Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra Surrogacy

[MintyGreenDream]

I'm usually open minded about these things but it appears that they've admitted that she doesn't have fertility issues but her schedule was too "hectic" to fit in conceiving a baby.Wtaf.
Sorry but this seems very wrong

Nick Jonas and Priyanka welcome baby girl 12 weeks early mol.im/a/10428475 via dailym.ai/android

Sorry for the dm article

• [Title edited by MNHQ to say Nick Jonas, not Joe Jonas]

Gosh, that's what I speculated might happen dozens of posts ago! You told me I was poorly informed and needed to do some reading.

So what you're telling us now is that a couple will be able to go to an agency and say:

• male commissioning parent(s) can't provide any sperm, or there is no male commissioning parent, so a donor will need to be found
• female commissioning parents(s) can't provide any eggs, or there is no female commissioning parent, so a donor will need to be found
• there either is no female commissioning parent or she is unable/unwilling to go through pregnancy, so a surrogate mother will have to be found

Agency says: All fine, if you can pay

End result: a baby who has no genetic connection to either 'parent' is handed over to them a few hours after birth.

How is this not buying a baby?

Yes, whose baby is she at the moment, while she is going to be in hospital for weeks, possibly months?

Pre-birth orders in most US states transfer parental rights and responsibilities to the commissioning parents so at birth the baby is very much theirs and the surrogate mother has no rights.

In the U.K. this is not the case currently, a parental order has to be applied for within 6 months of birth and approved by a judge, but this is something law reform proposes to remove, making it similar to the commercial model in the US and the Ukraine.

My friend has been a surrogate and is a millionaire.

I would be very interested in her motivations, what value she must place on her ability to reproduce and what caused her to reach the decision to have a baby for someone else when she clearly could have paid someone else to do it and not take the risk herself. I'd also like to see her 'expenses' receipts and if this was recorded in her taxes.

MM probably didn't offer her recently available womb for the gig, has Binky offered for Ollie Locke since her womb is also now unoccupied?

In terms of the 'all willing participants' angle, no-one asked the baby, did they?

No one ever does and of course a foetus couldn't answer but based on the decades of research on the mother-baby bond it wouldn't take a genius, mind-reading guru to take a wild guess and the likely answer.

It would be nice if someone could consider the baby and also the woman who gave birth, I wonder how much her multiple previous pregnancies and births were a factor in what must have been a traumatic, premature labour which could have threatened her own life. I also think about her other children and if she has a partner who has also been traumatised.

@Beowulfthethird

I'm not sure why you're so keen to make the point. Anything that affects thousands of people is significant.

The genetic link requirement is likely to go on the premise that it unfairly penalizes infertile couples who can provide a gamete.

I'm keen to make that point for exactly the reasons that @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g said.

I want to make the following points:

• a tiny, tiny percentage of children are born to parents who aren't genetically related to them at all.
• we know that children born through donor conception are deeply affected by not being genetically related to their parents - even not being related to one can cause issues.
• not being able to know the identity of your donor is hugely damaging children which is why the HFEA changed the rules on donor anonymity in 2005.
• changing the law so that children who are born to a woman who is going to sell them to other people who are also not genetically related to them is ripe for exploitation and abuse and is morally and ethically wrong.

Again, having a baby is not a human right.

@Watapalava

I got the impression that she didn’t have time to conceive not actually carry a pregnancy

With endo even trying every month it can easily be a couple of years trying to get pregnant naturally. With their work that would mean giving up work pretty much to devote to even trying to get pregnant

And this is what I find really weird. If they didn't have time to TTC, how are they going to have time to bring up a baby?

@ConstantCougher

Oh jeez! Another surrogacy / woman bashing thread! The surrogate obviously knowingly knows what she is doing, non issue. And she’s using an agency. As for ‘rich’ people ‘renting’ their wombs out, some may consider a 4/5 time surrogate ‘rich’ if she is getting around £30k per pregnancy!! That’s in the U.K. so in the US as it is commercial the £ are in the £000,000’s! I think many surrogates are rich!

Agencies in the U.K. will tell you that the average payment for 'expenses' total between £12-20k, nowhere near this claimed £30k. For the States approx $30k is usual but that would depend on the contract which may pay extra for a special diet, breastmilk pumping, having several foetuses implanted, having a 'foetal reduction' etc.

Research conducted for the surrogacy reform in the U.K. states:

"104. (95.4%) received compensation for being a surrogate.37 29 (27.1%) of these received less than £10,000, while 73 (68.2%) received £10-15,000 and five (4.7%) received £15- 20,000. No-one said they received any more than that."

(But a case was reported in the Telegraph of £60k so that's just down to who they asked.)

https://www.familylaw.co.uk/docs/pdf-files/SurrogacyinntheUKKreport.pdf

jb

thats easy! with a baby they can take turns, they dont have to be together all the time or at a particular time.

