Just when I was feeling things were starting to move in the right direction!

But 20? That's not in the same league as 1 or 2!

This is a dumb question, I know, but why is she doing this? Pps have referred to it being a "baby zoo" or "baby supermarket" - did you mean she might sell the babies on somehow?
Clearly it's not to make a "normal" family.

I was utterly shocked I was even asked that.
I'm not particularly on board with women doing it, but their body, their business, just don't start involving other women in it.
(Tbf I'm never on board with surrogacy)

Ugh...that idea of 'giving a man the gift of a baby' is quite pervasive.

It is @Delphinium20

I've noticed in a few cases of surrogacy that have been in the news for whatever reason that the woman has been older than the man and already has children of her own. I'd be really interested to know how common that scenario is. I imagine there are a few issues going on to do with wanting her man to have his own biological child (it probably wouldn't be her egg due to age), hanging on to the man so he doesn't move into someone younger and fertile, denying age moving on and inevitable loss of fertility etc.

Then there is David Watkins, current poster boy for single men everywhere to obtain babies through surrogacy because, as he so delightfully put it in the BBC series "I don't have access to a womb".

Fact is we have already moved on from "the gift of a baby" to "my right to have a baby" with demands from gay and single men for "fertility equality" which is surely extreme biology denial coupled with exploitation of women to be available as breeders.

How very Gilead.

Sorry, not strictly relevant to the thread but I was thinking about ways laws can be abused and worked around, and if a case similar to the OP could ever happen in the UK. I feel confident in our child protection services that as soon as they became aware they would step in. However if the numbers were smaller, say half a dozen, and the commissioning parents stayed under the radar then I think it would be possible.

The main (?only) way we are able to know how many surrogate babies are in the UK is through court records of parental orders. Most hospitals don't keep records of surrogacy - I've sent FOIs to a few and they either cite privacy or state that it is just another pregnancy and no need to keep records. This means it is difficult for researchers to track them down. We cannot know, for instance, basic facts like pregnancy and birth complications and monitor the risks of gestational surrogacy.

The other thing about using parental orders is that doesn't reveal how many of the babies were born here in the U.K. and how many trafficked imported from abroad i think it would be revealed in the individual court records for each case, but that involves a lot of detective work and research.

Anyway what I am longwindedly getting around to is that I had remembered seeing somewhere that there is no obligation to seek an order. So there is no way of knowing if some people (perhaps believing the court process would not approve them?) simply live under the radar without formalising the parental responsibility. I think it would mean they couldn't get passports for the children and travel abroad but probably for the rest no questions would be asked and lies would not be queried.

Though having a batch of same age babies might raise questions.

I also saw somewhere that there had been one case where the courts refused a parental order but I don't know any more details about it, whether the commissioning parents had been found to be unsuitable?

"In the UK alone, the number of parental orders made following a surrogate birth has tripled from 121 in 2011 to 368 in 2018. The true number of surrogacy arrangements may be even higher, as there is no obligation to seek such an order."

Surrogacy: Why the world needs rules for 'selling' babies www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-47826356

@IHaveBrilloHair Good for you for giving him the heave ho!

Ugh...that idea of 'giving a man the gift of a baby' is quite pervasive.

@Delphinium20
It's funny you say that, I was sterilised many years ago, and was asked what I'd do if I met someone who wanted a baby and wouldn't I give them one.
I was utterly horrified answered that I don't have babies as gifts for men, and refused to see him ever again.
(I actually went further than that, but Im not sure it's appropriate for here and will possibly offend people)
I got sterilised!

There's a great blog here, looking at the recent BBC 3 series "The Surrogates" and examining the motivations of the surrogate mothers featured.

stopsurrogacynowuk.org/2021/05/31/surrogacy-in-the-media-a-review-of-bbc-threes-the-surrogates-long-read/

Obviously things are very different in the UK unlike Russia, we have excellent free healthcare and the SM's still have certain rights and protections. Surrogacy is meant to be altruistic but the approach to expenses is much like the MPs expenses scandal and in reality most arrangements involve a "going rate" fee, average (or it might be mean, sorry, not checking my statistics!) around £15k.

