Friends surrogacy

I have said how.

No you haven’t. In fact in the link you’ve provided, regarding payment it says this:

It is a common misconception that it is illegal for parents to pay a UK surrogate more than her reasonable expenses. In fact, there is no offence restricting payments to surrogates in UK law. The issue is simply a consideration for the family court, which must authorise payments of more than reasonable expenses before it can make a parental order transferring parenthood to the intended parent/s.
There is no definition of reasonable expenses (nor a fixed amount as to what is allowed), so the court must decide what is reasonable in each case and in practice often takes quite a relaxed approach. There is also now a history of the High Court retrospectively authorising payments of more than expenses in international surrogacy cases.

Payments can be made, there is nothing about who checks, or how, or when, and if the Court does check, it often approves the money anyway.

So according to your link, the UK has a free payment form of surrogacy. And your idea of good regulation is this? Money changing hands retrospectively approved by the Court if anyone bothers to check?

When people make decisions that cause serious (self) harm we are right to worry about exploitation.

Why is self-harm the only prerequisite to worrying about exploitation?

We place restrictions on bodily autonomy when people make decisions to self harm in serious ways

People can and do live long healthy lives with one kidney. And as I said, we stop people making informed decisions to donate a kidney for money, even though it’s no more a form of self harm than having a baby for someone, because it opens up the market for more vulnerable people to be exploited.

Don’t you see how this has happened with surrogacy? It didn’t start off with baby farms in Ukraine, did it? It started off with one person wanting to do a nice thing for someone else, and in the blink of an eye we have an international surrogacy “industry” with exploitation of women and babies produced (and abandoned) for money. The more widespread surrogacy becomes the more likely it is that bad things will happen.

Yes and I disagree with you

You disagree with me that men should be criminalised and discouraged for seeing women as bodies they can utilise for sex at their will if they have some money? And I’m the paternalistic one?!

But you can’t say how. I’ve given an example. Can you try and address that? How do we ensure that in the UK, the only money changing hands is expenses and that those expenses are adequate? This is what supposedly makes the UK better than other countries, the fact it’s not money being paid. But how? Just try explaining how you do this one thing ethically.

I have said how. You keep insisting there are issues around medical treatments in pregnancy, abortion and birth. I’ve explained how there aren’t, we apply the same principles to these (pregnancies via surrogacy) as we do to all pregnancies- We prioritise the bodily autonomy of the pregnant person.

I think it would be very unethical to enforce legal contracts with stipulations around abortion and birth (as is apparently done sometimes in the US).

I don’t think there is necessarily an issue with money going from IP to surrogate. In the UK the issue is regulated in a nuanced way - and I think the balance is correct:
https://www.ngalaw.co.uk/knowledge-centre/uk-surrogacy-law/

No one said anything about self-harm. It’s about exploitation

I understand your concerns are around exploitation , but when we make judgements around exploitation/ consent- harm comes into it. When people make decisions that cause serious (self) harm we are right to worry about exploitation.

You keep saying that it is inconsistent to say that we need to respect the bodily autonomy of surrogates, but then to argue for restrictions on other forms of “bodily autonomy” (eg selling organs), I’m explaining why this isn’t inconsistent. We place restrictions on bodily autonomy when people make decisions to self harm in serious ways (eg self starvation) as we worry about capacity to consent and exploitation (eg case in Germany).

I don’t believe in criminalising women, but I believe the punters should be criminalised

Yes and I disagree with you. I think your attitudes on both subjects are paternalistic, blunt and harmful to women and sexual and reproductive rights more broadly.

My post makes perfect sense.

I’m saying that it’s perfectly possible to legislate surrogacy in an ethical manner

But you can’t say how. I’ve given an example. Can you try and address that? How do we ensure that in the UK, the only money changing hands is expenses and that those expenses are adequate? This is what supposedly makes the UK better than other countries, the fact it’s not money being paid. But how? Just try explaining how you do this one thing ethically.

Do I think an adult woman , with ordinary levels of capacity, choosing to get pregnant should be considered a form of self harm?

No one said anything about self-harm. It’s about exploitation. Vulnerable women, doing it to survive, to pay their rent, feed their kids, getting out of debt. They have capacity. But they’re still vulnerable to exploitation.

I also don’t agree with criminalising sex work, fyi.

Figures. I don’t believe in criminalising women, but I believe the punters should be criminalised. Sex work is like worldwide surrogacy: the vast majority of women doing it are doing it out of lack of choice of anything else who would be much happier doing something else. The number of women who are genuinely happy sucking cocks for money is miniscule.

Do I think that surrogacy , as an Industry, needs to be regulated to protect some vulnerable women from exploitation? Yes.

But how?!

