Law Commission consulting on paid surrogacy in the UK

Can you link to the baby M case?

The Baby M case in utterly desperate. I actually can’t believe the rights of the child didn’t trump and it was lawful to remove the child from its mother.

I do understand the need for surrogacy in the U.K. but for women who are infertile due to cancer etc. I am utterly against it being paid for.

There is no end to the erosion of women’s status

this is a good point if you can sell a newborn why not a toddler or older child

Fundamentally, if we can't buy and sell children and adults, why is it okay to sell babies? It isn't.

And you don't know who you're selling the baby to. That bloke in Australia who rejected his DS baby has a child abuse conviction.

There's a lot of money in child rape porn. I think you can see where I'm going with this.

And men.

Need to keep writing that!

Babies are not commodities to be handed over by poor women so they can be raised by richer women

Yes there seems to be an implication that poor women have the role of providing babies to solve the fertility issues of others- they aren't giving up their newborns anymore so they ought to carry babies for those who want them instead. Commercial surrogacy should not be seen as the next inevitable step if you can't adopt any more. Nobody is entitled to a child via the exploitation of others.

"Babies are not commodities to be handed over by poor women so they can be raised by richer women"

And richer men.

Forgot to say, a lot of the narratives around surrogacy hinge on a nasty women as unfit mother trope.

Babies are not commodities to be handed over by poor women so they can be raised by richer women. How about lifting the poor single mother out of poverty?

Irrelevant, I know, but I'm just musing why the word was used, when I've not heard it being used to describe children for years.

I agree it's a horrible word to describe a child, but I don't think the poster meant it that way. I don't think she meant to imply anything negative about the children who were being adopted.

That's why I wondered if it used to suggest that these children don't have anyone to look after them, even though there is often a mother forced into giving their child up for adoption. That is, a term used to ignore the mother because it's easy to deal with the idea that the child has no one, than deal with the idea that there is a mother with no choice but to give up their child.

Sorry for the derailment.

other word you can substitiute is not "the babies of single mothers" but "bastards"

I doubt it's used differently in usa would be very surprised

illegitimate is a less "emotional" term in which world?
it's a stark value judgement

it literally means "not legitimate"

The idea that Thailand/ India=bad, USA=good when it comes to surrogacy is an exercise in denial I think.

I agree, USA is a very rich country, but that doesn't mean that poverty isn't a problem there.

Surrogacy organisations are selling something. It's their job to make their service as appealing as possible. They are not going to advertise potential surrogate mothers as poor and desperate.

I wonder if the term 'illegitimate' came from literature produced by the surrogacy organisations? It may be a less emotional term than 'the babies of single mothers'.

We tried altruistic surrogacy here in the UK, first with a SIL and then with a surrogate we were matched with through one of the big UK organisations. Sadly it didn't work and we turned to the big guns in the US

Definitely UK.

I haven't seen illegitimate used to describe babies and children for so long. Perhaps the poster is not from the UK?

I think she is. She referred to a failed altruistic surrogacy with her sister in law then went to the US for a commercial surrogacy.

Yes agree

The idea that Thailand/ India=bad, USA=good when it comes to surrogacy is an exercise in denial I think. It takes very little research to uncover some of the massive ethical concerns surrounding surrogacy within the US. If I was planning to pay a woman to use her womb I'd be damn sure to learn everything I could about these issues first.

As we see with USA contracts where women want to keep the baby and it's forcibly removed.

And then you get threads like that one of FB with thousands of WOMEN saying quite right too, she was no more than an incubator, they used her body,the child has literally nothing to do with her etc.

Human beings can be fucking awful, and justify all sorts of appalling things to themselves. Good at "othering" groups and then treating them atrociously.

Men want the ability to use women's bodies in this way (and in other wyas). They run the world. They will find a way to get what they want. With the collusion of an awful lot of women, sadly.

And of course often the women / girls wanted to keep the babies but they were forcibly removed.

Socitities all over the world have histories of forcibly removing newborns from women and girls that they deem sub-par in some way. Too young, too poor, wrong politics, wrong ethnic group etc and so on.

childless couples no longer have hordes of orphans and illegitimate babies to adopt

In the past young, poor or vulnerable women were always more likely have their babies adopted. Just as I think paid for surrogacy will rely heavily on poor or vulnerable women.

I haven't seen illegitimate used to describe babies and children for so long. Perhaps the poster is not from the UK?

Yes the casual reference to illegitimate children too

Thank you GardeningAndKnitting - yes it is. That and the casual reference to "illegitimate babies"

In one of its pieces of legislation deserving of praise the Scottish Parliament abolished illegitimacy as a legal concept. No person whose status is governed by Scots law shall be illegitimate ...". is enshrined in Scots law.

It is a surprising term to find used on MN and even more so on FWR.

Lass I can't say for sure if the same things about that statement that bother you but the combination of commodification of children in care and seeing it as a bad thing that there were less children in care needing adoption bother me

Whether you like it or not, infertility has always been with us and always will be, we just want to find ways around it that don't get all Handmaid's Tale

I'm not sure surrogacy does avoid that tbh

childless couples no longer have hordes of orphans and illegitimate babies to adopt

I can't quite put my finger on what I don't like about that phrase- it's a touch glib.

There is plenty of evidence of family members being put under pressure to be surrogates, it can be explicit pressure or implicit where they feel like they'd be seen as selfish if they didn't try.

I vaguely remember a thread on here about it - the sister was pressuring her.