In a way extreme cases like these do the cause a favour as it makes people sit up and think about the lack of ethics and opens a few eyes.

Feel terribly sorry for those little babies and their mothers, being farmed like that. I can't see this will end well. It's utterly abhorrent and shocking.

But posters asking why is it allowed? That's the thing about commercial surrogacy. You just go and buy a baby.

And although I think it would be more difficult to do in the UK for various reasons, there's nothing to stop someone doing this here too, if they could find enough SMs, use different fertility clinics and keep it secret. I imagine it would all fall apart at the point where they applied for a parental order, as the courts do look at family circumstances before signing off the parental order and I assume at this stage the facts would come out.

If that isn't straight out Gilead, "Sarah gave her handmaiden to Abraham" bit.

[quote Actuallyabitgreynow]@OhHolyJesus exactly, but expenses of up to £18k are entirely possible and very rarely will the courts challenge them.

The couple are not same sex. She will absolutely be taking the full maternity leave but very rarely works anyway.[/quote]
Yes, my understanding is that judges rarely question 'expenses' and wouldn't refuse a parental order anyway as they consider it in the best interests of the child to remain in the custody of the commissions parents who would have had custody from birth.

(A parental order has to be applied for within 6 months from birth and the U.K. Law Commission want to change it from the mother relinquishing her parental rights to her not having any at birth and having to ask for them within 6 weeks from birth in England and 5 weeks in Scotland.)

I read earlier today that a UK celebrity would like a 6th child to give her latest partner a child but would have to use a surrogate as she's unable to carry anymore.
Ugh.
It disgusts me.

@OhHolyJesus exactly, but expenses of up to £18k are entirely possible and very rarely will the courts challenge them.

The couple are not same sex. She will absolutely be taking the full maternity leave but very rarely works anyway.

'However, do people on here object to the whole idea of surrogacy in general ? Is there an ethical surrogacy in peoples minds or is this something that you would always view as exploitative ?'.

I used to think surrogacy was just a nice way of helping an infertile or gay couple have a family, harmless, but like my views on porn, I have radically changed my mind in the last few years

There are too many loop holes and ways for it to be exploited. Too many things that can go wrong, especially if it is finacially incentivised or commodified. Pregnancy takes a massive toll on a woman's body and there will always be arseholes, nutters and sociopaths who will take advantage or renage on arrangements if circumstances change.

It seems a shame to limit entirely altruistic arrangements, but if it came down to a vote, I would nevertheless vote to ban surrogacy altogether. Having children is not a human right and children aren't possessions or accessories. Neither is surrogacy 'work'.

It's not a fast buck by any means but when your value is in your fertility and your skills in your reproductive system then it's a good option for women who want some cash and to be seen as 'helping' infertile couples.

Can I ask if she is working and taking mat leave and if the couple are a same-sex are in the U.K.? If you know, she may not have said too much about it.

HeavenHotel progress on getting people to understand that surrogacy is a human rights issue for women and children has been slow. In some countries, investigative journalist's stories of awful conditions for these mothers and babies led to its prohibition or a tightening of the rules. In other countries, like the UK, there is a top-down push to make it easier and give those who are commissioning babies more rights.

Stories like this one, about the excesses of surrogacy, will in time change more people's minds towards banning the practice but unfortunately that won't happen before more women are exploited. Or in cases such as this, before more children suffer.

In various socialist countries, around 60 to a hundred years ago, there was this persistent idea that growing up in a group home with peers was preferable to being raised in families. The fact that children denied a one-to-one relationship* as babies developed a different type of attachment as adults was seen as favourable to group adhesion and loyalty to the state.

Since then child psychology has moved on. We now know a group upbringing is not preferable to a family. We know how vital a close relationship with a primary carer is for a child's healthy development.

