Law Commission consulting on paid surrogacy in the UK

Agree with others that this has been on the horizon for a while.

Also agree that teh arguments for (it's going to happen anyway so let's try and make it slightly less exploitative) are feeble. The argument in this case that if UK women aren't allowed to be paid surrogates, then poor women overseas will be exploited. So it's best if poor women here are allowed to be exploited as well.

Iused2ban I meant that the state has to step in if all parties abandon the child. There is no way around this. It's better for the child to be in foster care than to be with someone who doesn't want it.

As for NHS, I presume you mean for the birth? I don't think a surrogate giving birth on the NHS is a problem, because she would be entitled to do so had she got pregnant any other way.

I am not pro-surrogacy, by the way. I just feel it's so wrong and hypocritical to say that it is allowed as long as nobody gets paid. That totally devalues what women are being asked to do and go through. If they do it, they should be compensated. However, as others have pointed out, financial reward would be open to abuse and if that cannot be protected against, then it should be banned altogether.

Altruism fucks women over and has meant that we have had to give up our reproductive work for free since the dawn of time. If men value it so much, make them pay for it.

Did you see the link I posted about the case in 2015, lass?

What terrifies me is that the mother didn't pose any threat to her child. She loved her and raised her alone for, I think, 15 months. The arrangement had always been that she would be the mother. It was her own biological child. She breastfed her, carried her in a sling and mothered her in what sounds like pretty much the way I mothered my own children.

There was no question over the fitness of her parenting of her child.

The judge portrayed her as homophobic. Which may or may not be true, but isn't cause to remove a toddler from her mother. And given that the judge also was scathing about her breastfeeding and attachment parenting and chose to characterise those choices as if they were weapons rather than perfectly valid parenting choices, I view the judge's position as biased. The mother knew the commisioning couple were gay when the agreement was struck, so the apparent homophobia didn't extend to her being friends with the men and agreeing this with them.

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.

For clarity I am absolutely opposed to surrogacy for all the reasons previously discussed especially by Barracker but the consultation absolutely should include consideration of costs to the NHS and responsibilities of the state. IVF treatment is increasingly difficult to get on the NHS and I don't think the NHS should be expected to support this massive consumer entitlement.

”If you got a group of misogynists in a room and said how can we make this system work for men and not for women they would not have come up with too many ideas that are not already in place,”

Professor Philip Alston, UN rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights

UK Austerity has inflicted great misery on citizens UN says

Poor? Female? Young? Pick your “profession”- prostitution or incubation.

Why should the state be expected to pick up the pieces? And the poor baby treated like a defective item you bought on eBay and need to sell on?
And if money is going to come into it, eg pp suggestion of making it a meaty payment in region of £50k they can damn well pay for the medical services privately. No way should the NHS be bearing the costs of this.

Ah okay, that makes sense.

I should clarify my comment about the father not being allowed to refuse to take the baby- of course he would if he went through the process, in agreement with the mother , of putting the child into state care. He should not otherwise simply walk away from his responsibilities.

Yes, I should clarify that when I said about payments, this should of course include an absolute right for the mother to change her mind after birth and to forfeit payment.

However, obviously there will be a right for the father to refuse to take the baby too- nobody can be forced to be a parent, including men. In those circumstances, the baby must be looked after by the state.

That puts it well Barracker. No woman can be compelled by law to have an abortion. That applies no matter how much a man claims he was tricked- even if the scare stories about pins in condoms/ scooping the used condom out of the bin were true.

A woman will only be forced to give up a baby in extreme cases where there is a serious risk to the baby's safety- quite rightly putting the baby first.

For surrogacy to be acceptable (and I personally don't think it is) it has to have absolutes. Only the women has any right to decide to abort or not abort . The woman can choose to keep the baby. Provision for paternal access/ shared parenting could apply as in any other situation where the parents are not a couple, if father is suitable.

And in no circumstances can the fatber refuse to take the child, if it is the woman's choice to give baby up.

@Barracker yes!

@EverardDigby Thank you, and I'm sorry to hear about your experience too. I will check those writers out for sure.

Some human rights should be so sacrosanct that they cannot be forfeited, even by a willing person.
Because there are two sides to a transaction. Giver and taker. Seller and buyer. One side may seem beyond reproach, but viewed in the opposite direction the act is horrific.

Why is slavery wrong? What kind of contract skates so close to slavery that humans are unable to exercise what should be inalienable human rights?

Should any person be able, with the support of the law, to force a woman to abort against her will?
Should any law support the removal of a child from her mother against both their interests because a commercial contract outweighs their human rights?
Can we buy and sell people?
Can a woman's uterus literally be considered to hold the property of a man and should the law allow him rights over her body because he owns her?

What happens to women who change their minds?

I know the surrogacy industry tells us this is a 'service'. But unless a woman is completely free to exercise her rights to her own body and her own child at all times, and unless her rights and her child's rights always outweigh any contract, at every stage of the process and for life, it's simply sanctioned slavery and the purchase of people.

MrsSpenserGregson Sorry to hear about your experience. I did some reading about it because I was separated from my mum due to a traumatic birth. I had emotional regulation problems from a very early age, and I sometimes wonder if birth trauma caused it. I learned about how trauma imprints on the body through writers such as Bessel van der Kolk, Peter Levine and Gabor Mate. I think the popular belief is that if a baby doesn't remember it it won't affect them, but actually it affects your whole neurological and emotional development because you have that feeling of not being safe, which never really leaves you. And often you end up having no idea why if you can't remember, you just feel like you're a bad person.

