Gay dads take surrogate to court after she bans them from seeing twin baby girls

But her act of changing horses mid-stream is unethical. And here comes the argument "Surrogacy is unethical". Well, this woman should never have agreed to it then. Her body. Her choice and all that. She made a conscious decision, one she was not coerced into, and then changed her mind

Why does the responsibility only fall on her though? If surrogacy is unethical why doesn't that stand for the 'purchasers' too? That if you treat women like walking incubators and humans as commodities to be bought and sold, that is the risk you take and it might not work out for you?

Maybe it should just be accepted that contracts to treat pregnancy, birth and babies as business transactions can't be enforced because it completely ignores the human factor.

I once commented on here that I thought surrogacy was wrong, that I believed it harmed all women for any of us to be viewed as commodities and that no-one should be able to rent out parts of another person’s body. I may have said I’ll believe surrogacy is an altruistic act when I see rich women carrying babies for poor, infertile couples.

A lesbian poster accused me of homophobia because, she said, surrogacy was the only way gay couples could have a child and I wanted to remove their right to be parents. Hence, I was a homophobe.

So I’ll not bother joining in this time I think.

I read it as the mother asking for the remainder of the money that had been agreed in advance rather than her asking for additional money. We don't know the facts of the case but it all makes me feel very uncomfortable.

So they didn't pay up the full expenses incurred by mother - who had had to take a considerable time off work and incurred related expenses, presumably, for a traumatic premie birth - and they're the victims?

This is why even altruistic surrogacy should be banned. If you don't have enough to cover the surrogate's full expenses if something goes wrong - what then?

What happens when these children grow up and are asking for origin stories so that identity formation is not traumatic? "Oh, your mum had you three months early and it cost her quite a bit of money which we didn't reimburse her for and then we took her to court for trying to make us pay it". Lovely.

They tried several surrogates over the years, but went through miscarriages and failed pregnancy attempts.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again, eh? Do expenses include mental health care for surrogates who have miscarried?

Babies are not products you can buy. Women's bodies are not hosts you can rent.

We only have their side of the story and it still paints them in a bad light. So I’d definitely love to hear the mother’s side.

buying all the essential equipment needed for newborns we were already in minus funds

Well, they had months to prepare for the fact that the surrogate was having twins. And surely they'd worked out costs in advance? You do that if you're having a baby, no?

Agree that them mentioning the fact that they had to drive 3.5 hours to the hospital is very 'poor me' - doesn't really compare to the surrogate mother having to give birth to premature twins, does it? Selfish gits.

In fact, the whole thing is selfish. They show absolutely no compassion for any of the women involved in helping them achieve their dream of parenthood.

There needs to be clear guidelines as to who the child belongs to

A baby is not a possession.

I also think surrogacy should be banned. No one has a right to have children. The world is already heavily overpopulated.

I know a gay man who wants to be a Dad. I think he would be excellent, but I find the way he talks about surrogates disturbing. It is as if they are nothing more than a fruit machine. I questioned him on this and pointed out that a surrogate is also a mother and he said 'not if we use an egg donor'. He just doesn't get it. The woman who carries a baby for 9 months is legally the mother in this country and, legality aside, her whole body has to change to bring the child into the world. That is not insignificant.

Reading through the lines, these men are inferring that the woman only pretended to want the babies to extort money. It also sounds as if they agrees to pay £17K expenses but only paid £14K. There are good reasons why commercial surrogacy doesn't exist in this country and the arrangements they entered into appear to have slipped over that boundary. The baby is now living with the gay couple and not with their mother and no mention of contact with the mother is mentioned. The commercial surrogacy contract appears to have been given more weight than the current law on surrogacy, which is a worrying sign.

Does she even qualify for maternity leave being a surrogate?

Yes. She gave birth. Maternity leave isn’t just for cuddling. It’s also for the physical recovery from pregnancy and childbirth.

Why not? Because they're not the mother?

Exactly. Miscarriage is the natural termination of a pregnancy. Neither of them were pregnant.

One of them is the biological father.

Irrelevant. They weren’t pregnant.

They claim in that article that they are both nurses and have spent a lifetime caring for others. You'd assume that's other people, right?

One of them is a nurse at a vet's practice so not quite what they seem to want people to think.

I just read up that she still would have been entitled to maternity pay but we don't know it she was self employed, wasn't entitled due to earnings/timings etc and also SMP is nothing like a full time wage

Why not? Because they're not the mother? One of them is the biological father.

No, because they weren't pregnant. The way they talk- 'we tried several surrogates over the years but went through miscarriages'

What they actually did was put several women through physical and emotional trauma to fulfil their desires, and it's all about them not the numerous women that went through it.

I haven’t seen anything in the reporting that mentions how the twin pregnancy was achieved. It’s not clear if there was professional involvement like there would be if the woman had had IVF or donor insemination at a doctors office.

If starting the pregnancy took place in private, then what opportunities for counselling and information sharing about risks would there have been for anyone involved?

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-7857381/Gay-fathers-left-43-000-debt-surrogate-refused-hand-twins.html

the ethics of surrogacy are very dodgy. it is such an enormous thing to do that no amount of money should be used as an inducement.

it's difficult to know the facts of the case from a tabloid article but it looks to me as if these people were trying to circumvent the current law which is that the only payment should be for legitimate expenses, by agreeing a large monthly allowance for the pregnancy. because she gave birth 12 weeks early she only recieved two thirds of the money agreed and felt that she was still owed the rest, whereas the purchasers thought that as she wasn't pregnant any more they didn't owe any more.

