Surrogacy on the NHS

Apologies just saw that this link was posted upthread.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/may/14/surrogates-baby-coronavirus-lockdown-parents-surrogacy

Surrogates left to look after their babies or surrogacy agency workers having to take on baby duties as the commissioning parents can't get into the USA from China and Israel (in the article). US States that allow surrogacy seem to have become a global hotspot for "commissioning". The surrogate in the article works as a barista, poorer women as usual being used by richer folk from elsewhere.

It really worries me that we will end up with laws here similar to the U.S. when we should be looking to the Scandi model of banning.

I think even at puppy farms, the puppies get to stay with the mother for a few weeks and the UK passed Lucy's Law and became active last month and it means a puppy or kitten needs to be at least 8 weeks old before being taken from the mother.

We literally treat dogs better than we do humans.

And if no one pays for their upkeep, and they become 'too old' to adopt (because I am sure tiny babies are more 'valuable'), what will become of these babies? It reminds me of puppy farms.

46 reborn babies left stranded in Kiev.

www.unian.info/kyiv/coronavirus-lockdowns-leave-46-surrogacy-infants-stranded-in-kyiv-hotel-10995584.html

She had the cheek to reference the Special Rapporteur, ignoring the fact that the SR specifically states that the birth mother must always be the legal mother for reasons of protecting the baby from being bought and sold.
And then decides obviously this poor woman needs to go to California so she can be assured of a watertight contract and legal parenthood at birth.

Here's what Lady Hale said.
Yep. Some women love being pregnant and gifting their child to whoever they have decided to help. So who cares about the poor exploited women. The (possibly) four women who will be exploited by that woman at the expense of the NHS.

39. The reality is that there is a spectrum of surrogacy arrangements. At one end of the scale there are desperately poor women who are induced to sell one of the few things they have for sale, their wombs, and are often grossly exploited by the agents and middlemen who make serious profits from the large sums which desperate commissioning parents are prepared to pay. At the other end of the scale are altruistic women who enjoy being pregnant and are happy to make a gift of their child-bearing capacity to people who need it. It is no longer thought that women should not have the right to choose to use their bodies in this way. But it is thought that both they and the commissioning parents should be protected from exploitation and abuse. It is also thought that surrogacy arrangements, whether altruistic or commercial, should guard against any possibility that children are being bought and sold: see the Report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material (A/HRC/37/60, 15 January 2018).

🙇‍♀️🤬This is me banging my head on my desk then swearing. There is no emoji for what I feel.

It's sickening isn't it NotBadConsidering

I am so angry with governments and people like the Law Commissioners who think this is all fine. Bloody Lady Hale and her disgraceful comments on the court case about the woman who wants to go to California four babies. I wonder if that woman is planning on getting four surrogate mothers pregnant at the same time, or maybe two sets of twins? The possibilities are endless. It's like ordering a BOGOF on your online shop.

It is supply and demand Lord

I'm reading a book "outsourcing the womb" and basically because women for access to abortion, unwanted babies weren't being born so adoptions went down. That's where traditional surrogacy came in and started to increase.

The history is actually fascinating and goes back to the bible.

Where there’s money to be made... it’s not about couples desperately trying to conceive any more, it’s supply and demand. I read recently if a US tv host who had a surrogate to have his baby (he is gay, rich). He just wanted a baby.

For god sake - I really want a dog but realise that it’s not practical.

I have also been a deliveries with a twin in that situation Fanny. The parents thought they’d want photos as a family before the body was taken away, but they soon realised they didn’t really want that ☹️.

The thing is, it doesn’t seem to matter how many horror stories we post, how many times we point out the inevitable ethical disasters, how many examples of trauma, there still seems to be people and posters who will defend such a practice to the hilt.

They seem to have no shame.

God Fanny that's horrific. Obviously it can happen naturally. I think the surrogate mother for BDB is quite far past that point. In The Unexpected Mother which I've just finished ready it was done quite late to her triplets and she was told the third baby had been reabsorbed but actually it came out of her when she was on the loo, home alone (with the twins as the commissioning parents had cancelled their order for twins), before she collected her boys from school.

In fact the CPs cared for Susan Ring's sons after the triplet was killed (the matching agents has promised to help but were busy) and encouraged her to abort the remaining two.

OhHolyJesus it depends a bit on the stage of pregnancy that the feral reduction is done. If it is later on obviously the baby is bigger and won't fully absorb. This can result in a fetus papyraceous - a mummified fetus effectively - which will be expelled with the baby. I have no idea of relevant laws in the USA but this happened to a patient of mine who was pregnant with twins and one was found to be anencephalic at her 20 week scan. When the baby was born, there was also the remaining fetus. They had to register it as a still birth and have a funeral which was very upsetting for them.

“We as an industry really try to avoid that. We want to avoid the possibility of the surrogate bonding with the child.”

I read this earlier and found it chilling. Nothing at all in that article about the ethics of all this. Just so evil. Treating women as bodies for hire and children as commercial products.

I know California babies get older, every day, every minute of every day, who'd thunk it?