In this case I have serious doubts that the emotional needs of the children can be met. It is in the nature of a job that people leave. It happens even where the relationship between employer and employee is good. In a standard set-up where a single parent or two parents together who raise a child employ a nanny, there remains a close relationship between parent and child, which helps the child cope with losing a nanny, but with this story I just don't see how that is possible.

And I had a friend who worked as a nanny and another who hired one long-term. The nannies in both cases had loving relationships with their charges, they really were wonderful women. But the relationship the children had with their parents was the more important one. The closest one.

You cannot be emotionally available and present for 20 babies equally. There are simply not enough hours in the day.

So how can each baby form that vital connection with their parent(s)?

(*just wanted to clarify regarding the "one-to-one relationship" - obviously twins or triplets exist, as well as very close birth orders. But even in those cases the babies develop near-as-one-to-one relationships as possible unlike what's going on here.)

This makes me want to weep. Those poor babies.

My SIL is currently 7 months pregnant with a baby she is carrying a a surrogate; something she is doing entirely for the money and I don't doubt she will continue to pop one out every couple of years.

Surrogacy needs to be illegal, agree.

I find some of this so grim and horrifying it's hard to actually look. We done to those working to raise awareness.

I see this is in the other Georgia (not the US one) but will throw this in anyway because it is probably not just a US problem.

The problem being that many countries do not trace what happens to adopted children after adoption. There were some major stories here a few years ago featuring children, many of them adopted overseas who had been 're-homed' via craigslist ads to abusive environments.

So what happens when you have 20 or 30 adopted kids and very little legal supervision as to what happens to them? Hopefully they all have a good home and education. However, given the background of the husband and other factors, I can't help but think that this is at least a stunt, at worst, the beginnings of a business.

Surrogacy needs to be shut down. No one should be able to buy babies.

(PS: I have had freinds who were aupairs. $500 would be on top of room and board and I suspect the money would go a long way in Georgia...either one.)

Thanks ohholy that that was from February, think they have bought 10 more babies since then.

So they are really racking up the numbers. I wonder how many surrogate mothers are 'repeat suppliers' and are the same women who have already given them children and also how many of them were multiple births.

The whole thing is abhorrent. If he is caught and his finances are held they will be screwed.

Here is the crowdfunder

https://www.gofundme.com/f/surrogacy-tragedy-and-how-to

Update!

Funds from this campaign, in addition to other fundraising efforts raised by friends and family, have successfully helped cover any short term financial concerns until the family can access bank accounts and receive her insurance benefits. Thank you to the surrogacy community, who have been so generous and encouraging in supporting this endeavor!

In May 2021, an amazing three-time surrogate lost her life in childbirth due to a rare, but serious delivery complication called amniotic fluid embolism (AFE). She leaves behind her children, mom, siblings, coworkers, a large, supportive extended family, and countless friends.

In her words, she had described her experience as a gestational carrier as “one of the most important, rewarding experiences” of her life. Her shining and vibrant personality, sense of humor, and willingness to help others facing infertility become parents was a focal point in her life over the last 10 years. She will always be remembered by our community, and by the families she helped create.

For now, the family asks that all details of her identity (and theirs) remain anonymous, and ask that their privacy be respected.

We will keep the campaign open for those who still wish to contribute.

Funds from this campaign will be held by an independent, licensed and bonded 3rd party escrow manager, Surrogacy Escrow Account Management LLC. SEAM has generously waived any costs or fees associated with their service, and has also been in contact with her family

The other thread notes the husband/genetic father's background and criminal history.

The wife/genetic mother is a lot younger than him and as a single mother I'm worried that she was vulnerable and preyed upon in some way perhaps.

I'd worry for her health as multiple egg retrieval could cause her problems now or later. The eldest daughter that she had when she met her husband I imagine will suffer from their lifestyle choices.

It's absolutely wrong to buy babies but nothing and no one will stop them. They have the money and it's not against the law.

I believe the nannies live on the floor below them, they have several floors.