To conceive with endo they likely need to commit to being together for one week every month. For couple of years. Lots of actors cant do that or they wouldn't be able to work.

Will there be a generation of surrogate children, some of whom grow up struggling to understand how and why they were ‘sold’ as babies? What effect does such knowledge have on someones mental health and wellbeing?

Yes, one surrogate born adult says they consider the birthday card a reminder of the pay check to their birth mother.

I do wonder if children born via surrogacy have similar struggles that some adopted children have over their birth mother ‘giving them up’.

Genealogical bewilderment is common in donor conceived people and surrogate-born adult Jessica Kerns has spoken about this.

I am not surprised at all. No way she would compromise on her body.

I agree, I suspect this is 'social surrogacy' and any sightings of her looking bloated are due to IVF drugs due to harvesting eggs. The injections are portable, she could have continued to work, she could also have had her husbands sperm shipped over on ice and self-inseminated at a time advised by top notch doctors she can afford to pay for. Maybe she tried that and failed and so she outsourced the process, but maybe she just didn't want to be pregnant. It wouldn't be the first time a celebrity, or any other wealthy couple, have done this.

For U.K. numbers (the ones that can be measured via a parental order):

"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."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-47826356

Research from 2021 from De Kirsty Horsey (with a new U.K. surrogacy agency) show this increase from 2011 to 2021 to be four fold

www.mysurrogacyjourney.com/blog/surrogacy-trends-for-uk-nationals-our-exclusive-findings/

Dr Horsey and the men who run this new agency have influence in various ways, including the reform of the 1985 Surrogacy Act.

More on the proposed reform can be found here

Building families through surrogacy: A new Law - Consultation www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3649812-building-families-through-surrogacy-a-new-law-consultation

@Beowulfthethird

I'm not sure why you're so keen to make the point. Anything that affects thousands of people is significant.

The genetic link requirement is likely to go on the premise that it unfairly penalizes infertile couples who can provide a gamete.

I just want to make this point very clear to people who are reading this thread:

Some people think it is unfair that they cannot buy a baby who isn't related to them in any way at all. They don't want to be genetically related to them, they don't think they need to give birth to the baby. They just want to be able to buy one

She's 39. I miscarried twice at 39. I understand why they went down that route.

What kind of relationship do they have if they can't even find the time to get together when she is ovulating? Doesn't bode well for family life. Poor baby, hope pulls through.

@MintyGreenDream

Yes I realise that but if they don't come forward and deny it then it must be factual.If that was me I'd want the actual truth to be known.

Or they'll think what's the point. They have a little baby currently in NICU. Correcting a daily Mail article wouldn't be top of my priority list if I was them.

Plus, people will believe what they want. Some people see "source says", and know it's BS. Some people see "source says", and believe it fact until proven otherwise. It doesn't matter what P&N do now, people will judge them for it anyway.

They have a little baby currently in NICU. Correcting a daily Mail article wouldn't be top of my priority list if I was them.

These commissioning parents await the baby to be moved to a hospital in their state before they are going to see the poor, premature baby girl.

Call me crazy but I'd say getting to the child to meet her for the first time would be a priority. Sod work commitments and meeting a filming schedule. Are they both really that busy?

The article, or parts of it could be untrue, in which case they would have grounds for legal action, but the DM has lawyers and knows a thing or too about libel actions, having experience defending their publication.

If true, and giving the nature of surrogacy and being able to order a child into being, having that control to suit your convenience, I'd say it's quite possible that N and P have agreed with the surrogate mother to pay her extra to pump colostrum and breastmilk whilst she herself recovers from a traumatic and dangerous birth, and to stay with the child until they can get there or until the baby can be brought to them, possibly by the same woman.

As there really isn't anything money can't buy, why not get it delivered (no pun intended) to your door.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

Gosh, that's what I speculated might happen dozens of posts ago! You told me I was poorly informed and needed to do some reading.

So what you're telling us now is that a couple will be able to go to an agency and say:

• male commissioning parent(s) can't provide any sperm, or there is no male commissioning parent, so a donor will need to be found
• female commissioning parents(s) can't provide any eggs, or there is no female commissioning parent, so a donor will need to be found
• there either is no female commissioning parent or she is unable/unwilling to go through pregnancy, so a surrogate mother will have to be found

Agency says: All fine, if you can pay

End result: a baby who has no genetic connection to either 'parent' is handed over to them a few hours after birth.

How is this not buying a baby?

And if the child has no genetic link to either of the commissioning parents, then what even is the whole selling point of surrogacy over adoption?

Other than not being able to put together a designer baby, or bring guaranteed a newborn?

