What is SEEDS? What do they do?
You’ve heard the adage that it takes a village to raise a child. It also takes a village to grow one when it comes to surrogacy! We recommend using an agency to help manage your surrogacy journey. (Okay, we’re a surrogacy agency, but members of our team would say that regardless!) In addition to matching intended parents and gestational carriers and helping them navigate their journey, we at Bright Futures Families are members of other organizations that provide guidance and support with ethical assisted reproduction and the standards that should be upheld by all parties.
The Society for Ethics in Egg Donation and Surrogacy (SEEDS) is a nonprofit organization founded by a group of egg donation and surrogacy agencies, whose purpose is to define and promote ethical behavior by all parties involved in third-party reproduction.
From the SEEDS website: “As an organization based in ethics, SEEDS has created a set of standards and guidelines for agencies which must be met by its members. By maintaining and encouraging these standards to be met by agencies, SEEDS hopes to build your trust and confidence in choosing your family-building team. SEEDS members strive to meet or exceed these standards in order to ensure your journey is rooted in ethics.”
SEEDS values ethics, fairness, transparency, excellence, education, support, guidance, integrity, honesty, and professionalism. Their standards address informed consent, legal considerations, financial transparency, and the well-being of all parties involved. As SEEDS members, the Bright Futures Families team follows their standards and strives to provide the highest quality of service to intended parents and surrogates.
One of these standards for agencies and professionals includes educational participation for each member organization. This ensures that members are given the most up-to-date information and helps reaffirm ethical practices. Other standards for agencies address topics such as being licensed in accordance with state law; non-discriminatory practices; accurate representation to prevent coercion, fraud, or unethical conduct; referring clients to appropriate professionals for topics such as legal, tax, medical, and psychological; conflicts of interest; confidentiality; ethical advertising for recruiting donors and surrogates; surrogacy compensation; embryo donation; adequacy of service agreements; screening requirements of surrogates, donors, and intended parents; and so much more! If interested, read the full SEEDS Standards document here!
Their website has information for every stakeholder in the process – intended parents, surrogates, and professionals. You can also find articles written by the SEEDS team and view a directory of SEEDS members.
In addition to SEEDS, there are many other organizations and companies that work with surrogacy journeys. Find more on our resource page.