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

Class analysis is your friend here. Not every 'choice' a woman makes is feminist, and even if a woman freely chooses an action which is detrimental to other women and children, it is not a justification for that choice to be endorsed, just as really, really, really wanting something doesn't = a right to have it.

Legal surrogacy is fraught with nightmare situations that cannot possibly be mitigated. It leaves women at a terrible disadvantage, even if it appears benefit a small few. The same arguments against prostitution apply.

And I presume we are due some astroturfing about now.

Another here who believes surrogacy should be banned outright.

@didl

that was me agreeing with a poster who had replied to a previous poster who said the two babies had had their lives f*ked over...

when some of us see it that they likely are being brought up by two loving caring parents who really wanted them.

not a comment that wanting a baby makes surrogacy right

@ItsallGoingToBeFine

no i did not miss the arguments, I am putting the other side of the 'argument'
that is what a discussion is about...both sides have valid points and are entitled to them.

I did say i thought that surrogacy should be banned...but the argument that bodies are not for sale does not hold with me.
As an autonomous individual i am entitled to choose how i use my body. If i want to rent out my womb that is currently my right/choice.

If bodies are not for sale, do we extrapolate that sperm is not for sale/eggs are not for sale/blood is not for sale/stem cells are not for sale /bone marrow etc etc...

For what it is worth i think the bigger problem is we have a society that now believes being a parent is a 'right'. It isn't and years ago infertile couples adopted if they could or they had to accept they weren't going to be parents.
That was the end of it.

"Exactly...the two dads clearly wanted these babies very badly."

That's no a good enough reason though, is it?

@Whatsitthingy

Exactly...the two dads clearly wanted these babies very badly .

MN surprises me somewhat in the view that women who act as surrogates are all vulnerable, taking advantage of, not wombs for hire etc.

Did you miss all the other arguments?

Bodies and babies should not be for sale
Impact on children of removal from mother etc

Another one calling for surrogacy to be banned, as it is in most of Europe. Buying and selling babies is abhorrent

Surrogacy is not just buying and selling babies though - what about a situation in which a woman's fertilised egg is placed in a surrogate's womb to incubate (and yes when it comes to basic clinical facts when we are pregnant we are baby incubators) or, as in this case, one of the men being the child's biological father?

People rightly get upset about surrogacy when it goes wrong but all forms of clinical labour (inc. individuals donating bodily tissue or organ donation or patients who take part in clinical trials in exchange for medication for example) are complex and individuals involved are at risk of exploitation. I would call for more regulation not for these practices just to be banned.

the chance that they're going to be brought up by two loving parents who wanted them and love them?

Irrespective of that they have been removed from the mother, which as far as I know has been shown to be to the ongoing detriment of the child?

I am very conflicted about this issue.
One of the men is the biological father of these babies, he has surely the same rights to see them, be involved in medical decisions, and have shared custody of them ?
If this was a straight couple who had separated prior to the babies being born would people be supportive of the mother attempting to 'ban' the father from sharing parental responsibilities for the babies ?
I feel some sympathy for the men, who expected to become parents, why are we less sympathetic that they also are parents of very sick babies than we are to the mother ?
they were then faced with the emotional/grief fallout of their dreams of a family being potentially taken away.

I am another poster who thinks surrogacy should be banned , it can i am sure be marvellous when it works for all but it has potential to be devastating for all as well.

MN surprises me somewhat in the view that women who act as surrogates are all vulnerable, taking advantage of, not wombs for hire etc.
While a lot of women are vulnerable, especially in second and third world countries, we should also remain aware that women are adults, with autonomy over their bodies and choices, no one is forced to be a surrogate. If as a woman i want to use my body ( womb) to make money by being a surrogate, that does not necessarily make me the vulnerable, taken advantage party if the agreement goes wrong.

'Two tiny newborns here who have been fucked over for life. How horrible."

Have they? Or is there the chance that they're going to be brought up by two loving parents who wanted them and love them?

I think if it were a scenario where a woman had a baby and then the father said, "I'll pay you £17k to let me parent the child alone and you never have anything more to do with it," we would be appalled. The fact this agreement happens before conception seems to make it more acceptable to people.

The mother may well have been prepared to hand the babies over at the beginning of the process but the truth is that she had no way of knowing how/if she would bond with the babies she was carrying and I suspect the early labour, the babies’ vulnerability and their health complications only increased that bond I feel sorry for any woman who has entered into this sort of agreement and bonds with the baby/babies and wants to keep them, real judgement of Solomon time. In this case it reads like she wanted more money or she was keeping them, sounds more like kidnapping than bonding with the babies. Who'd say I love these babies so much I can't give them up unless you give me another £3,000?

Soup no one has the right to a child or to a family, no one, I don't care who you fancy, it's simply not a human right (like how sport is not a human right.)

I agree with Charlie and it is worth noting this this is currently the law but the Surrogacy consultation and the style of questions indicates a clear attempt and wish to change the law.

I'd like to thank this couple and the OP for giving us a reminder of why there are laws in place and for providing a strong argument as to why those laws should in fact be made stricter.

Shall we all write to the Law Commission? Posters here may not have completed the consultation will not be able to submit responses now but you can still email them.

There was never any option to ban surrogacy entirely on the form so I wrote it in the free text.

*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’m sure they didn’t force the women to get pregnant, surrogates choose to have a child for someone else.

Haven't read all the thread yet, but it seems from reading the article that the surrogate is also the girls mother? I thought in most same sex surrogate arrangements were third party - were the egg is retrieved from one woman and a second carries the embryos. It's unclear from the article if that was the case.

The court clearly thought that it was in the best interests of the children to live with the fathers and not the mother, for what ever reason.
I don't see anywhere in the reporting that she has protested or tried to get custody or shared custody of the children, which under law, she would be able to do.

This is why a total ban on commercial surrogacy is a bad idea. There should be very strict regulation requiring clear contracts, a pro longed period of counselling for all parties before conception and beyond and, controlled clinical conception as a requirement for validity to ensure that this counselling is undertaken.

It's odd, but in every case I've ever read, whether it's surrogacy or 'private adoption', (USA and South Africa), if the mother hands over her baby to the hopeful adopters, she's a selfless angel. If she doesn't, she's an evil, money grubbing, feckless bitch. Every case.

In this case, the mother had just given birth, prematurely to two very sick baby girls. Her baby girls, that she was caring for and possibly providing breast milk for in ICU.

It sounds like the father's expected her to sign over her rights whilst they were still in hospital, presumably meaning that she would no longer have any right to care for them or even visit without the fathers say so.

There seems to be an assumption that once those baby's were out of her body that she should have no further involvement with her very poorly babies. As if she were just a human vending machine.

No concept of what a mother is at all.

Surrogacy should be illegal. No one has the right to buy anyone.

Excellent post CharelyPaley

Does a woman have that right then?
Surely, the question is about the rights of the child.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child says every child has the right not to be separated from their parents against the child's will and they have the right to know and be cared for by their parents.

The irony, or should I say the misogyny, of our current legal system is that if a woman flees abuse, the courts use the right of the child to force the child to have contact with their father. In surrogacy, suddenly the courts don't care about the child's right to have contact with their mother.

This is not an LGBT issue. This is a women's and children's rights issue. Women are not vessels. Children are not commodities.

Well you can use all the soft words like "arrangement" if you like, but, ultimately, surrogacy is the act of buying and selling a baby, and, as with any contract of sale, the person who has paid for the goods generally will demand them. Here, this I exactly what is happening.

Another one calling for surrogacy to be banned, as it is in most of Europe. Buying and selling babies is abhorrent

Sorry embryos