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

because it is recognised that you cannot make human relationships subject to purely contractual arrangements

I agree but equally, along with intimate labour, in all human relationships contractual arrangements play a part. We are naive to think otherwise.

As regards the consultation, among the many proposals, they seek to make it easier for parents returning from abroad with a baby acquired overseas.
Just as countries such as India, Thailand, Cambodia and others clamp down on surrogacy tourism, the UK seeks to make it easier for UK citizens to go forth and exploit women overseas.

What a shameful proposal.

so I'm really questioning whether your research does show that commercial surrogacy gives women more power (as you suggest) because the timing of your research suggests that the exploitation is taking place whilst commercial surrogacy is available for these families.

Thanks onemore that was my understanding too.

I just didn't understand the post below that you wrote earlier because the position for Indian families hasn't yet changed as I understand it. So I would have thought that if this pressure on young family members is already happening then it is not related to legislative change but to power dynamics in the family but you seem to be suggesting differently?

Your post that I am asking about:
'Yes but there's an unexpected impact to legislation of this kind.
They recently banned commercial surrogacy in India (although we also have a ban on commercial surrogacy in the UK although reading this thread you'd never know) unless it's through a close family member.

The effect: young females are being coerced and pressurised (with no proper clinical care) into being surrogates for other infertile family members. Result: less choice, less power, less control for women.
Historically, when commercial surrogacy was legal in India, all women concerned had far more control over the situation an could make choices that worked for them.'

I’ll say it again: no agreement exists within surrogacy in which someone does not relinquish rights. It’s reliant on all three parties involved to be happy and unquestioning of the outcome. That means the instant there’s a grievance, there is no structure possible that can appease all grievances.
This is true and by the time the child feels aggrieved it's way too late to resolve!

Surrogacy is deeply patriarchal, including among heterosexual couples, as Renate Klein discusses in this podcast.

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/filia-podcasts/id1461524178?i=1000447756888

For instance, towards the end, she explains: if an Australian couple go to the USA to use an American surrogate, in order to get a passport for the baby to return to Australia they just need to go to to an Australian consulate and the father do a DNA test. If the baby has his DNA then he is declared the father and the baby gets a passport. The woman who gave birth to the baby, the surrogate mother, doesn't have to be there . If the wife used he own eggs that doesn't count. It's all about the man and his progeny.

"It's basically men wanting their precious genes in their own babies". (Quote).

Not being able to have a child isn't discrimination

Exactly. Neither is being unable to find a partner, for example. (Often cited when using the argument that disabled men should be allowed to buy access to prostituted women).
Both are unfortunate and can be upsetting.

But no matter how sad something is, it doesn't give anyone the right to do something amoral or harmful.

A marriage is sometimes described as a contract, but it is not a contract in the legal or commercial sense in English law because it is recognised that you cannot make human relationships subject to purely contractual arrangements.

Yes, right, this!

This is why I think some people feel differently about altruistic surrogacy within families, it doesn't have the same feeling of making something that is fundamentally supposed to be about love and commitment about a contract or transaction. Because family is relational, not a contract or economic transaction.

Just a bit confused about the context of your research and the link you make to the pressure on women by family members being connected to the absence of a commercial market. NB I agree that there can be real problems in banning surrogacy and in unintended consequences I'm just not sure I understand your research findings

The bill has passed through Lok Sabha (the lower house of parliament) and was due to be passed by the upper house but the Indian Govt is responding to some criticism of the bill (the ban) and has diverted it to a Select Committee - for review. We await the outcome.

But surely this about disability - and we do legislate against discrimination on the basis of disability.

Yes, no one can discriminate against a couple who is infertile, but not giving them a job, or charging them more for groceries, whatever.

Not being able to have a child isn't discrimination, no one is doing it to you.

Also the husband didn't seem at all happy, "they're not mine", he didn't feel for kicks etc. He of course had to care for the children and he would do that if the child was his...basically you'd have to have a very supportive partner and it could end your marriage. It's a lot to ask of someone, even for the ones who want to do it.

In the event a woman went ahead with surrogacy, against the wishes of her husband, I wonder if the husband could name the commissioning father as a co-respondent in a divorce? And what the legal implications for that father might be?

onemorecupofcoffeefortheroad

Can I just ask you a Q about your research on Indian surrogacy please. I thought that the current position was that it had been restricted to married Indian couples but that the ban on these couples using commercial surrogacy hadn't yet been put into law? Certainly the bill tracker suggests it's still moving through Parliament prsindia.org/billtrack/surrogacy-regulation-bill-2019

Just a bit confused about the context of your research and the link you make to the pressure on women by family members being connected to the absence of a commercial market. NB I agree that there can be real problems in banning surrogacy and in unintended consequences I'm just not sure I understand your research findings.

Even if the surrogate mother acted abysmally; even if the intended parents are in this case beyond reproach; even if they will be the most wonderful parents; even if she was deceitful and money grabbing, this sorry tale proves not that surrogacy should be legal and that there should be a move towards commercial surrogacy, but that surrogacy can never be subject to pure contractual agreements.

The reason for this hideous mess is that the parties acted as if this was a contractual agreement like any other.

A marriage is sometimes described as a contract, but it is not a contract in the legal or commercial sense in English law because it is recognised that you cannot make human relationships subject to purely contractual arrangements. A spouse who has an affair may well have acted imorrally or cruelly, he has almost certainly contradicted his wedding vows. His spouse may well be able to divorce him and there will usually need to be a way to divide assets. But he has not breached a contract because marriage is about relationships. It is not the same as a builder who takes ££ but doesn't finish building an extension.