I think the law should be tightened up to make it more difficult for people to circumnavigate the ban on payment for surrogacy but the patriarchal arrogance of the people conducting the current review makes me suspect it will go the other way and a capitalist market for renting women's wombs will be legalised and normalised and the emotional and mental health of the exploited women will be studiously ignored because otherwise it is mean to the men.

they were scrambling to meet the cost of caring for their poorly newborn

What costs? Thought the twins were in hospital being cared for, for free, by the NHS?

The couple are appealing for support from the public after taking out loans of up to £26k just to cover the legal costs, on top of the amount already paid out to their surrogate.

Well, presumably they agreed with the surrogate what to pay her at the start, so that's a foreseeable expense and I have no sympathy there.

Hard to know who's wrong or right with only one side of the story being given here.

Also agree that surrogacy should be banned outright.

they didn’t go through any miscarriages.

Why not? Because they're not the mother? One of them is the biological father.

I just looked at their fund raising link, I wasn't impressed at some of their comments:

e.g.

'After many many years being part of the surrogacy community we conceived our first,'

Really? they conceived? I think not.

It's just an advert for their go fund me to pay off their debts

Pay your own debts everyone else has to 🤷‍♀️ some people in family court have to self rep because they cant afford it

It's not even that long a drive!

It reads as though they had an agreement for the couple to cover her expenses for the whole duration of the pregnancy (the whole 40 weeks and maybe for some time off afterwards) but when she gave birth at 28 weeks, that stopped. She was expected to hand over the babies and that was it.

I don't think it's disgusting that the surrogate and her boyfriend asked for the deal to be stuck to. After all, she had a traumatic birth to twins at just 28 weeks and was about to be left high and dry. Does she even qualify for maternity leave being a surrogate?

The couple clearly state that they didn't have the money to pay the rest of her expenses so why did they agree to use a surrogate then? So instead of giving her £3,000 more in expenses which I assume was to cover her time off after the birth, they racked up £26,000 in legal fee's? It doesn't really add up to be honest. While it's a bit sickening that babies were being withheld due to non payment, I still think this woman was being left high and dry and it was merely an attempt to make sure she was looked after as promised.

If she isn't entitled to maternity pay, this woman may well have to return to work only having taken a couple annual leave and the money for expenses was to ensure she could have some time off after the birth

The article is written by and on behalf of the gay couple so is very biased naturally.

I too would be interested to hear the other side.

Who stayed with the twins from 26 weeks? The article doesn’t say so I assume the mother.

Also assuming she has a job or other children the £3000 extra could have been to cover extra expenses such as child care, travel for her family etc whilst she remained with the twins.

These two lines jumped out at me from the article

They befriended the new one

The new what? Can they not say woman?

She was just 28 weeks along, and the couple said they drove for three-and-a-half hours to rush to hospital to meet the twins.

Why even mention the time it took to drive to the hospital particularly when the woman had a difficult birth with a breech? Poor men had a longish drive.

Surrogacy being illegal only exacerbates the risk of exploitation.

Making something illegal doesn't make it disappear (making drugs illegal hasn't exactly worked).
All it does is make it easier for individuals to be exploited as the legal framework to protect them isn't clear and they themselves risk being prosecuted.

If there was a clear, enforceable legal framework, with the focus around ensuring individuals are protected from exploitation, providing independent counselling, legal advice etc to those individuals, ensuring independent scrutiny - that would achieve a lot more than simply trying to ban something which (like it or not) is happening worldwide.

Surrogacy is misunderstood and misrepresented, in part because its an emotive subject but also because its impossible to use one catch all term for such a broad range of circumstances.
That's where laws come in, to try to define what is and what isn't exploitation and ensure individuals are protected.

By chance I had the opportunity to speak to someone who chose to have a child for someone else, it made me realise how many misconceptions I had (and as she quite rightly pointed out, my former views were patronising).

After their little boy began asking for a sibling, they decided they were ready to expand their family.

They tried several surrogates over the years, but went through miscarriages and failed pregnancy attempts.

they didn’t go through any miscarriages.

Before she was discharged from hospital she told them she wanted the remainder to be paid - bringing the amount they had given her nearly £17,000 in total.

“The remainder” suggests she was asking for money that had previously been agreed. Sounds like they reneged on the deal but still wanted to take their goods.

It’s also not clear whether the surrogate is the biological mother of the twins or if a donor egg was used.

as they had already drained their lifesavings to pay for the surrogacy and were scrambling to meet the cost of caring for their poorly newborns.

What costs? Their poorly newborns were being cared for free of charge by the NHS. They didn’t have them at home at that point. They weren’t paying for that.

Such muddy waters. Everything about surrogacy is wrong in my opinion, the idea of a woman (usually disadvantaged compared to the couple she is 'employed' by) literally being a walking incubator is unethical and dystopian!
I don't like how all surrogates are presented as selfless women who just want to help other couples and love being pregnant and childbirth. That's so far from what must be the reality for most surrogates. It's exploitation.