Woman asking nhs to pay for US surrogacy

I think the reason is that in this country the surrogate is the legal mother - if she changes her mind, she could potentially keep the baby even though she isn't the genetic mother. In the USA, the surrogate is not deemed to be the legal parent.
I can quite understand her wanting that legal protection, since the babies would presumably be genetically hers. But expecting the NHS to pay for 4 surrogate pregnancies is madness.

Would it not have been possible for this woman to access an altruistic surrogate in the UK? Natalie Gamble talks about matching services, you don't need to know the person to have them have a baby for you without paying them. This is not illegal in the UK. There may be other reasons why she wants to buy babies from America, maybe it's down to how many she can have here? I don't know, I do wonder why the £500+ wasn't enough for her to do this anyway, a further court action is excessive as is the 'right' to 4 children via surrogacy. She could adopt with that money also. There's more to this I feel.

Whatever she’s doing, the state shouldn’t a) pay for something that is illegal here b) ensure that every part of someone’s disappointed expectations are fulfilled. Some people want a family of 7. Should that also be included in the damages? She has more than enough money to go ahead with surrogacy but wants more because she wants four children.

But this woman wouldn't be buying someone else's baby, she would be paying a woman to grow her genetic child. It's a bit different to buying a poor person's kidney.
I'm a bit torn on surrogacy. I do believe the genetic parent is the one who should be legally recognized as the child's parent, rather than a surrogate who carries a pregnancy but doesn't use her own egg.
OTOH, I'm concerned about people getting eggs from one woman (anonymously and from someone who doesn't view herself as the mum since she wasn't Pg or gave birth), getting another woman to carry the baby (who also doesn't consider herself to be the mother since it wasn't her egg) and these children not having any 'real' mother. That does feel like adults getting what they want at the expense of the child.
And of course, vulnerable women need protection from exploitation.
But I don't really think it's wrong to pay a person who chooses freely to become a surrogate, to carry your genetic child if you are physically unable to do do yourself.
Altruistic surrogacy is an amazing thing - I would hate to be banned from doing this for someone I loved, if that was my choice.

I think the rights and wrongs become a bit more obvious if you draw a comparison to an equivalent situation that is less emotionally charged and tinged with misogyny and ownership of women's bodies.

So, think about kidney transplants.

In the UK it is illegal to buy and sell organs. This is because of the ethical minefield that could open up if a richer person was able to effectively buy life and health at the expense of a poorer person. So even if you are very wealthy, if you need a transplant then, rich or poor, you have to wait until you reach the top of the priority list for receipt of a donor organ from a matching recently deceased stranger donor, or hope that a matching family member or friend chooses to donate to you - but if there is any suspicion that money is changing hands then the surgeons will not operate.

There are countries that don't have these legal barriers. In some cases the "donors" are prisoners, or are in such dire circumstances that selling their body parts is the only way to survive.

If the NHS made some kind of clinical negligence mistake that caused someone to lose kidney function and need a transplant, obviously they would go onto the waiting list for a donation organ but it might be a long time (or never) before they reached the criteria for being the most appropriate candidate for an available organ. If that person started demanding that the NHS should pay for them to travel to a country without ethical controls on paid donations, where kidneys were available to be bought, doesn't it seem much more obvious that this should definitely be refused?

Back to the case in point, and the reason this woman wants the money to pay for US surrogacy is because they don't have the ethical restrictions which UK law has in place to protect the rights of the vulnerable woman providing the surrogacy. Our stricter ethical laws are not obtuse and unreasonable barriers, they are reasonable balancing of different people's needs. The idea that UK tax payers should be compelled to pay for someone to sidestep UK law is unreasonable.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-50809116

Has the mainstream media covered this issue yet?

As an aside can we agree that "harvesting" is such a grim word. I always hear "bringing in the sheaves" in my head when I hear it *shudder.

This just seems grabby, Loss of fertility is awful but a million pounds? She's alive and without the NHS she would be dead. The fuck up with diagnoses is awful but this whole case just seems wrong, and thats aside from what I consider morally objectionable plans to rent a womb or series of wombs.

In that case, I suppose I can ever-so-slightly see her point, if there are only a few eggs available, she doesn't want the risk of it being successful but then the surrogate keeping "her" baby.

But 4 children is still asking for too much and I agree that as the arrangement she wants to have is not legal here then she shouldn't be enabled to do it.

Yes it would be with the claimants’ own eggs (at least for a first attempt). Some of the original award was for egg harvesting and freezing.