For the same reasons, it would be very unwise to introduce contractual agreements to surrogacy.

Plus, I'll say it again, women aren't vessels and babies aren't commodities.

you might as well say that some people are discriminated against for being born short, or with a genetic disorder, or something else. Nature I suppose is the ultimate discriminator but that's not really something you can seek justice about

But surely this about disability - and we do legislate against discrimination on the basis of disability.

This thread has made me realise that surrogacy is wrong, unethical and should be banned.
Thank you for finally quieting my ambivalence.

On what grounds could you deny just one couple such a third party without being simply discriminatory.

I'm not sure how you think this is discriminatory? You might as well say that some people are discriminated against for being born short, or with a genetic disorder, or something else. Nature I suppose is the ultimate discriminator but that's not really something you can seek justice about.

no IVF clinic in the UK will ever implant 3 or 4 embryos. The maximum is 2 and will depends on a lot of factors

It is however increasingly popular to travel to use fertility clinics abroad as this is considerably cheaper than in the UK. And the upper limit on embryo numbers being implanted varies between countries.

I’ll say it again: no agreement exists within surrogacy in which someone does not relinquish rights. It’s reliant on all three parties involved to be happy and unquestioning of the outcome. That means the instant there’s a grievance, there is no structure possible that can appease all grievances.

It’s basically 9-12 months of people crossing their fingers and hoping everything stays on track and everyone does what they’re supposed to, but with a baby being exchanged as part of that. It’s disgusting.

think surrogacy should be banned. I also don’t believe anybody has the right to have children they cannot make themselves with their own bodies and using their own DNA

Why not? So presumably you don't agree with (some forms of) IVF or sperm or egg donation either?

In life there are groups of people who are in relationships where one partner for one reason or another, and these reasons can be varied, cannot reproduce a child biologically by themselves. For example, a couple who are man and a woman where the woman does not have a womb, a couple man and woman where man has no viable sperm, the case of two women who need sperm to reproduce, or the case of two men who require someone else's womb and eggs to reproduce (note that their situation is identical to most men who also need a female womb and eggs to reproduce).

All of these people are united by the fact that they cannot reproduce naturally without the assistance of a third party (although in realistic terms that is the case for all of us - no-one can reproduce on their own). On what grounds could you deny just one couple such a third party without being simply discriminatory.

no IVF clinic in the UK will ever implant 3 or 4 embryos. The maximum is 2 and will depends on a lot of factors
That's good to know, thanks.

Goosefoot excellent post

I think surrogacy should be banned. I also don’t believe anybody has the right to have children they cannot make themselves with their own bodies and using their own DNA. It’s too complicated a situation to legislate fairly for in all cases. Payment or contract both exert control over somebody a woman’s body. We don’t allow payment/contract for transplanted organs in this country, using someone’s womb to grow a a child and all that pregnancy and birth and post natal health entails is just the same. It should be illegal.

Reading this thread again I'm reminded of two things In the consultation document:

1. That a child born of surrogacy can access a register to find out when they are related to a partner - it was asking what age this should be allowed. So the DNA is pretty key, if you ended up trying to start a family with someone you're related to.

1. It asked how much compensation should be paid to a surrogate who loses the baby and it asked how much on each trimester, as if there is more value the longer into the pregnancy before a miscarriage

There are other problems I have it with, such as gifts/payment and the age a surrogate could be (so 18 year olds can give up their eggs/DNA/bodies). Lovely. In the US they target students at college.

There is no doubt that there are attempts to make U.K. surrogacy law more relaxed, more commercial under the disguise of 'keeping it on our shores', keeping it away from the exploitation of women in other countries and being more accepting of a way of a way to start a family. Handmaids Tale here we come.

I also think you just can NOT dismiss the woman who gave the egg as the mother.

We know very well that children who are born with sperm donor or those who have been raised by a man who isn’t their father genetically (aka the mum had an affair...) will know that the link they have their dad is different. I have a couple of friends in exactly that case - even though this is never talked about within the family.
I can not imagine that this will be different with the egg. These children WILL have some sort of link with the egg donor that cannot be dismissed, regardless of who has given birth to them.

The issue about who is the mother ....

Atm a child who is born automatically has a mother (and a father) as it is seen that the mother is the one who gave birth and the father is automatically her husband if they are married.
If some time later, another come and can show by DNA that the child is genetically his, he will get the parental right and will be seen as the father.

Until now, a woman who is giving birth had to be genetically related to the child. The law hasnt kept up with technology. But you can wonder if the mother is the one who gives birth or the one gave the egg like it is about the sperm....

The other issue is that a surrogate IS only a vessel and at the same time isn’t. It’s very clear that the baby will be affected by the mother and vice versa (hormonal changes, hearing the heart beat etce etc).

So I would say that the mother is the one genetically related to the child (as is the father). But that the surrogate will have a special relationship with the child (maybe like a second mother? I think so far the effect of ‘just’ carrying the foetus onto the child -on the long term- is still unknown). And the father is the sperm donor.

This is opening huge cans of worms though. What about babies born from egg donors or sperm donors? The idea that there has been a sperm donor seems to be more accepted than acknowledging that having used an egg donor gives a different relationship between the mother (who carried and gave birth to the baby) and the child.
Eg we might say that a man is the ‘Dad’ of the child even if he isn’t the ‘Father’ (aka sperm donor) but I dint think anyone would dare saying that the woman is the ‘Mum’ and not the ‘Mother’ iyswim