Whats the betting that the first paid-for surrogacy clinic is in Leeds?

At the very very minimum there should be adoption like checks, plus checks on the surrogates welfare/motivation. Otherwise we are in buy-a-baby territory. Oh wait, someone just tried to do that in Leeds.

If clinics can’t regulate it satisfactorily then I do think it should be banned full stop. I am against altruistic surrogacy because I don’t like the continuous association between women’s reproductive work and altruism. If you want to rent my services, fucking pay for them. I do see the arguments that this is so hard to regulate though, which is why maybe a no surrogacy at all rule is better.

I doubt this will happen though. I think the discourse is very much towards making it easier, opening it up to more people etc.

@EverardDigby

WHEN WILL SOMEONE MENTION THE RIGHTS IF THE BABY?

I did a bit of a Google / Google Scholar to see if I could find anything about the psychological/neurological impact on the baby. Nothing. I would not be surprised though if children taken away from their mothers at birth later showed trauma-related symptoms.

Quite. I was removed from my mother at (or shortly after) birth (I was adopted in the 1970s). It's had a profound impact on me - which I only realised 30-something years later. There's a great book called The Primal Wound which deals with this type of loss, and which has been updated in recent years to include babies born via egg donation and surrogacy, which was recommended to me by some lovely Mumsnetters on the Adoption boards. Basically the premise is that It's against nature to remove a baby from its mother and that it does indeed cause great trauma. I realise this isn't a fashionable thing to say! But it's so, so true.

As for surrogacy from the point of view of women - I agree with everyone else. Wombs aren't for hire. Women shouldn't be for hire. It's really, really sad when someone is unable (through illness, infertility, same-sex partnership etc) to conceive a child but that's life. Literally.

What worries me is abusive husbands selling their wife's bodies.
I don't see that licensed clinics would prevent that.
The problem isn't payment making it attractive to women, it's it making it attractive to those who are in a position to control women.

I am never going to forget the hugely disturbing reports I read about clinics in India.

And you are of course right about the danger of surrogacy pimps etc. It’s a minefield. Maybe strict regulation through a clinic is the answer? So no private agreement- have to go through a clinic with a licence and they could vet the women they commission.

When a contract is involved, the advantages are always going to be with the wealthier party.

A rich commissioning couple threatening to sue might lead to the women having to do things she doesn't want to, because she can't afford to defend herself.

I sort of see that, but I think then it shouldn’t be allowed at all. I am uncomfortable with the idea that reproductive labour can’t have any value and must be altruistic. That’s what contributes to women’s low status. At least if the state says ‘this work is worth X amount’, it brings a degree of financial power for women who do the work. Money is status in our society and women’s work is so often unpaid and therefore unvalued.

Also I don’t think payment will introduce pressure, but it will make surrogacy a potentially attractive option to women who have not considered it before. That is of course a danger but I would rather that people pay through their noses over here than exploit some woman in a third world country because they can’t do it in the UK.

It’s so difficult. I think there needs to be research before we can say definitely no or definitely yes.

I wonder if Tom Daley and his partner were really shocked when they realised that paid surrogacy is not legal, or were they unhappy about the rights the mother has?

I think In this case lack of payment does reduce pressure. Right now in the UK surrogacy is never paid. It’s not something women are coerced into (as far as I know, and if that’s not true I’d like to know about it.) I’ve never seen a case of coercion.

As soon as you put money or a reward into the equation you introduce a set of pressures. You introduce a legal contract. And poorer women will be the ones who suffer.

Surrogates already get their expenses paid. I’m very, very against it becoming a commercial industry. You could make the same argument for organ donation - if you donate a kidney for example it’s a huge imposition on you. Paid donation would probably increase organ numbers - but at what price? There are valid reasons why almost all countries outlaw paid donation - because it’s just too open to abuse. Traffickers and middlemen spring up. Coercion, outright force. And financial pressure.

I should say that I am not necessarily 100% against surrogacy, but I don't think there should be a human right to have a child. I think there needs to be much more research on the emotional and mental impact on surrogate mothers and also on children who are born as a result of surrogacy. It is only then that we can say whether it should be permitted in law.

And as I said above, I am unconvinced that there is a difference between paid and unpaid surrogacy. Either it is totally outlawed or there should be very substantial payment made to the surrogate mother to recognise the full impact of what she has done.

Carowiththegoodhair I think we might be referring to the same letter :)

I cannot recommend it enough.

I saw an interview once where someone said that the most bizarre thing with this whole debate was the insistence that unpaid surrogacy is always better than paid surrogacy. As if the absence of payment negates any pressure or exploitation. This made me think of the fact that women do the majority of caregiving and cooking and cleaning, all unpaid. Again, it's apparently done out of love so we don't need to worry about it.
I think if you're going to reform surrogacy laws, at least put a fucking high minimum price on it (I am thinking circa 50k or so) that goes directly to the woman, plus an obligation on the commissioning couple to be liable for her medical bills and loss of earnings if she suffers complications. Maybe then there would be some appreciation of what surrogates are actually doing. I don't buy the whole 'it's okay as long as there's no pay' attitude.