The thing is, even pretty

early cervical cancer is treated by radical hysterectomy leaving the woman infertile. The surgery is brutal but gives the woman the best chance of long term survival. So the truth is that most likely cervical cancer robbed her of her fertility, not the delayed diagnosis. She has been compensated half a million pounds for the delayed diagnosis which is reasonable but the additional claim is taking the mickey

I suppose "male" pregnancy could be a growing market and they want to tap into it to maximise their profits. A wealthy trans man who has knackered their own reproductive system, had their eggs harvested or is too dysphoric to carry their own child is a great moneyspinner.

Court will rule she's after compensation for the same issue and thus isn't eligible

Court of appeal didn’t rule thus.

Court will rule she's after compensation for the same issue and thus isn't eligible.

What was the compensation for if it didn't take her resulting infertility and the implications into consideration?

Sorry but she's nothing more than greedy.

Brilliant Beginnings was undoubtedly heavily involved with the Law Commission, as "stakeholders" OhHolyJesus . Natalie Gamble is currently charging about £13k for services which I don't understand as I thought charging for "matching" services was currently against the law.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/nov/21/surrogacy-in-the-uk

Payments to surrogates is just shy of £15k by the law commissioners own research, with an increasing number topping £20k.

Thanks Fanny I'm not sure what to do with this news really, essentially an ex-criminal who is in the business of selling babies is going around France advising on surrogacy alongside an ex-defence lawyer who is, in turn, advising on a public consultation in the Uk on the same topic.

France has banned surrogacy, even altruistic surrogacy and the Uk appears to be looking to loosen laws around surrogacy.

How do we escalate this?

The question is whether surrogacy costs are reasonable cost associated with ‘rectifying’ the harm done to her. It’s a bit nebulous really but then again the NHS has made it impossible for her to have children herself, they should pay out and the costs of having someone else carry the baby seem like an easy method of quantification

So I assume this must be with her (the claimant's) eggs? Or she wouldn't have a case.

@Al1ceinWinterWonderland this has nothing to do with what the NHS finds. It’s about quantifying how much the NHS has hurt her. So this will include awards for things like pain and suffering, any medical costs arising (the NHS doesn’t fund private rooms etc either but it’s fine to claim for private treatment in tort), physical harm etc. The question is whether surrogacy costs are reasonable cost associated with ‘rectifying’ the harm done to her. It’s a bit nebulous really but then again the NHS has made it impossible for her to have children herself, they should pay out and the costs of having someone else carry the baby seem like an easy method of quantification.

Top sleuthing OhHolyJesus
There's so much to unpick in that article, , it's shocking.

"The supreme court is hearing the case on Monday and Tuesday. It is is expected to reserve judgment until the new year."

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/dec/16/nhs-us-surrogacy-costs-cancer-misdiagnosis

Also am I right I'm thinking that Brilliant Beginnings was on the list for the Law Commission too? They have links to Stonewall and Mermaids think...

I remember Natalie Gamble talking about the 'cost' of surrogacy in the UK on Women's Hour. It's illegal here to pay costs to a surrogate, but you can pay expenses - the figures run to 15-20k apparently (for the surrogate?) but it didn't cost me that much to have a child, I guess it's those lawyers again...how much does the surrogate get though...?

God Fanny Leia Swanberg has an interesting past...baby-selling? Human trafficking more like...and unbeknownst to her, really? She was convicted.

"Swanberg was formally charged and nearly two before she was convicted. She and her company, Canadian Fertility Consulting (CFC), paid $60,000 in fines. Her offences boiled down to paying money to egg donors for their eggs, paying money to surrogates for contract pregnancies and taking finder's fees from an American lawyer who, unbeknownst to Swanberg, was running an elaborate baby-selling ring. All of these are prohibited under Canada's 2004 Assisted Human Reproduction Act, the law governing the world of reproductive technology in this country."

www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/health/business-is-booming-for-fertility-matchmaker-leia-swanberg/article28930242/

It is all about how much compensation she should get for the missed diagnosis. She just wants more money to be able to compensate her and cover the cost of surrogacy. If her higher award is upheld then she will still be compensated for the missed diagnosis and it is just that she is choosing to use some of that money to fund commercial surrogacy.

I'm not sure this is quite right. The amount of pain and suffering this misdiagnosis caused her will have a fixed value.

Surely the cost of 4 surrogates comes under some sort of "future losses" or "future treatment costs" element of a claim? Which needs to be reasonable.

Is the 'Men having babies' conference about Transmen having babies by any chance?