Law Commission consulting on paid surrogacy in the UK

I am not linger dismissive of mother baby bond idea and do tihnk there is something particular about it.

We grow them inside us + we are animals, of course there may be a stronger link than to others who did not grow them. We don't know.

It suits "progressive" male desires to say this is definitely not a thing.

Conversely the "bond" is used by regressive groups to say that women's place is in the home and we should have lots of babies as that is what we are or and then stay at home and look after them.

This is why our arguments are so hard > we are stuffed whichever way we turn. And why when we find one it seems to work for a bit but then gets taken from us and used to damage us.

Its so depsressing.

It' funny.

When I was younger I was quite dismissive of mother/baby bond /special relationship etc

I think this came out of a desire of women / feminists to get equality at work > to say there's no issue with dad / GPs / nursery etc as ling as they are loved that's all fine.
And while I still beleive this to a point, it has opened the door for a complete revision of the view of mothers and babies, which is shared by both the religious right, anti abortion types and the "prgressive" pro commercial surrogacy crowd as a baby even when in the womb as totally independent of the woman it is housed in, she is a mere incubator and nothing really to do with it.

Yet again sometihng that women fought for / the arguments we used have been used against us >> see our battles for more open-ness around sex and womens bodies which was meant to reduce madonna/whore ideas and lead to better sex for women, and has been used instead to jusitfy an explosion in abusive porn and objectification and mainstreaming all sorts of abusive stuff under the headline "kink" etc I could go on.

A website for personal stories of third party reproduction.

anonymousus.org/stories/page/5/

I had forgotten about the Nepalese earthquake babies. It's sickening. And for the babies, imagine growing up and finding out your father did this to your mother to buy you? Discovering your father is a spoilt, heartless, exploitative bastard?
I look forward to the research on children of surrogacy.

OMG. That is absolutely horrific Nothing. Women being treated as incubators. It's foul

time.com/3838319/israel-nepal-surrogates/

It's just misoghyny >>> women as non people that you can use to grow babies in.

Orchid yes

The stuff about teh earthquake (some kind of disaster) in india and all the men from isreal flying out and taking the babies away to safety and leaving the women and presumably not doing anythign to help was a bit of an eye opener

This is another one where religous right and feminists have same view but for very different reasons.

My googling led me to an article that was saying about a woman dying how terrible and then drew attention to the fact that a woman's body is the property of her husband (and vice versa) so surrogacy is adultery...

Feminists believe womens bodies should be our own property and that we should be protected by the constant drive to exploit our bodies which is directly related to our sexed bodies.

I got so much grief for my 'homophobia' on the thread about Tom Daley that I'm reluctant to go into all this again. But I will be keeping a close watch out for the consultation. I work with the HFEA in reviewing their website and contributing to the discussion on the legalities around donor conception. I really thought that the removal of anonymity for donors was the beginning of a more child-focused approach in supporting parents who cannot conceive naturally. This feels like a hugely retrogressive step

Barracker that 2015 case was dreadful.

Caroline Farrow wrote some good pieces on it.

www.conservativewoman.co.uk/caroline-farrow-this-baby-should-never-have-been-torn-from-her-mothers-breast/

carolinefarrow.com/2015/05/07/more-notes-on-a-scandal/

Google has nothing.

A woman in USA did die and there was agofundme for her funeral although it's not confirmed it was actually hers -
Which would suggest that she was liable.

I'd have thought it would all be insured but maybe as theer are increased risks with surrogacy (that are apparently not always made clear to the surrogates) around multiple embryos etc the insurers aren't interested.

Oh sorry it does say this

"The Intended Parents will make the decision with regard to how long the life support should be continued prior to the birth of the Child taking into account the obstetrician or perinatologist’s recommendation and the desires of the family of the Surrogate"

But they can do what they want, in the end.
Poeple will sign - of course the chance of it happening is so low, people will say couldn't happen to them.
Wouldl lead to cases such as the Ireland one. 2nd trimester is very early. In the Ireland case, even on the machines, her body had started to decompose. It's a really ghoulish idea. And at the whim of people who are very far removed from her and her family, her existing kids.

Also, what happens if the woman dies or is seriously permanently disbaled by the pregnancy or birth? What are the arrangements? Might google.

Yikes re the life sustaining treatment part.

As I said before, with the new woke politics taking over, I doubt that surrogacy will be outlawed. On balance, I don’t think they will remove the mother’s right to change her mind though. The principle of child welfare is so deeply ingrained in the law that I cannot see how they can do that. Obviously there are exceptions where you wonder what the judge was thinking eg the gay surrogacy case...

There will probably be a recommendation to open it up to single people rather than just to couples, to mirror adoption.

It is a disconcerting area of law- that is for sure. I hope that whatever is recommended that it is done on the basis of research-based evidence.

