Janice Turner on Surrogacy

I am, of course, ‘entitled’ to feel however I want and while I accept that the adoptive parents are not surrogates I find that situation -just like that of surrogacy- to have ‘obligations’ not to a legal definition of ‘genuine surrogacy’ but rather to a moral standard where economically empowered people do not seek to remove the babies of the poor or vulnerable.

In countries like the US where poverty bites harder than the UK and accommodations for mothers are fewer newborn adoption, rather like surrogacy is an industry which profits at the expense of the birth mothers.

What’s the alternative though?

Birth mother presumably doesn’t want the baby as otherwise she’d not be signing the parental order, particularly surrogate mothers in the far flung bits of former soviet territories.

Give baby up for adoption when there are 2 people who are genetically related to the baby, and otherwise sound as parents?

There isn’t really any outcome that’s in the best interests of the child, assuming there is a willing British individual who wants the child, to strike down a parental order due to expenses. The closest they’ve gotten (publicly) was the 70 something parents who commissioned a baby from the US.

I understand the broader point you're making about poverty, vulnerability and whether a woman’s choice can ever be completely free when she has so few alternatives. But I think there is still a fairly significant leap between that and saying that economically empowered adoptive parents have a moral obligation not to “remove the babies of the poor or vulnerable”.

The adoptive parents didn't make you poor or vulnerable, and they didn't create the circumstances that led you to place your baby for adoption. Unless they coerced, pressured or otherwise exploited you, I'm not sure it follows that accepting a baby who needed a home makes them morally responsible for the inequalities surrounding your decision.

You can look back now and feel that you needed more support, or that adoption wasn't what you emotionally understood yourself to be doing at the time. Those feelings deserve to be taken seriously. But that doesn't necessarily mean the people who adopted your baby wronged you.

I also think there's a difference between saying “vulnerable women need better support and genuine alternatives” and saying “therefore people who adopt from vulnerable women are participating in exploitation.” The first doesn't automatically establish the second.

Ultimately, if your understanding of the pregnancy as “surrogacy” was a way of making sense of relinquishing your baby, I can understand why that framework felt meaningful to you. But it doesn't create obligations on the adoptive parents that they never agreed to and, presumably, didn't know existed.

What would the authorities do if a couple had purchased a baby abroad who was not genetically linked to either of them? If it's illegal but there's no enforcement, then illegal activity is being enabled.

I’m not a family law expert, but a parental order is not possible with no genetic link, so it becomes adoption.

I suspect it comes back to what is in the best interests of the child. If the commissioning parent(s) are otherwise acceptable as parents then it would be hard to argue that adoption to a third set of strangers is a better outcome.

It’s not a criminal offence to pay commercially for surrogacy as an individual but it is a criminal offence for an agency to profit from arranging a surrogacy.

Simply that my donor-conceived child, who has no legal rights to know their biological maternal line, will now, most likely be able to get there due to DNA being available easily and cheaply to the general public. But the idea that my genetic material could have transferred to them is amazing. Wish I could remember the term. I always believed my duty to them and care of them was to ensure their environment was sound. As back then there was no belief that I could share my genetic material. Science moves on.

Did you even think through this scenario before trying to plop it down as some kind of whataboutery?

A drug addicted mother will have likely had a child with significant health issues that become quickly life threatening. The mother will also have serious medical health issues that need to be immediately addressed. Do you think that the child is being removed for punishment ?

Obviously, the mother will also have to be assessed as to whether she will be able to care for that child at all immediately. I would expect that the sole focus of any authority separating a child from its mother who as that significant a drug addiction, is on the child.

And who decides that a baby is going to be removed? It’s always a Family Court judge, because it’s considered such a significant thing to do because of the inevitable trauma it will cause, that the decision to do it is entrusted to the most senior expert in child safety available.

It does show how weak the arguments are though. And the barrel scraping that has to happen to defend the practice.

Oh… whatabout when an infant is given life saving treatment to assist its body cope with either a drug addiction derived through the placenta and/or other outcomes coming from a mother’s drug addiction that require immediate action? And don’t forget the mother also is likely to need immediate care for drug induced health issues.. Removal of the baby is obviously done just because ‘no reason’ and no thought for the baby’s safety and survival has been given to that removal…..

It is remarkable the lengths some people will go to defend the transacting of children.

It's a criminal offense to buy a baby outside of a surrogacy arrangement.
In Italy it's banned and the commissioning parents face up to 2 years in prison.

So according to that article there's a debate in the commons coming up at the behest of that designer couple.

