Woman asking nhs to pay for US surrogacy

I quite agree Fanny I don't think cosmetic surgery should be funded by the NHS but commercial surrogacy which is illegal here? How can anyone see that as a reasonable request let alone sue for it!

• on the radio

There was a brief mention on the when I was driving to work. The case is being heard today. So much wrong with it on so many levels. As pp's have said, she wants funding for FOUR, and for a type of commercial surrogacy which is illegal here.
I sincerely hope the Supreme Court do not allow this - whatever your views on surrogacy it cannot be right that the NHS should be forced to fund something that is illegal here.

Nobody’s preventing her from spending any money she has been awarded in that way Bernadette. Commercial surrogacy is illegal in the UK but it’s legal to go to the US and have it there. The argument is whether she should be granted additional money specifically for that purpose even though it would be illegal in the UK as a matter of public policy.

It’s different from (say) a very specialist fertility treatment on her own body which happened to be offered only by one very expensive (say) Swiss clinic. In that case she’d definitely be entitled to claim for it if it was genuinely the only effective treatment.

Iirc she has already been compensated to the tune of £500k for the medical neglect. She wants another £500k to pursue a version of surrogacy where the surrogates have so few rights that it’s illegal in the UK.

I think if her lawsuit pays out for them missing her cervical cancer then she can do whatever she wants with her money.

We don't police everyone's spend from compensation .

I don’t think her surrogacy should be funded, but I do think she should be compensated for severe medical neglect.

Yes i heard this on the radio this morning. She (and her partner presumably) want 4 children. As far as I know the nhs will only fund ivf for 1 child (we weren’t entitled as we already had a child) so if nothing else I can’t understand that argument. And I also don’t think the nhs should be funding fertility treatment abroad no matter what the cause of infertility. I think the surrogacy model here is correct - the birth mother has rights.

www.theguardian.com/law/2019/dec/15/supreme-court-to-hear-case-of-woman-seeking-us-surrogacy-costs

Thanks for this OP, have you a news link? I'd like to read more on this if possible.

Yeah, that would be an awful precedent. Her grief and anger is understandable, but this is not the way to go.

This scares me massively. This is not what the NHS is for. This is not what other women’s bodies are for.