From one of the links - extract from a USA agreement:

"If the surrogate is in her second or third trimester of pregnancy and in the event that medical life support equipment is required to preserve and maintain the life of the Surrogate and if requested by the Intended Parents, the Surrogate and her husband agree that the Surrogate’s life will be sustained with life support equipment for a period to achieve viability of the fetus taking into account the best interests and well-being of the fetus . . . The Intended Parents will make the decision with regard to how long the life support should be continued prior to the birth of the Child taking into account the obstetrician or perinatologist’s recommendation and the desires of the family of the Surrogate. The Surrogate’s husband, or her next of kin, is solely responsible for determining the time at which life support treatment will be discontinued following the birth of the Child."

This makes it clear that until the baby is born, the people who ordered the baby essentailly own her body.
There is no consideration of the feelings or opnions or impact in this situaiton of any spouse, existing children, parents etc.

It reminds me a lot of this case in ireland: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ireland/11313747/Life-support-of-woman-being-kept-alive-because-she-was-pregnant-can-be-switched-off.html lots of other info on google some of it v distressing. She was essentially starting to decay and still they kept the machines switched on againstt the wishes of her family and the distress it was causing her children.

This is what happens when women dont' have autonomy, or the people who if she has died she would want to be allowed to make the decision. In the first case her body is owned by the people who have contract, in the second the state. Both cases it's becasue she's pregnant.

This is all very not good.

It makes me think of Rumplestiltskin.
Forced to honour an evil deal made when you have no possible idea of what it will mean. Paying with your child. People believing they are 'owed' a mother's child, their dues.

The law is enforcing evil fairytales written to
warn terrify children about the bad in the world. Except real life is now supporting the wicked gnome and making sure Rumplestiltskin gets to walk away with the baby he 'bought'.

The case Barracker referred to was appalling. The judge made disgraceful comments and clearly had no understanding or sympathy for child mother attachment , breastfeeding and the well being of the child.

God I've just read that article Barracker. It's horrifying.

I find the attitudes of some people, many of them men, that they want a baby so we'll just buy one, really, really selfish.

We all have shit to deal with. Not having a convenient womb to use might be upsetting, but if you value people you don't treat them like dehumanized property.

And yes, I see the trans issue as tangential. We are not just disembodied essences floating in random meat chunks. There is real harm to real people when they are coerced into disassociating from their body.

I hadn't really thought much about surrogacy before reading these boards - I always thought that it was going to be altruistic and what a lovely gift to give. However, I am really against surrogacy at all now, women once again are being exploited and used as a commodity. The room for complete exploitation if these regulations were relaxed is terrifying - handmaid's tale in action.

That story about the toddler removed from the mother is horrific, truly abhorrent.

Barracker I didn’t realise the baby was her biological child - I understand the judgement even less now.

It seems more and more that our laws are so badly written that they are open to interpretations that were never intended. .gov.uk says The woman who gives birth is always treated as the legal mother and has the right to keep the child - even if they’re not genetically related. Surrogacy contracts aren’t enforced by UK law

There is a big difference between paid and altruistic surrogacy. Any minimum price you put on it will be whittled away. On the other hand, how would you police banning altruistic surrogacy- who would be prosecuted?

Peakpants of course the state would step in if the child is abandoned. It does so not infrequently with ordinary babies conceived and born the ordinary way, I have had personal involvement with a baby born with Down's syndrome and rejected by its parents. It still feels worse to me to commission a product (the baby, a defenceless human being) and then decide it doesn't meet the brief so the state can sort it.
Also, whilst the woman would indeed be entitled to free maternity care if she were having her own baby, surrogacy is likely to involve some specific treatments/procedures as well as the ongoing maternity care. If something went badly wrong for the mother or baby the NHS will pick up the pieces, just as it does when that cut price boob implant done abroad causes problems. I still think people commissioning a product should be liable for ALL costs not just the mother's personal expenses.

Which is all hypothetical as my deeply held belief is that surrogacy is exploitative and immoral and should be banned.

And yet her child was removed entirely from her care and given to two men with whom she had no real relationship at that point. The mother was restricted to supervised access.

How the hell can this ever be in the best interests of the child?

The conversation around comerncial surrogacy, the arguments used, the minimisation of the risks to the woman, the presentation of it as an excellent money making choice for the modern empowerfulised woman, the absolute non-consideration of any psychological effects -
All the same as prostitution.

I see the two as very similar anyway.

I am strongly against commercial surrogacy in the UK and would like to see the exploitation of women elsewhere in the world clamped down on.

I expect the state could step in and take the unwanted babies and sell them. Of course it wouldn't actually be selling them, just charging administration costs.

Sorry, I have actually no idea what the answer is, just a sense that the handmaid's tale might end up being used as a hand-book.

Pushback against the gains that women and girls have made is in full swing.

Joining the dots makes the future look bleak.