All-male Law Commission discussing surrogacy

Hmm... I would like everyone involved to not be able to make a profit.
If it's altruistic, it should be the same throughout the chain. Not just the surrogate who doesn't get paid but the clinic earning handsome profits.

@Cattenberg

I currently feel that I would like to see ALL payments to surrogates banned. Even expenses such as lost earnings. If that means that only wealthy women choose to be surrogates for family and close friends, so much the better. Because this way, there is no power imbalance caused by income disparity. No sense of obligation caused by the money paid. And, assuming that people obey the law, no woman in this country will become a surrogate for financial reasons.

That's a brilliantly simple solution. I wish I had thought of that and put it on the consultation answers.

FWRLurker yes, that's two mother's rendered invisible in gay surrogacy - the mother who donated her eggs and mother who grew the baby and delivered it.
Two father families are just ignoring the two mother's involved.

I filled in that terrible survey, which was surely designed to be as opaque and off-putting as possible.

I currently feel that I would like to see ALL payments to surrogates banned. Even expenses such as lost earnings. If that means that only wealthy women choose to be surrogates for family and close friends, so much the better. Because this way, there is no power imbalance caused by income disparity. No sense of obligation caused by the money paid. And, assuming that people obey the law, no woman in this country will become a surrogate for financial reasons.

Awesome by which I mean really fucking infuriating that those people who have no experience of pregnancy and giving birth (and are unable to ever have any experience of pregnancy and giving birth as they are non-women) are the ones making the decisions

A few women may actively choose to be surrogates out of pure altruism. If their sister or a close friend for whatever reason cannot have a child herself, they may want to have one for her. That is not a commercial transaction, and not really relevant to the discussion, but I thought it needed to be said because otherwise it invariably gets brought up in this discussion as if it had the slightest equivalence with someone rich buying a baby from someone poor.

capita's "choices" are not made in a vacuum. Surrogacy, like prostitution, involves (in most cases) the more powerful party using the body of the less powerful party for their own purposes. This is not something women with real choices does. The decision to become a surrogate or a prostitute is made because of a lack of real choices.

I’m infuriated about this issue in my home state at the moment. Our democrat governor has positioned this issue as a “LGBTQ rights issue” and if we cared about gay men enough to let them marry what right do we have to prevent them from having children?

He literally did Not mention that these gay men would be using a woman’s body and gametes during this process. Women made invisible.

capitas
it's her choice

And the baby's choice too, I suppose.

Are such children allowed (as adopted and sperm-donor children in this country are, by law) to go and find the woman who carried and bore them?

Haven't yet read the article, but legal support is not useful if there are no laws to enforce.

As I understand surrogacy clinics like New Life provide full legal support for a woman who will be a surrogate mother. And on the other side, if there is demand, there will be supply. No one forces women to be a surrogate mother, she goes for it herself. Of course, because of the money. But it's her choice

I am unsure how using a poor woman to carry a baby for a rich childless couple differs from using a woman to carry Good Aryan Babies for the Fatherland, really. The key words are "using a woman".

If you say "baby farming" or "child harvesting" or "baby factories", I am fairly sure that right-minded people will tend to get a shudder down their spines about the implications of these phrases. But the only difference I can really see is that those practices were and are abhorred, whereas this new practice is being applauded.

Babies in any case should be regarded as people, not commodities.

So the Ukraine has commercial surrogacy but provides no rights for surrogate mothers, it's normal for the surrogate mother to move in with the commissioning parents, or move to a space they provide so they can keep an eye on her in the last few months of her pregnancy, they provide top notch tech for getting her pregnant and you don't need a VISA to enter.

Well yes, no wonder it is the "global centre for surrogacy"!

And New Life have some family lawyer contacts handy if you need to swiftly register the child's birth and fly back to where you came from. How lovely for those who want to buy babies.

I do hope the Law Commission isn't using this as a model for UK practice.

I know that now Ukraine is the center of surrogacy in Europe. Here is the article about surrogacy law in Ukraine www.new-life.ua/surrogacy/surrogacy-in-ukraine-legal-aspects/. Maybe, someone will be interesting in reading this

Lawyers ramping up business, all ready for when the new laws are unleashed and profit beckons.

twitter.com/familyissuesbr/status/1160188264814403584?s=21

Agree Mediocre and yet it seems women and mothers in particular were the one group that were not consulted at all at either stage of this consultation.

Good article. It highlights some of the concerns. I really like the analogy to religious consultation.

Surragacy is an issue that inpacts women, ONLY women can do it and therefore women must be consulted.

Btw that programme in the link is English language with Spanish subtitles. Check it out.

Wow. That link from 1984in2019
*
"*Unlimited number of ovarian stimulations of egg donor"

Is that for real?

I recently watched "Eggsploitation"

Even though I was a midwife for twenty years (and did some work in the fertility clinic), still work in the NHS (not midwifery any more) and recently had dealings with a young woman who ended up in ICU and nearly died due to complications of the egg retrieval procedure I was deeply shocked by some of the complications and the exploitation of the young women featured in that programme.

I may have missed it - I've only skim read parts of the 501 pages of consultation - but I haven't seen ANY reference to the egg donors - who will undoubtedly be a key part of the whole programme.

Another thing to raise in replies to the consultation.

Really disturbing link 1984in2019 and this is exactly the ‘trade’ that this change in law hopes to attract to the UK.

Online consultation here:
consult.justice.gov.uk/law-commission/surrogacy/

Googled the consultation on surrogacy and was bombarded with websites advertising their services.
So I looked at one, it’s really really disturbing
www.mother-surrogate.com/delivery-in-ukraine.html

'child protection/ women’s rights'

I don't think the powers that be are interested in those things.

They are interested in business and in giving men what they want.

• correction:

Surely it would have made more sense and been fairer to have appointed someone with experience and a background in child protection/ women’s rights or ethics.

Of interest is that this Law Commission is being led by a man with no legal experience of anything to do with surrogacy.

www.reading.ac.uk/law/about/staff/n-p-hopkins.aspx

Professor Nick Hopkins has extensive experience and publications on housing and property law. What qualification does he have to lead a revolution in the commercial reproductive industry. How did he get chosen for this role?

Surely it would have made more sense and been fairer to have this led this consultation with a background in child protection / women’s rights or ethics.