-sex couples.
“It just doesn’t feel fair; it feels discriminatory,” Jack Maurelli said of infertility definitions like the one used by New York state.
He added, “I feel like there’s a stigma that two men can’t raise a child together or that men are incapable of raising children on their own, and it’s something we want to stop.”
Kyle Maurelli noted that if he were in a heterosexual marriage, he and his spouse could get up to $100,000 worth of fertility treatments through his health insurer.
When asked about the couple’s interactions with Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, Kyle Maurelli said, “They have said things like, ‘You’re not infertile and your husband’s not infertile, so the two of you can naturally reproduce with females that are fertile.’”
The Maurellis, who said they’ve already spent about $65,000 on fertility costs, said they expect surrogacy to cost another $180,000. They said they’ve taken out loans against their home and have gotten second jobs to help with the cost. So far, the men have raised about $5,000 of their $50,000 fundraising goal on GoFundMe.
Currently, 20 states besides New York, plus Washington, D.C., have laws requiring coverage for infertility, according to Resolve: The National Infertility Association, and at least 15 of those laws mandate coverage for in vitro fertilization.
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