Jigsaw mentioning surrogacy to Year 5

13+ yes.

Also confused by the lesbian comment. Semen is not in short supply, to be blunt.

Thing about surrogacy is that it's an ethical minefield. Older, yes. With full conversation of pros and cons.

Not primary.

I do agree it should not be talked about as exactly equivalent to natural pregnancy or adoption. Should be something like “some Children are born via surrogacy wherein a woman agrees to get pregnant and carry the child for intended parent(s)

I think it’s good to mention it. Also For older kids (like 13+) a good opportunity to let kids discuss possible ethical issues with surrogacy, ivf, adoption etc. can be difficult conversations but important kids learn to deal with Difficult issues. Pretending they don’t exist is not a good move.

This blurring of the lines is deliberate and insidious.

@Delphinium20 - yes good point. Actually I think they should mention adoption and not surrogacy.

I was asked out of the blue by my year 4 at the time how lesbians have babies so think it does all need to be factually explained around that she I would want any explanation of surrogacy to be heavily caveated though

I love the way my iPad corrected sperm to spermatozoon, a word I don't believe I've ever typed.

Apart from being controversial, surrogacy belongs in the same box as adoption as it's a way of making a family if you cannot or will not conceive yourself. It isn't assisted conception.

There are a lot of ethical considerations with surrogacy.

At the moment there is a push to move to a more USA style situation.

The human right to family life is being misused to say that there is a right to a baby, which is not what that human right means.

Even IVF is not uncontroversial.

I think these topics need more context and debate than just oh some couples use a surrogate (and that's aok just a fact).

It's a secondary school topic I think.

Surrogacy is not a way of getting a woman pregnant. It does not be,one on that list. And actually neither do all the other bits, not for year 5. All children that age need to know is that a spermatozoon fertilises an egg, usually via sexual intercourse. I mean if you're going to talk about u f, why not talk about IUI and ICSI? Children that age don't need to know.

Even though traditional surrogacy has been practiced for thousands of years in cases where a wife could not bear children, it was indeed never a fertility treatment for the birth mother.

I'm not really sure why these ancient arrangements are referred to as surrogacy, or "traditional" surrogacy.

In the case oft quoted from the Bible of Abraham, Sarah and her maid Hagar - she was a slave - some compare modern surrogacy to slavery so I suppose there is that relevance.

In times before contraception (or treatment for infertility) most single women who became pregnant would probably have been only too happy to give up the child to the man, to be raised in his family, if that was a viable option.

Really these arrangements are nearer to adoption. I would say the same of current arrangements where the surrogate mother is also the genetic mother. This is simply an agreement to sell hand over a planned baby to the father and whatever partner (if any) that he may have. Quite why calling such an arrangement surrogacy means all the normal precautions and policies relating to adoption are bypassed I do not understand.

Even though traditional surrogacy has been practiced for thousands of years in cases where a wife could not bear children, it was indeed never a fertility treatment for the birth mother.

So it most definitely does not belong into a Year 5 class on conception, whether through sexual intercourse, artificial insemination or IVF.

Thank you for making this clear!

The Law Commission propose a minimum age of 18 for surrogacy with no maximum number of times a woman can be a surrogate mother.
I find this creep into schools promoting surrogacy as "a valid way to start a family" very concerning.
Combined with the demand for "fertility equality" ... who is going to provide the service of being a professional breeder? Delivering babies to order for anyone who feels they have a right to one?

This is wholly inappropriate for this age group in my opinion.

*Hearing about it in primary school isn’t going to help them.
*
That's right Stripes, same applies to adoption (though it is completely different from surrogacy). The classroom is not the place.

Any child who is the result of a surrogacy arrangement is either going to have been told about it in a way the parents think is appropriate or isn’t going to have been told at all. Hearing about it in primary school isn’t going to help them.

It isn’t a fertility treatment. The whole point is that the surrogate mother doesn’t have fertility issues.

Surrogacy is a legal arrangement and status. It does not refer to a medical procedure different to that used by a woman who isn’t a surrogate.

You're right @CarlottaValdez I misquoted and read at speed in anger at the scope creep of schools covering this stuff, with young kids, unnecessarily so.