It's going to be interesting to see how the parties/ factions of parties split. Esp to compare and contrast on how say Stella Creasy et al who voted on female body autonomy for abortion decriminalisation view this with an eye on their LGBTQ ally cred

There's a grim article in the Times showing how older men are responsible for the rise in surrogate babies in the UK. Including an unspecified number of men in their 60s and 70s

https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/parenting/article/surge-single-men-over-40-surrogacy-rk56hkj8m

https://archive.ph/Wp45b

Chimerism?

'The Times previously revealed that between 2019, when single people were given the same surrogacy rights as couples, and last year, 170 men made solo parental order applications to the courts for children born via surrogacy.

Data released by the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) under freedom of information laws has disclosed that 83 of the applications were from men aged between 40 and 49. There were also 24 applications from men aged between 50 and 59.

Annually, the Cafcass figures show there has been a small number of applications from single men in their sixties and seventies each year, but the exact numbers have not been disclosed due to the risk of identifying the applicants.

Separate data from Cafcass has shown that the number of gay male couples applying to be the legal parents of surrogate babies has risen by 191 per cent, nearly tripling in the past decade from 70 in 2015 to 204 last year.

The number of applications from heterosexual couples has increased by 36 per cent, from 225 to 307 in the same period.'

Leaving aside all abuse risk (if thats even possible) - how the fuck can a 70 year old expect to care for a baby? For how long? The whole enterprise is just sickening, sickening. Do SS assess these applications?

'The largest number of applications, 642, related to babies born to surrogates in the US, followed by 258 to those in Ukraine and 144 in Georgia. Applications have also been made for babies born in Colombia, Ghana, India, Canada, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Nigeria, Uganda and Russia.
In July 2024 a case came to light that involved a 72-year-old man in Scotland who was granted permission to become the legal father of a three-year-old boy born to a surrogate in Oklahoma.'

'...solicitor Louisa Ghevaert, a surrogacy law expert, said the rise in gay and single men becoming the legal parents of surrogate babies “reflects a more progressive and inclusive approach to surrogacy in the UK”.'

The phrase 'progressive and inclusive' genuinely strikes a chill in my heart.

Inclusive of fucking WHAT?

I am compassionate towards people that cannot have children. I have chosen to be child-free but it was a very difficult decision to make.

I am strongly of the view that no-one has a "right" to have a child and I can't get on board with surrogacy for that reason.

Also, it implies that previously parents were being screened in some way or that there is or was a mechanism for preventing parenting orders. This doesn't seem to be the case...?

Im assuming it's this

https://whatson.parliament.uk/event/cal56333

So there won't necessarily be a vote on it, and likely will not be well attended, but will be interesting to see who turns up to advocate on behalf of it

The courts are kind of stuck - they are presented with a fait complit as the child has been living with the surrogate-using adults from birth, is biologically the child of at least one of these adults, and the alternative is to remove the child, probably for adoption.

They won't do it. Chances are it would fail as the biological parent would go to court to get the child returned. The UK works on the basis that children should be looked after by birth family where possible.

The courts are in an impossible position with this - if they deny the adoption it could leave the babies alone and stateless.

One judge severely criticised two older women - one late 60s and the other 70s - for purchasing two babies via surrogacy;

"McFarlane was critical of the applicants’ motivations, describing them as ‘entirely self-centred’ and lacking any thought for the long-term welfare of the children. He expressed astonishment that the couple had not considered the impact of having parents over 60 years their senior".....

Natalie Sutherland, partner and head of the Modern Families Department at Burgess Mee, said:
“This is yet another case where the court has had to ‘fix’ the legal position of children born through surrogacy. The court was placed in an impossible position and acted to safeguard the lifelong welfare interests of these children. The President of the Family Division was right to publish this anonymous judgment highlighting the perils of unlawful foreign surrogacy. Surrogacy abroad poses very significant immigration issues.

https://todaysfamilylawyer.co.uk/judge-warns-against-unlawful-surrogacy-after-elderly-couple-commission-birth-of-twins/

He expressed astonishment that the couple had not considered the impact of having parents over 60 years their senior

Have we not learned yet that if its possible to do something utterly selfish and stupid then somebody, somewhere, will do it?

Laws can't be made assuming people are always sane, thoughtful, and considerate. Because unfortunately they aren't. And that's pretty much why we have laws.

This is the debate by the way via Parliament TV

https://www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/298d5452-e524-4de5-b556-9ef1a433f8f0

He expressed astonishment that the couple had not considered the impact of having parents over 60 years their senior

It reminds me of the astonishment I once had on a thread here on MN once, where a surrogate had just had twins implanted for a gay couple and did an AMA style thread. Someone asked her on page one what would she do if they died in a car crash before the delivery. Cue the astonishment when she said she hadn’t thought of that and wasn’t sure.

People don’t seem to think things through. And they also don’t realise it’s not possible to think through every possible negative scenario that can happen because there are so many.