INFERTILE COUPLES To make a baby, pay visit to Calif.

Good fertility clinics make the state attractive to those who want to get pregnant.
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
There have always been good reasons to visit California: the beaches, the giant trees, Hollywood, the Golden Gate.
Now, add making babies to the list.
Infertile couples -- as well as gay and lesbian couples -- from countries that restrict the use of reproductive technologies are coming to the Golden State to get pregnant.
California's abundance of good fertility clinics and laissez-faire attitude toward the technology have made it a major destination for so-called reproductive tourists, who are using the Internet to shop for clinics that offer treatments prohibited in their own countries.
"We're like the Disneyland of the fertility world -- or the 'Egg-o-land, ' if you will," said Fay Johnson, program coordinator of the Center for Surrogate Parenting in Los Angeles County, the oldest and largest surrogacy agency in the world. "You come here for the full ride."
The center specializes in finding women who are paid to carry pregnancies for other couples and give birth to their babies. Johnson estimates that about one-third of her clients -- women who are unable to become pregnant themselves, or gay men -- come from overseas. "Many come here thinking the only place they can do this is California," she said.
A handful of agencies
The numbers aren't huge -- maybe a few thousand a year -- but they are large enough that some clinics and agencies in California are positioning themselves to take advantage of the growing market niche:
U Zouves Fertility Center near San Francisco International Airport advertises package deals that include reduced rates at local hotels and transportation to and from the clinic during treatment. The proportion of overseas or out-of-state patients has grown steadily, now accounting for 30 percent of its business.
U Pacific Fertility Center in Los Angeles -- which was responsible for getting a 62-year-old French woman pregnant using donor eggs, creating a stir in that country in 2001 -- can barely keep up with its growing demand from patients in France, England, Spain and Australia, says its founder, Dr. Vicken Sahakian.
U Egg donor agencies, such as Fertility Futures International and Egg Donation Inc., run Web sites focused explicitly on an international clientele -- complete with galleries of attractive young women from a variety of ethnic and racial backgrounds who serve as donors.
"Not only are some of the major clinics attracting significant overseas clientele, but they are marketing overseas as well," said Debora Spar, a Harvard Business School professor who is studying the fertility industry. "It makes perfect sense from a business perspective."
Reproductive tourism is a variation on the age-old practice of medical tourism, in which people travel to other countries for health care, whether because the costs at home are too high, the quality too poor or the treatments are just not available where they live.
Infertility is a growing problem in many industrialized countries, as more women delay having children.
But access to fertility treatments varies greatly from country to country. A few, such as Costa Rica, ban in vitro fertilization altogether. Most others impose some limitation. l arrange for surrogate mothers.