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

@FlyingOink, 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, incl the age the parents and previous history if miscarriages, quality if the embryos etc....

The newspaper story is really unclear, I wouldn't like to make any definite assumptions about what went on based on what it says. It's possible of course the mother and the boyfriend were trying to squeeze the gay couple for more money. But it isn't clear by any means.

I think that it's really a quite simple question in the end. We can say all kinds of things about potential exploitation, and they'd be true, but in the end it is grossly immoral to produce children to sell or give away. And it completely ignores the rights of the child that someone upthread mentioned, as outlined by the UN. I also think egg and sperm donation come to the same thing, giving away or selling your children, denying them a chance to know you, creating these situations where there is potentially no mother or father that the child can know.

This is entirely different than either adoption, or just bad and absent parents. In the case of the latter, while there are limited possibilities for forcing someone to parent, we all agree that this is selfish and worthy of social disapproval. To the extent that we can we try and force at least financial support, until the point where the state sees that the biological parents are a danger to the child. Whereas with surrogacy or donation of gametes we are being asked to see it as socially acceptable. What's more, we are asking the state to provide legal methods to facilitate this giving or selling for the good of those doing the selling or buying. This is again different from adoption where the state takes over care of the child for the good of the child, and facilitates an adoption insomuch as it is better for the child than being an orphan.

I do agree though with some posters who have said that ultimately this gets argued in public as a LGBTQ issue. It's wrong, but I've seen it time and again. And while this forum tends to dismiss that, in the last discussion I saw of this the exact same thing was said about concerns about sperm donation, that it was homophobic because it would impinge on the ability of lesbians to have kids. It's a specious argument though, the fact that it would affect the ability of some people to have kids, for any reason be it infertility of being gay or lesbian, in no way makes it ok to do something that is in itself morally problematic.

The intended parents in the Baby has Landed each fertilised one egg and both were implanted, so they were each related to one of the twins but it's not clear if the eggs were from the same donor and I'm not sure it was made clear if the mother used her own eggs (I think not as she had her own kids).

These men had paid a woman they didn't know to provide them with a baby (or babies - I'd put money on them having had two embryos implanted).

That's an interesting point actually. There's a good chance there were multiple embryos implanted, possibly more than two. In the event the surrogate ended up carrying quads (for example) would the men feel empowered to force her to terminate one, two or three of them? en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_reduction

There was a story last year of a surrogacy which went badly wrong and the surrogate had learning difficulties and really hadn't understood what she was doing. I wonder what the story is from the mother's point of view is here.

In effect, we already have commercial surrogacy in the U.K. These men had paid a woman they didn't know to provide them with a baby (or babies - I'd put money on them having had two embryos implanted).

The dads sob story timeline doesn't quite make sense.

Their son was born via surrogacy in 2015. Then he "started asking for a sibling", so I assume he must have been nearly 3, at the earliest, in order to ask for a sibling. So let's say that's 2018.

Then they tried various surrogates "over the years" [since 2018]...

Then " In 2018 they found their latest surrogate, and began trying to conceive early last year."

Then they got married.

These twins were 'conceived' Feb 2019.

So it sounds like they've hammed up their journey, somewhat, making it sound like it was years and years disappointment when it actually sounds like it happened very quickly and they must have cycled through 'failed surrogates' at lightening speed.

On Egg donors, it's a risky business in terms of health. I recommend watching Eggsploitation to learn more. I actually find it difficult to believe that the egg donor is not the mother considering the biological connection. I feel as if children born from egg donors and surrogates have two mothers but they know neither of them and they may or may not have another mother who raises them.

On the Indian surrogates onemore thank you for explaining that, it's very interesting. The women who do it for financial benefit....can I use the word 'escape'?...probably see it as a means to an end and I can't blame them, given the options, but no one seems to care, not even the mothers, the ones giving birth, about the babies being taken from their mothers when this is their home, their source of life. I agree with the PP who spoke about how little we still know about the 4th trimester. I know two children whose parents left them at 5 days old to go on holiday without them. Both have an unusual eye contact pattern. The intended parents will love them I'm sure but they are not from their bodies.

