Famous men and surrogacy

@Oncewasblueandyellowtwo why assume this nanny has been "sold"?

Camsie30
Why is selling a baby legal but an organ is not?

Why assume that the surrogate didn't do this out of choice? There are women who choose to do this, are not forced to, are not doing it for the money. Also why assume that the baby hasn't just has some skin to skin and a feed?
You have no idea what's going on here.

In the UK it's currently forbidden to pay the woman who carries the baby more than 'expenses'.

I had read that the expenses paid which can be a flat rate lump sum, are about 15,000 pounds on average in the UK apparently- but it seems that actually there isn’t any fixed upper limit on payments. This surrogacy group sets it out:

www.brilliantbeginnings.co.uk/blog/how-much-can-uk-surrogates-get-paid

With the Law Commission suggesting that 18 years old should be the minimum age for surrogacy, and no upper age cut off for surrogacy, and that it should be allowed to advertise around surrogacy in future, then it’s not hard to imagine that pretty much any woman on hard times might be tempted to ‘volunteer’ for something which could be very risky physically and mentally for her, and her family, if upwards of double figures of thousands of pounds are at stake.

Furthermore, I didn’t spot a suggested limit to how many times a woman could be a surrogate in the Law Commission consultation.
The risks of exploitation of women and financial inducements seem very high.

To PP saying ‘it’s not her biological baby if the egg was from a donor’. that seems strange, whose body do you think actually grew the embryo into a baby?

That photo with the them dragging the baby along the corridor, arms in the air just made me dreadfully upset and full of anger.
Yea it's just so sad.
I've had two babies and I have never seen my partner or another mothers partner wheel the baby around the maternity halls to take a picture like this.
In my maternity hospital there were signs on the walls that stated not to take the baby out of the ward.
For me it makes this picture all the more jarring.

As mothers we can tell they have no clue. That poor little baby girl being dragged off like that.

When I saw this picture posted on Instagram it made me really uncomfortable..

I feel so uncomfortable about this for so many reasons.

That photo is awful. Triumphant theft. Foul.

That photo with the them dragging the baby along the corridor, arms in the air just made me dreadfully upset and full of anger.

I think it's incredibly difficult to determine that there hasn't been any coercion in altruistic surrogacy. Do they apply the same safeguards that let an altruistic organ donor say they are incompatible to altruistic surrogates?

The biggest issue for me is that by definition surrogacy assumes that pregnancy is inconvenient but low risk.

There have been enough surrogate births now for some compelling research that all surrogate pregnancies are high risk, especially when a donated egg is used, as is most common these days. Roughly explained it causes an immunological reaction in the mother similar to a transplanted organ, and this creates changes in the placental interface..

This study suggests a 35% risk of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy in donor egg pregnancies compared to 17% in IVF pregnancies using own egg and about 5-8% in naturally conceived pregnancies.

Hypertension in pregnancy is dangerous and can only be finally resolved by delivering the baby(ies).
So this presents risks to the mother of complications of raised blood pressure (stroke etc), LSCS, haemorrhage for starters and premature birth of the baby(ies).

obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1471-0528.13910

Then there all the additional risks, for instance figures from the HFEA showed 23% of surrogate mothers were aged over 40 in 2016. Add in multiple births. The surrogate mother in the Guardian article above was aged 48 carrying twins. How very predictable that it all went pear shaped at the end with raised blood pressure, early LSCS and poorly babies.

I think it is completely unacceptable to expose women to these risks. (Quite apart from other issues).

And of course it is the NHS that has to pick up the pieces of these high risk pregnancies.

My hospital in the SW had to transfer a baby to Edinburgh last year as that was the only unit with a NICU cot available at the time! The NHS really doesn't have capacity for a large increase in these high risk pregnancies.

In surrogacy, significant rights are surrendered, and that’s usually by the birth mother. I’m surprised at the rose-tinted view here, as if it’s such a wonderful loving act; it may be in some cases, but in the context of the whole world, it’s the financial and physical exploitation of poor women for the benefit of rich couples (of any sexual orientation). Any relaxation of laws around surrogacy would only increase this.

This is the photo for those who were asking

That Guardian article is painful to read.

I am torn with altruistic surrogacy, and feel i would support that when there will be aome sort of relationship with the birth mother.
However i am against paid commercial surrogacy, that is womb renting and reducing carrying a baby to a simplistic scientific proceedure.
The article annoyed me as the birth mother was inconsequential, for all we know she may not have survived the birth.
The pictire is available online.

timshelthechoice

I think though, this won't be for long, there have been a few high profile surrogacy stories in the last while.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/apr/27/secret-diary-of-a-surrogate-mother This article by a surrogate mother is challenging reading. It was recommended on another thread about the current storyline on this subject in The Archers.

UK is consulting on surrogacy right now, closing date 11th October, so if you want to respond better get on with it.

(On my to do list for this weekend.)

www.lawcom.gov.uk/project/surrogacy/#surrogacy-consultation

In the UK it's currently forbidden to pay the woman who carries the baby more than 'expenses'. In the US though she can be paid a substantial sum of money. In many other parts of the world there is also outright payment to her for going through with the pregnancy and birth. Nothing altruistic about it at all. I don't think that Daily Mail article says where the baby was born, does it? Don't know the law on this in Ireland.

Saying that some babies don't get the best start in life so it doesn't matter if even more are short changed is not a very good argument. If a mother is ill after the birth and can't be with her baby, that's unavoidable and means she should get the best support available to try to help get things back on track when she's well again.

Even where a woman has gestated a baby created from an egg from another woman, the birth mother has still been the one providing all but the first few cells of that baby's body from her own body. The baby has grown hearing her heartbeat and voice. To remove the baby from her immediately after birth is just wrong. It may be what the birth mother wants, it may be what the parents who are going to bring the baby up want, but it's storing up potential problems for the baby. Nobody has a right to a child. The baby's needs should be at the forefront.

Clearly uninformed on this issues so sorry if this is a stupid question. But I thought the only money allowed to change hands was for medical bills? I am ok with altruistic surrogacy - within families/friendships.

I cannot see how it is ever ok to ‘buy’ a baby though.

I offered to carry a child for a friend who lost her only child and was unable to have any more. Had I been younger, I'd have offered an egg as well. Her husband would have been the biological father. Not all women are forced or persecuted, you know, so it's not all 'other' women. I have a friend who's been an egg donor multiple times, she never wanted to give birth to a child or parent, but she was fine with donating her eggs, it's had no ill effects on her. She knows her donations have resulted in 4 live births.

Really no need to apologise NotTonight x

I saw the photo yesterday too.
I did make me feel sorry for the child. No matter how much love two loving fathers can give the child, it will never match up to the bond between mother and baby. We don’t seem to hear of women being surrogates for ‘normal’ men. Perhaps the fact that they are famous encouraged the women to do it? It does seem to be becoming more common.
I have a gay friend who has sought to adopt with his long term partner, thinking he would not be considered. He was told that although it isn’t commonplace that a gay couple would be considered, there are children who will flourish with male role models because of a bad past. He was given an example of a mother who had severe mental health issues and didn’t recognise her child as her own. The child was fostered to a single male. Why can these famous couples not adopt needy children instead?
I absolutely accept and respect the gay community but there are times when I feel we have nature an injustice. Science is wonderful but not when it is possibly detrimental to the child. That baby will never know the maternal bond and love it naturally craves. That makes me sad.