Stop Surrogacy Now UK

[NonnyMouse1337]

There is a new website being set up to campaign against surrogacy in the UK.

stopsurrogacynow.wordpress.com/

Lots of useful information in the Resources section and some straightforward Actions one can take.

P.S. to clarify this isn't my site - thought it deserved its own thread to promote it.

[Delphinium20]

Bump!!

[RabbitOfCaerbannog]

Thanks Nonny, interesting that it's two men. Do you know any more about them?

[NonnyMouse1337]

@RabbitOfCaerbannog

Thanks Nonny, interesting that it's two men. Do you know any more about them?

Two men? Sorry I don't understand what you mean. The site is being run by women.

[RabbitOfCaerbannog]

It's my phone - it's put wo men on separate lines so I skim read it as men! Sorry.

[NonnyMouse1337]

Ah! Understood. No problem.

Definitely only women running the website and campaign.

[Procrastinator3]

Looks like a good website to follow.

[FannyCann]

Love the logo. And some links to some very interesting looking documentaries. Thanks OP.

This is going to be a massively important fight as the year goes on, with the Law Commission due to present their proposals to parliament early 2022. There already seems to be a concerted propaganda campaign going on, with fluffy stories about the joys of obtaining a baby though surrogacy appearing in the newspapers nearly every week.

[Wateruniform]

Are they against altruistic surrogacy, or campaigning against the proposed changes to the law and a move towards commercial surrogacy? I'm not sure that all types of surrogacy, always, are as heinous as the most harsh transactional exploitative kind.

[StillFemale]

@Wateruniform

Are they against altruistic surrogacy, or campaigning against the proposed changes to the law and a move towards commercial surrogacy? I'm not sure that all types of surrogacy, always, are as heinous as the most harsh transactional exploitative kind.

I used to be ok with altruistic, then it looked like a family member might need a kidney transplant and I saw the family pressure for me to offer to be a donor start up and realised how hard it is to push back. However with organs potential donors have the option of confidentially backing out and everyone is told they aren’t compatible. That isn’t an option with surrogacy

[FannyCann]

The problem with so called altruistic surrogacy is that the only person who is expected to be altruistic is the surrogate mother. I have attached a couple of slides from a webinar I watched. Numerous side players make money off the back of surrogacy. Big Pharma $$$$, lawyers, IVF clinics and the staff that work in them, banks that offer loans to fund it, even hotels when people travel for treatment.
Furthermore for surrogate mothers in the U.K., who are meant to be paid no more than "reasonable" expenses. Think of the MP's expenses scandal. Basically any living expense for the period of the pregnancy, plus the period before whilst fertility treatment is taking place, will pass as an expense. This is why the average payment is the U.K. is around £15K. Anyone here spend that on being pregnant? Unless you have a very expensive designer wardrobe the answer will be No.

I could never condone commercial surrogacy, but an arrangement where everyone else makes money but the woman who goes through fertility I treatment, nine months of pregnancy and childbirth before giving the baby away hardly seems fair either. In fact the Law commissioners noted this and commented it could be "a form of exploitation".

[OhHolyJesus]

I've just started reading Broken Bonds which is a collection of stories from surrogate mothers.

The first is from a 48yo Canadian mother of 4 who joined an online group and agreed to have a surrogate pregnancy for two men she only ever spoke to on the phone. They flew her to Mexico for sex-selection implantation of two embryos (which turned out to be 3, they put an extra one in by mistake? She was blamed for this third triplet). Upon arriving in Mexico she met the two men for the first time. They then decided against sex-selection (long way to go to change your mind), she was implanted and flown home so only spent one whole day in Mexico.

The two men didn't express joy at her positive test or the news at there being 3 babies, attend any scans or appointments with her, go to the hospital when she was in a medically induced coma - but they did call the Dr 4 days before she was due a C section (to deliver 3 tiny, premature triplet girls) to make it clear that they were the parents.

She was paid $20k. This is an 'altruistic' surrogacy model as Canada doesn't allow commercial surrogacy.

That was the first chapter.

[OhHolyJesus]

This website is great! So glad to see this, need to have a proper look later but I also love the logo - putting the unborn baby front and centre and with the umbilical cord as the price tag. Says it all really.

Thanks for sharing OP!