I have seen The Baby has Landed and I was intrigued that the gay couple have seen their colleagues vagina as she gave birth and they all worked in the airline industry (Virgin Atlantic I think it was) and they have excellent private health insurance and maternity leave which I'm sure helps with the costs. The mother had a daughter (and a son) and I wondered what message it sent her about her body and about what others want. 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.

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.

She will have had additional expenses during the many weeks her babies were in the NICU and she was in hospital with them.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-42845602

Foreign couples have been coming to this corner of Europe in droves since 2015, when surrogacy hotspots in Asia began closing their industries one-by-one, amid reports of exploitation. Barred from India, Nepal and Thailand, they turned to Ukraine, one of the few places left where surrogacy can still be arranged at a fraction of what it costs in the US.

"We have so many childless couples coming to our country - it's like a conveyor belt," says Ana, who asked for her identity to be protected.

Two minutes of searching and I've found some bargains

Has anyone watched the recent TV series following families in the first 6 weeks of their babies lives. There is a gay couple featured, whose friend was a surrogate for them. She didn't use her own egg and iirc was very clear when she visited the babies that she in no way viewed them as hers, since they weren't her genetic children.
Presumably the egg donor also doesn't view them as her children either. That's what I mean when I say that children born in this way don't have a mother - of course they have a genetic mother and a birth mother but no woman who actually believes that she is their mother.

In the US, commercial surrogacy is legal. Mothers do not have the rights to keep their babies. There is enormous pressure being put on the U.K., spearheaded by men like Lance Black and Tom Daley to move towards a commercial model

Men spearheading what happens to women’s bodies and in the 4th trimester makes me uneasy, and annoyed. And other words that are stronger.

I can sell a car privately, put "sold as seen" on the receipt and the buyer has no come-back. In fact if they show up to buy it I can change my mind and tell them I want to keep it.
But people are advocating that if it's a child the sale should be forced through? And that the surrogate mother is contractually obliged to eat her five a day etc? In case she somehow damages their property?

This legal firm suggests the contract should include clauses on the surrogate mothers health responsibilities: surrogate.com/intended-parents/surrogacy-laws-and-legal-information/understanding-surrogacy-contracts/

So the £3k was the remainder of what was owed by them to her

They paid her the agreed sum of £17,000 before she was discharged and then the surrogate's partner demanded an extra £3000 which they couldn't afford to pay.

Looks like some US states have a similar law to here in which the birth mother is the legal mother and no contracts pre-birth are enforceable but others look like a free-for-all.

Thanks

I may well be wrong about that though.

I wouldn’t want to move to the US model. At least the risk resides with the couple rather than surrogate here.

MarshaBradyo
www.thesurrogacyexperience.com/u-s-surrogacy-law-by-state.html#
Looks like it varies by state.

I took the partner coming to their house asking for £3k as indication that they didn’t pay what was owed when initially requested by her before she was discharged.

Surrogacy, egg donation and sperm donation should all be banned in my view.

We, as a society, have gone too far in allowing the rights of the individuals created from these situations to be completely overlooked, in favour of the rights of those seeking to create them.

In the US, commercial surrogacy is legal. Mothers do not have the rights to keep their babies. There is enormous pressure being put on the U.K., spearheaded by men like Lance Black and Tom Daley to move towards a commercial model

The couple claim they had already paid out of their savings to their surrogate toward her pregnancy expenses.

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.

So the £3k was the remainder of what was owed by them to her. They had given her almost £14k at the point of birth.

It says in another part of the article that she wanted “the remainder” of the money. Which suggests it was the rest of what they had agreed

I read a different news item which said the following:

"They paid their surrogate the remainder of her pregnancy expenses at her demand - almost £17,000 in total - before she was discharged.
But then the surrogate's partner allegedly demanded an extra £3,000, which nurses Steven and Marc could not afford after buying all the equipment for their newborns".

FlyingOink do you know what the law is wrt surrogacy in the US? I know it’s different, more enforceable? But not sure on details.