Foreign Correspondent: July 8

Tonight on Foreign Correspondent North America Correspondent Jane Cowan looks into the booming international surrogacy business, in Cancun, Mexico and Los Angeles.

Surrogacy entrepreneur Rudy Rupak considers himself something of a Hollywood-style dream-maker in the commercial baby-making business.

“I’ve got to say I’m the uncle to about 750 kids round the globe and it’s a great feeling. To grow a company that brings joy to people’s lives is almost as close to being Walt Disney as I’ll ever get”. Rudy Rupak, Planet Hospital

But according to those stung by his unscrupulous surrogacy operation Planet Hospital – operating in Cancun, Mexico – Rupak’s more in the mould of Bernie Madoff.

“Planet Hospital was run like a ponzi scheme. [With] Rupak it’s stall, it’s stall, stall, stall. He just puts you off and puts you off and puts you off.” Catherine Moscarello, former employee and client, Planet Hospital

For many couples, surrogacy is their last chance at parenthood. They’ve already faced the devastating discovery that conventional conception isn’t happening or an orthodox pregnancy isn’t possible. Often they then toil through round after round of IVF and fail time after time, before deciding to roll the dice one last time and settle on surrogacy.

Because commercial surrogacy is illegal in many countries, they find themselves flying to a foreign country, engaging a surrogacy service, sometimes paying tens of thousands of dollars and hoping a surrogate will become pregnant and carry to term and they’ll be presented with a healthy, bouncing baby.

San Francisco-based Massimo di Lucia and his partner cautiously approached Planet Hospital when they were weighing up their surrogacy options. Gay couples are now denied access to other surrogacy centres like India and options in the US were too expensive.

Massimo asked all the right questions, inspected the Cancun facilities, met with surrogates and became convinced Planet Hospital would deliver.

Surrogate Adriana Rincon left her husband and daughter behind in Colombia to join Planet Hospital as a surrogate. When she was paired with an Argentinean client she was happy she could help and thrilled by the prospect of a $13,000+ pay day.

Months later, Adriana was destitute, looking for work in Mexico City after miscarrying twins. Massimo had spent thousands of dollars and his remaining embryos remain locked in a Cancun freezer because the IVF clinic originally commissioned by Planet Hospital is now chasing the surrogacy company and its founder for unpaid bills.

And they weren’t alone.

International commercial surrogacy is booming in places where regulatory frameworks are rickety and consumer protections are next to non-existent.

The perfect places for predatory operators.

Earlier this year, Foreign Correspondent explored the perils and pitfalls of India’s booming commercial surrogacy industry through the eyes of Australian couples desperate to start or grow their families.

In this next chapter of our investigation, North America correspondent Jane Cowan exposes the shoddy, devastating practices of an unscrupulous operation and tracks Planet Hospital’s top honcho Rudy Rupak all the way to his upmarket Los Angeles home to put hard questions demanding answers.

Tuesday, 8 July at 8pm on ABC1.