As an aside, you mentioned Germany: surrogacy is banned in all forms there. Like many countries, they couldn’t find an acceptable way to make it work. A country where it’s legal for men to pull over at motorway lay-bys to pay for sex with women in wooden shacks decided surrogacy was too much🤨.

I don’t understand most of what you are talking about in most of this post.

There is no issue with ensuring a surrogate has the ability to consent to an abortion. We assess capacity in the same way we do for all women accessing abortion, or any other medical treatment for that matter.

I’m not saying “things are better here in good old Blighty”, I’m saying that it’s perfectly possible to legislate surrogacy in an ethical manner , as we legislate many areas of health and reproduction, and the fact that it currently isn’t done perfectly in some countries is no argument for saying that surrogacy is always wrong, harmful and exploitative.

In terms of consent- I absolutely think that people should be allowed to consent to what they do with their own bodies, the question comes around establishing consent. When someone makes a decision that is profoundly harmful to their body we understandably worry about issues of capacity and whether or not they are being exploited (eg case in Germany where a man allegedly “consented” to being castrated , murdered and eaten by his lover). The law rightly intervenes in such cases to ensure protection of individuals from exploitation and self harm (eg cases of mental illness -such as anorexia).

Do I think an adult woman , with ordinary levels of capacity, choosing to get pregnant should be considered a form of self harm? No. I think this is harmful, anti feminist, and a restriction on reproductive rights. I also don’t agree with criminalising sex work, fyi.

Do I think that surrogacy , as an Industry, needs to be regulated to protect some vulnerable women from exploitation? Yes.

This is regulation though. And in my view a reasonable way to do it. It’s the way that we do lots of family law for good reason. Regulation just means there are rules and laws.

But regulation for surrogacy, even in the UK, barely touches the issues. Like the example I gave, how it’s supposed to be expenses only. Who is checking this? That’s just a basic fundamental element of surrogacy legislation in the UK and it’s completely unregulated and unenforceable.

I understand in the US there is contestation around whether abortion stipulations can be included in contracts, and many contracts do in practice, but the legality around these provisions is contested and variable. I absolutely think such provisions should not be enforceable. They aren’t in the UK.

But there are campaigns to make the UK like the US. So I’m assuming you’re against this. But these contested areas have arisen from the very idea that no protections should be put in place.

The same way you do for any pregnant person. How do you check a woman’s decision to terminate is her own and not her partner’s?

Exactly. How do you check? If you’re talking about a regulated industry then the responsibility falls on those creating the regulations. If you don’t think it can be done then how can surrogacy be allowed?

The decision ultimately lies with the pregnant woman because of the principle of bodily autonomy. So it should work with surrogacy.

As above. If it becomes an industrial standard that intended parents get no say, then you have to demonstrate how you intend to enforce that. Otherwise it’s not worth the legislative paper it’s written on.

I have no doubt there are countries all over the world with terrible laws around surrogacy, as there are with abortion etc., that doesn’t mean that all surrogacy is immoral and we should outlaw the practice in the UK.

Ok, so you acknowledge that surrogacy can be terrible, but not our surrogacy in good old Blighty, we are sooo much better at it. But you still haven’t explained how you’re going to solve all the challenges. And you still haven’t addressed the rights of the baby.

The right to make unadulterated choices about our bodies should be a fundamental principle. However, in law, we draw certain boundaries where there are questions as to whether someone has the capacity to consent.
When someone makes a decision that is ultimately harmful (eg euthanasia, suicide, self-starvation, etc) their capacity to consent comes into question.

Firstly, you acknowledge that women can’t just do anything to their bodies. Second, capacity to consent is not the only restriction to unadulterated choices about our bodies. I can fully understand the implications of selling a kidney for 50 grand, doesn’t mean I’m allowed to do it. We put restrictions in place because of the human trait of taking a mile when given an inch. If we allowed people with full capacity to sell kidneys, it’s only a matter of time before someone starts harvesting kidneys of vulnerable people to make money. This is why it’s banned. It’s the same in surrogacy.

It may be that there are perfectly willing and able women, 100% freely consenting, with non-controlling intended parents and a happy child with a happy life at the end of it. But inevitably because of human nature, bad humans will exploit it as FannyCann’s example demonstrates, and as a result banning it is the only solution.

You talk about “greater good”. The number of completely happy, genuinely altruistic surrogacy cases that occur with fantastic outcomes around the world is minuscule compared to the worldwide scale of exploitation and misery of poor women being exploited for it.

You are massively pathologising pregnancy. Pregnancy is an ordinary and perfectly healthy function of the female body, and has plenty of protective health benefits.

