And so it came to pass: Mail on Sunday - gay male couple offered fertility treatment including surrogacy

Flying Quite. Wait til all the sterilised trans teens start demanding heir surrogate babies from the NHS.

Flying
Presumably because without the cost of surrogacy as a guide, her actual compensation would be much less? * *

But then costings should be based on UK prices. For instance the California version will include a considerable bill for medical expenses that far outstrips the cost of delivering a baby on the NHS.
It's ridiculous that she can just decide she wants to do it the most expensive way and the NHS should pay.

But they don’t need fertility treatment. Presumably both are fertile. They just don’t have a female reproductive system.

And this on the NHS when the NHS is on its knees? No way. The NHS is for funding medical treatment, not lifestyle choices.

They should adopt.

Fleetwood I'm so sorry for everything you have been through and ongoing difficulties.

I'm thinking she's put in costings for four babies.
Maybe she just wants more cash. They can't make her go and have the treatment once they've paid her can they?

Fleetwoodsnack

Wow, 4 babies. My cancer was missed, I'm infertile and hard of hearing as a result. I have no eggs because there wasn't time.

Little sympathy for her. It's shit but 4 babies?!

£1.1 million for not being able to have kids is an exceptional finding.
What about every other young woman left infertile by cancer? Does this set a precedent? Bye bye NHS!

I can't understand why she wouldn't just get her compensation and then she has to make her own choices and take whatever risks she finds acceptable.
Presumably because without the cost of surrogacy as a guide, her actual compensation would be much less?

I don't understand that case at all. Yes NHS failed to diagnose cervical cancer and is liable for compensation. But surely you get an agreed amount of compensation to spend as you will? To specify FOUR babies seems bizarre and greedy. How can that be the nub of the case? She might get two and find that's enough. One might die. The surrogate might not fall pregnant. How are all these things to be costed and why should the bill fall to the NHS? Plus she could try to find a surrogate in the UK but prefers to go to California for reasons which seem to include some of the issues I previously outlined to do with watertight contracts. But commercial surrogacy is illegal in the UK yet she wants the NHS to fund it abroad. Why shouldn't the NHS say well OK but go somewhere cheaper and exploit an impoverished woman in a developing country.
There are so many variables and ifs and buts it's ridiculous. I can't understand why she wouldn't just get her compensation and then she has to make her own choices and take whatever risks she finds acceptable.

Has anyone on the thread said men are evil?

Weird.

And I guess it's partly the disneyfication of the family, too. If they've had the big wedding the next tick box is a child.

There should be public service adverts made explaining that you can't always get what you want (and not to hog the middle lane)

This is not about men.
It’s about how the hell we’ve ended up with so many unbelievable entitled people feeling that they are owed everything by everybody and a judicial system that seems to support this.
Yes and no. It's about men because in the OP the reason they need a surrogate is because neither of them is female. The woman who died doesn't have the right equipment either now, but that was due to illness, not being born male. Agree with the rest.

MinecraftHolmes wow that's sickening.
I feel bad for her but I don't like her "I deserve" attitude.
I wonder if she decided to press on after £600k because UK surrogacy has different laws or because she had the NHS over a barrel for missing her cancer?
If you're a child whose parent is murdered you get £2000 a year from the government. Does a child need a parent less than a woman needs a baby?

minecraft
Thank you. Was going to post the same link.

If you read the link, you’ll see this decision has NOTHING to do with the couple involved being gay so please don’t make this about ‘evil’ men. The link in minecraft’s post is a woman who has ‘won’ the right to have FOUR babies via surrogacy paid for by the NHS. This is not about men.
It’s about how the hell we’ve ended up with so many unbelievable entitled people feeling that they are owed everything by everybody and a judicial system that seems to support this.

Anyone doubting that women are overlooked/ discounted/ dismissed/ ignored?

Tl;dr It’s always always about the menz and finding different ways to prioritise their demands above women’s

porcine! From pigs! Called NDT

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i-want-nhs-to-pay-for-four-surrogate-babies-wrl9nvs83?shareToken=6c24b3bb9bf1f0087565beec270ecd4e This article seems relevant - the NHS is fighting a Supreme Court ruling that says the NHS should fund the commercial surrogacy (in California) for a woman whose late diagnosis of cervical cancer has led to her infertility.

OlennasWimple I agree, but I do think it's a serious problem. We have a large number of people who just can't cope with not getting what they want. They must make terrible parents, I know they make terrible employees, and I guess they must make terrible partners too.
An example to prove your point though, while I think of it: Daley and his bloke would be the last couple on Earth I'd choose to raise an abused child with a drug addicted mother.

'Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end and never simply as a means.' Kant
Women's bodies are being systematically reduced to a means to the fulfilment of men's 'wants' (not even needs)

NHS Scotland user here.

Have to buy own wound care dressings, wheelchairs, incontinence supplies and quite a bit of equipment.

Add to that the total reduction in charitable help and being ill is getting very expensive in this country.

But hey as long as IVF is there for all that's ok right?

Not a bad summary, FlyingOink, though I'd quibble slightly with the last bullet.

The main issue is that adoption (in the UK anyway) means parenting children who are bloody hard to parent, and it requires bucket loads of resilience, doggedness and empathy. Not everyone can do this (which is fine!), most people don't want to do this (also fine!) and I'd suggest that people who have hurt feelings because someone expresses a biological truth aren't likely to be able to cope with parenting a traumatized child particularly well.

Fleetwoodsnack porcine! From pigs! Called NDT. You can also get it from other animals, cows. My preference is synthetic but I was advised it wouldn’t work for me and i was so bad I urgently needed to start taking something- you can start to affect major organs etc my friend ended up with heart problems. Ideally, they would create a synthetic single drug to replicate our own thyroid hormones, we have 6. You can only get 2 synthetic ones, the active ones, because they don’t know what the other 4 do. They must do something important because so many women like me only respond to NDT. I’m going to wait till my other hormones come right and then try synthetic again. It’s just a flipping pain because it might not work and then you get sick again and sick adjusting back to old meds... sorry to ramble about something off topic!

Flying one of the programmes mentioned it briefly, I think they said there had been five such cases in Canada (no time scale as far as I recall) and cited relationship breakdown between commissioning parents. Not something I had thought about either. Baby being damaged goods for whatever reason would be the most likely cause to spring to my mind.

I really recommend listening to his programmes which are available on bbc iplayer for a long time yet, sorry I can't post a link, for some reason, perhaps because they are podcasts, it doesn't have a "share" button, you have to find it for yourselves, use search work "surrogacy".

It has done nothing to change my mind regarding the acceptability but I definitely feel more educated on the subject and they were well presented and an enjoyable listen notwithstanding the subject matter.

Thanks for explaining, more complicated Than my understanding of it. Is the animal the porcupine ones or did I make that up?