They want them brand new, pure, undamaged. It's like they want to 'imprint' on the child like wolves. It's rare, I would say unheard of, for a surrogate mother to breastfeed, despite it being the best starts you can give a child.

In the US a contract can state that the mother has to pump, so the usefulness of her body remains because of her biology but the bond between her and her child must never be allowed to develop.

The foreign parents, unable to travel to Ukraine now may refuse to collect the child after they are months old, claiming they are “older” than they had desired

What the actual fuck. I guess I shouldn't expect anything less of people that will purchase a baby from a baby factory.

Lord there is some interesting information about the Drewitt Barlows on this thread.

Anyone used the British Surrogacy Centre or advice on surrogacy in the UK?* http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/surrogacy/2592507--Anyone-used-the-British-Surrogacy-Centre-or-advice-on-surrogacy-in-the-UK

More Two Dads referring to the two gay men who are "pregnant"...what did I miss, when could men have babies?

About 14 mins in.

www.facebook.com/twodads.u.k/videos/547592232606788/?vh=e

In that Two Dads video the woman who owns and runs the matching agency has temporary custody of newborns, so the surrogate mother, not having any parental rights or responsibilities has simply gone home to her boosted bank account.

The baby/babies remain in the care of the hospital/midwives but not one is there to actually care for them as parents.

It reminds me of an orphanage. Nameless, faceless carers (usually women) caring for the defenceless until some wealthy couple swoop in and whisk them off, only the damage has already been done as they have effectively been abandoned by their mother and the care they receive, whilst loving and gentle, is functional.

Or this one NotBad

https://4w.pub/excess-babies/

Speaking of industry, count how many times she says 'intended parents' or 'clients' vs how many times she says 'surrogate' (not surrogate mother)

https://www.facebook.com/1142853142513655/posts/1961503747315253/?vh=e&d=n

Lord Barrie Drewitt Barlow is possibly the worst person you could choose to be involved in surrogacy. His daughter has openly stated how, despite her healthy reproductive system, she will likely have surrogate arrangements as giving birth is so yucky. Or words to that effect.

I'm unclear if he was advised to reduced the triplets to singleton for safety but as he mentioned sex selection (not gender ) and his need for a 'princess' to balance out his household I assume the two boy babies for the fatal injection to the heart, via the woman who is carrying them, if we can remember her for a moment. I wonder about her mental state knowing her body is either reabsorbing the dead foetuses or they will remain and be naturally expelled by her body or might need to be removed. What a lovely thought for the ever-generous, all-giving woman, the woman who is simply doing this out of the goodness of her own heart and not for cold hard cash.

PS he had 3 embryos put in in the first place and appeared thrilled in international media when he found out she was pregnant with triplets. Was she at risk of death if all three remained?

Surrogates left holding the baby

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/may/14/surrogates-baby-coronavirus-lockdown-parents-surrogacy

Some selected quotes:

Spending nearly three months raising a baby she has given birth to, but who she is not biologically related to and will be giving back to his parents eventually, is emotionally wearing. “I love having the baby snuggles,” says Martin, “but it’s definitely hard knowing that he is not mine. I love him, but I know that he has to go back to his own parents eventually.”

Surrogates and surrogacy agencies are scrambling to look after babies themselves. “It’s unprecedented for a surrogate to be looking after the baby,” says Rich Geisler, a Californian surrogacy lawyer. “We as an industry really try to avoid that. We want to avoid the possibility of the surrogate bonding with the child.”

To highlight a word in that paragraph: industry.

“It will be hard to give him back, because I’ll miss him,” Martin says. “But I know he’s not mine, and that I have to give him up, which is totally OK with me.” She pauses. “But there’s definitely a bit of attachment there,” Martin says. “I care for him. When you love on a baby, you love on a baby.”

“I never anticipated something of this nature happening,” says Katie Faust, a 26-year-old surrogacy case worker from Tampa Bay. Really? A pandemic couldn’t be predicted but this scenario certainly could be.

Faust, her husband, and three children flew to California to collect the baby, rented a car, then drove for five days back to Florida

Yes, they went to California, were allowed to just pick up a baby who wasn’t theirs in any way and just drive across the country.

“For Steven’s sake it would be nice for him to bond with his parents instead of with me,” Martin says. “Those first three months of his life are instrumental in the bonding process for the baby.”

YOU FUCKING THINK SO?! I would laugh at the irony if it wasn’t so fucking tragic.

Anyone who reads that article and doesn’t think surrogacy is a human tragedy and criminal act all rolled into one can get to fuck several times over. All that the Covid pandemic has done is concentrate every single problem with surrogacy into one small time period.

Those poor babies. 😥

Oh my god. Googled and I have come across that person before - didn’t he end up with his daughters (?) ex boyfriend? What a piece of work.

What what whaaaat? Monster. Not fit to have a child. What if the girls were ‘ugly’ or gay or a tomboy? What would she do? Drown them?

If they don't get killed in the womb Lord

By contrast, Barrie Drewitt Barlow had the two boys killed in the womb by fatal injection to the heart, Barrie wanted another princess and Barrie always gets what he wants.