My concern comes from my knowledge on surrogacy and the Law Commission's consultation that @CharlieParley refers to and how I know it is in connection with a growing campaign for "fertility equality". So not directly queer theory but when you look at 'queering the classroom' it relates to teaching things outside of 'heteronormativity' and this queering of sex ed teaching.

I agree with other posters in that it's fair to say the egg and sperm meet and that makes a baby, sometimes that happens with the helps from a doctor. There is no need, in my view, to go beyond that simple description when teaching 9-10 year olds. If the pupils can't handle the complex discussions around surrogacy and gamete donors then it should wait until they can.

For me, the same applies to sex education and trans ideology. If you can't discuss the reality, morals or ethics then you're 'audience' isn't ready. There is no benefit to children being taught or encouraged to discuss surrogacy.

‘So I think it is inappropriate to include surrogacy (as it is methodologically speaking no more than a subset of IVF)’

No it isn’t. Often surrogate mothers get pregnant through artificial insemination.

I think 9-10 is about right to learn there's more than one way to skin a cat. The main thing I'd want them to get from the lesson is reproduction requires sperm+ovum but it wouldn't be inappropriate to say there are different methods of achieving that. I wouldn't go into any scientific detail. Like, I'm not super keen on surrogacy but it is a fact of life.

I'm with you. Sadly, I no longer assume benign intent when what should cover only the basics expands to include something that does not logically belong.

In this case, we know that there is a concerted attempt to normalise surrogacy as an uncontroversial option ("a valid way to start a family" as the UK Law Commission put it) by the very same organisations alsp pushing transgender ideology into lesson plans

So I think it is inappropriate to include surrogacy (as it is methodologically speaking no more than a subset of IVF) and I would actually say it is also inappropriate to cover IVF and artificial insemination as a mandatory part of the lesson at this age.

These are nine and yen year olds formally learning about conception for the first time. In my view it's enough to cover only the basics as the lesson, but prepare an answer to questions like

Does anything ever go wrong? How do twins happen? Can I get pregnant? Is every baby made like this? Etc

To the last question, I would simply answer, no, sometimes a doctor needs to help. How? She helps the sperm get to the egg/get inside the egg.

And high school biology can go into IVF, artificial insemination, ICSI, and by all means surrogacy, because you can at this age also include the ethical issues around all of these.

I agree that a reminder that babies are conceived via sperm fertilizing an egg. In most cases this is done through sexual intercourse. In some cases, it is done by inserting sperm into the woman's womb and sometimes conception takes place in a Petri dish and then the fertilized egg is inserted into the woman's womb. Done. I don't think a legal discussion of adoption or who is the legal parent change those facts.

E.G. My BIL's sperm was "washed" and inserted into my sister's womb in an office visit and another time they used IVF using her eggs and BIL sperm, and she carried both her babies. This type of assisted reproduction is common enough that kids are born this way, but this is very different than surrogacy or gamete donation, despite the fertilization methods being the same.

I'm personally against egg donation and surrogacy and waver on sperm donation. If it's highly regulated sperm donation that includes the interest of the child and is not anonymous.

I'm with you OP. Given the very small numbers conceived this way, there's absolutely no need to discuss surrogacy with young children - unlike, say IVF, which may well be germane to children in the class. We all know why it is mentioned - it's to shore up the 'reproductive equality' argument. I would be very sceptical of RSE resources that considers - in the very limited time available to cover the subject - surrogacy to be a priority topic.

I tend to feel this is too young due to the ethical considerations. Start with the basics of reproduction first. Too much information is as bad as too little.

the sperm fertilises the egg in most cases

Not most, all. There is only one way for a human egg to be fertilised, and that's with sperm, whether it's in a petri dish or not. I find this slightly veering toward queer theory and let's face it surrogacy is for straight couples and gay men.

You’ve cut the quote off weirdly though - what it says is “ whilst sexual intercourse is the way that the sperm fertilises the egg in most cases, ”.

So the sperm always fertilises the egg but it’s not always by way of sexual intercourse . That’s not queer theory, it’s fact.