But when you take a normal healthy function of the human body and make it part of a financial transaction then the entirety of the risks need to be considered. Sex is a normal healthy function of the female body, but it doesn’t entitle men to buy it from women. You have to take into account all the pathology that can happen with a pregnancy because it’s being asked of someone to do it on behalf of someone else, not for their own benefit. If you’re going to ask someone else to undertake something so significant as a pregnancy, don’t you think considering all the potential outcomes is the very least you can do? Again, if you’re not prepared to consider the fact a woman might die on behalf of providing someone else a baby, you’re basically just shrugging.

A surrogate baby will be no more damaged than an adopted one, in fact probably less, as an adopted child goes through the traumas of the mother whilst in the womb, then goes into foster care, then to adoptive parents. A surrogate baby goes straight to it's new parents from birth and hopefully the birth mother has done all of this with little attachment.
You should basically keep your nose out.

Like anything else. Better then saying outright no.

So you’re NOT for women’s free unadulterated choice about their bodies? You think there should be oversight and regulation? And psychological assessment? And saying no to women if they don’t fulfil criteria?

But it’s not. It’s regulated with the assumption that if anything goes wrong, a test of law will be required. Basically, hope for the best. If the worst happens, we will have to figure it out after the fact. For example, what regulation is in place to make sure women get their expenses, and/or aren’t paid a private fee?

This is regulation though. And in my view a reasonable way to do it. It’s the way that we do lots of family law for good reason. Regulation just means there are rules and laws.

This makes sense. But this isn’t what happens around the world.

I understand in the US there is contestation around whether abortion stipulations can be included in contracts, and many contracts do in practice, but the legality around these provisions is contested and variable. I absolutely think such provisions should not be enforceable. They aren’t in the UK.

How do you check that a woman’s decision to do anything in the pregnancy is her decision and not that of the intended parents?

The same way you do for any pregnant person. How do you check a woman’s decision to terminate is her own and not her partner’s?

And you acknowledge that the intended parents have no rights?

while the baby is in the surrogate’s body the intended parents should have the same rights as any other non-pregnant (“intended”) parent! Eg dads(!) in a regular conception situation. Do dads have the legal right to decide whether or not their partner terminates , or how they should give birth , or whether they should undergo any other medical procedure? No. The decision ultimately lies with the pregnant woman because of the principle of bodily autonomy. So it should work with surrogacy.

So in that case, the majority of current surrogacy arrangements worldwide would completely cease to be valid?

I have no doubt there are countries all over the world with terrible laws around surrogacy, as there are with abortion etc., that doesn’t mean that all surrogacy is immoral and we should outlaw the practice in the UK.

Sheer luck that they’re a surrogate who doesn’t suffer a major complication of pregnancy. Like all the many, many examples of surrogates who have. Pregnancy has a 100% complication rate, no woman’s body is ever the same after any pregnancy. For most it’s minor. For some it’s major. For some it’s lifelong disability. For some it’s death. Bear in mind that the majority of surrogates around the world are pregnant in countries with poor health systems and higher than average maternal mortality rates.

How can a surrogacy contract cover all potential complications and protect women adequately if they suffer from them?

So you’re NOT for women’s free unadulterated choice about their bodies? You think there should be oversight and regulation? And psychological assessment? And saying no to women if they don’t fulfil criteria?

I mean I don’t write policy on surrogacy legislation, but the same way you regulate anything else 💁🏼‍♀️. It’s currently regulated in the UK.

But it’s not. It’s regulated with the assumption that if anything goes wrong, a test of law will be required. Basically, hope for the best. If the worst happens, we will have to figure it out after the fact. For example, what regulation is in place to make sure women get their expenses, and/or aren’t paid a private fee?

For me, these decisions should be in the hands of surrogate. While the foetus is in her body she should have absolutely have the right to terminate if she wants, as all other women do , and to give birth in the way that suits her. I understand that birth arrangements are usually agreed in advance, which makes sense, Although I absolutely think the surrogate should have the right to change her mind.

This makes sense. But this isn’t what happens around the world. How do you check that a woman’s decision to do anything in the pregnancy is her decision and not that of the intended parents?

And you acknowledge that the intended parents have no rights? So in that case, the majority of current surrogacy arrangements worldwide would completely cease to be valid?

I mean talk to women who are undergoing surrogacy and who have done in the past about why they chose to do it/ what it meant for them etc

There are women who have been surrogates who are against surrogacy. Do you want to listen to them? Obviously you can’t ask the dead ones.

Thats not a reason to outlaw something, if, on the overwhelming balance, it’s a force of good.

But this happens all the time.

‘Sheer luck’? You do realise women get pregnant every day and give birth and they’re absolutely fine?

Yes. The same way it works for kidneys.

But this is the rub. Once it’s acknowledged that surrogacy can’t exist as a complete free-for-all and needs protections and legislation, you then have to decide whose rights are prioritised which is ultimately impossible

Absolute rubbish. There are any number of things in medicine, reproduction and life more broadly, that are legal but regulated.

your thinking on this subject is extremely black and white.

Ok, so how do you propose to do this

I mean I don’t write policy on surrogacy legislation, but the same way you regulate anything else 💁🏼‍♀️. It’s currently regulated in the UK.

how do you protect her rights? Who gets to decide the decisions before, during and after the pregnancy? Like if she needs a CVS? Or it’s recommended she terminates for a severe abnormality? Or if she wants to for her own personal reasons? Or if she wants a vaginal delivery and the intended parents want a section? Who decides all these things?

For me, these decisions should be in the hands of surrogate. While the foetus is in her body she should have absolutely have the right to terminate if she wants, as all other women do , and to give birth in the way that suits her. I understand that birth arrangements are usually agreed in advance, which makes sense, Although I absolutely think the surrogate should have the right to change her mind.

When you say “talk to the women” you mean talk to the women who, by sheer luck, nothing went wrong

I mean talk to women who are undergoing surrogacy and who have done in the past about why they chose to do it/ what it meant for them etc. include anyone and everyone affected by the issue who is able to speak on it. of course like many things in life there will be risks, and not all experiences will be positive. Thats not a reason to outlaw something, if, on the overwhelming balance, it’s a force of good. That’s what needs to be determined.

Ok, so how do you propose to do this

I mean I don’t write policy on surrogacy legislation, but the same way you regulate anything else 💁🏼‍♀️. It’s currently regulated in the UK.

how do you protect her rights? Who gets to decide the decisions before, during and after the pregnancy? Like if she needs a CVS? Or it’s recommended she terminates for a severe abnormality? Or if she wants to for her own personal reasons? Or if she wants a vaginal delivery and the intended parents want a section? Who decides all these things?

For me, these decisions should be in the hands of surrogate. While the foetus is in her body she should have absolutely have the right to terminate if she wants, as all other women do , and to give birth in the way that suits her. I understand that birth arrangements are usually agreed in advance, which makes sense, Although I absolutely think the surrogate should have the right to change her mind.

When you say “talk to the women” you mean talk to the women who, by sheer luck, nothing went wrong

I mean talk to women who are undergoing surrogacy and who have done in the past about why they chose to do it/ what it meant for them etc. include anyone and everyone affected by the issue who is able to speak on it. of course like many things in life there will be risks, and not all experiences will be positive. Thats not a reason to outlaw something, if, on the overwhelming balance, it’s a force of good. That’s what needs to be determined.

But this is the rub. Once it’s acknowledged that surrogacy can’t exist as a complete free-for-all and needs protections and legislation, you then have to decide whose rights are prioritised which is ultimately impossible

Absolute rubbish. There are any number of things in medicine, reproduction and life more broadly, that are legal but regulated.

your thinking on this subject is extremely black and white.

Ok, so you acknowledge that currently surrogacy does not meet adequate standards. So you say there should be. What should happen? How should this work and who should do it?

But this is the rub. Once it’s acknowledged that surrogacy can’t exist as a complete free-for-all and needs protections and legislation, you then have to decide whose rights are prioritised which is ultimately impossible.

If the rights of the mother are prioritised then the intended parents have no rights or protections.

If the rights of the intended parents are prioritised then the mother has no rights and protections.

If the rights of the baby are prioritised then how can you ever separate it from its mother?

If you want to do some rights for the mother and some rights from the intended parents, how do you determine which go which way?

This is why we have the current state of surrogacy around the world.

There are countries that let it happen as a free-for-all or countries that pretend this clash of rights doesn’t exist, who run into trouble whenever a surrogacy case goes wrong.

Or there are countries that have looked at all this and realised it’s insolvable, rights can’t be balanced, and have banned it.

There’s no middle ground: either you just shrug and accept that at some point in surrogacy that someone will get fucked over eventually - as evidenced by many, many examples - or you ban it.

I refuse to shrug.

Do I think surrogacy needs to be regulated because there is potential for exploitation? Yes.

Ok, so how do you propose to do this?

Do I think all surrogacy arrangements are inherently exploitative and wrong. No.
Listen to women affected by the issue talk about it , and what it means to them, before you judge.

Even if you can be sure the woman is doing it 100% freely, how do you protect her rights? Who gets to decide the decisions before, during and after the pregnancy? Like if she needs a CVS? Or it’s recommended she terminates for a severe abnormality? Or if she wants to for her own personal reasons? Or if she wants a vaginal delivery and the intended parents want a section? Who decides all these things?

When you say “talk to the women” you mean talk to the women who, by sheer luck, nothing went wrong. They didn’t develop major complications. They weren’t openly willing but died - this has happened. So even IF women freely choose to do it, whose rights get prioritised?