And as this Chopra/Jonas situation shows very clearly, using a woman as a surrogate is no guarantee that you will be able to get a shiny, healthy, photo-ready baby with no "issues".

Her choice, don't be so judgemental

@OhHolyJesus struggling to find anything that says the pair aren't with the child? i can see it saying they're hoping the child can be moved to LA, but that's understandable as LA will be the child's home and any parent would want their child as close to home as possible. Nothing to say P&N are just sitting in LA twiddling their thumbs till baby is sent to them.

Finding the outrage from people regarding this a little unsettling to be honest. I don't remember seeing as much backlash when other celebs have gone down the same fertility route, for example, very little has ever been said about Cameron Diaz and her surrogacy. Or even Kim Kardashian.

@Blinky21

Her choice, don't be so judgemental

Honestly, when people post stuff like this, I wonder what it must be like to be so completely lacking in any kind of critical thinking skills whatsoever.

Finding the outrage from people regarding this a little unsettling to be honest. I don't remember seeing as much backlash when other celebs have gone down the same fertility route, for example, very little has ever been said about Cameron Diaz and her surrogacy. Or even Kim Kardashian.

Why are you finding it 'unsettling? What are you implying?

I can only speak for myself, but surrogacy is something I have only started thinking critically about quite recently, partly thanks to the feminism boards on here actually. And it has got more popular this whole business of buying and selling babies, so people are going to start thinking about it a bit more.

@SallyGoLucky

"The baby girl and the surrogate are currently in hospital and Nick and Priyanka are waiting for the baby to be healthy enough to move to a hospital in Los Angeles."

I refer to the DM article below

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10428475/Nick-Jonas-Priyanka-welcome-baby-girl-12-weeks-early.html

The baby girl arrived 12 weeks before her due date so it's highly unlikely that either commissioning parent was prepared to be around for the birth. Priyanka has been promoting The Matrix and could have been at the other end of the country. Her Instagram shows recent photo shoots, although these are done in advance of magazine release, the above quote from the article doesn't say specifically that P and N are with the child and with two people who are two busy to meet up and have sex would suggest to be that they really are very busy people.

I don't remember seeing as much backlash when other celebs have gone down the same fertility route, for example, very little has ever been said about Cameron Diaz and her surrogacy. Or even Kim Kardashian.

Well this very much depends on what you read or where you discuss surrogacy. Mainstream media promotes it as a reasonable and morally acceptable way to have a baby, all the articles covering this surrogacy demonstrate that, but Google Cameron Diaz's co star Lucy Lui (see reasoning below) Naomi Campbell, Amber Heard, even MP Liz Kendall + Mumsnet + surrogacy and you'll find some other opinions.

(I'm not sure I would call this a backlash but what you read does help to inform an opinion so if you don't read anything critical about surrogacy you might not think others criticise it.)

Kim K was very open about the surrogacy arrangement for her first surrogate born baby (I didn't stick around to hear about the other/s), Cameron Diaz not so. One is proud, the other private or embarrassed? I don't know, and it doesn't really matter. What does matter, to me anyway, it the celebrity culture which normalises buying babies.

"It just seemed like the right option for me because I was working and I didn't know when I was going to be able to stop," Liu told PEOPLE at the time. "I decided that was probably the best solution for me, and it turned out to be great."

Great for you Lucy, maybe not so great for the surrogate mother or the baby, but PEOPLE magazine didn't get to that.

I’m not implying anything. It is well known that for whatever reason, they are not a well liked couple - the press surrounding their relationship has always been predominately negative. So this feels like another thing added to the pile as to why ppl don’t like them. However I just don’t remember seeing this level of criticism and judgement when other celebrities have gone down the same route. This isn’t new. It’s been happening for many years and celebrities have been very open about it. But yes, perhaps it’s just something that more people are learning about now.

@SallyGoLucky

I’m not implying anything. It is well known that for whatever reason, they are not a well liked couple - the press surrounding their relationship has always been predominately negative. So this feels like another thing added to the pile as to why ppl don’t like them. However I just don’t remember seeing this level of criticism and judgement when other celebrities have gone down the same route. This isn’t new. It’s been happening for many years and celebrities have been very open about it. But yes, perhaps it’s just something that more people are learning about now.

I think there's been plenty of criticism but perhaps not that much in the mainstream. I wouldn't blame you for not seeing it, but it is there. Julie Bindel has been criticising surrogacy for decades, Catherine Bennet is another, even Claire Fenton Glynn has written about the exploitation of women in the surrogacy industry.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-47826356

I don't know much about N, I know a bit more about P, but can't say I care much for either and far less so now since they bought a baby. I'm far more concerned for this poor little premature baby and the mother who hasn't been mentioned so we don't know how she is doing. I'm also quite worried about her other kids who she is likely to have (as to register as a surrogate mother candidate with a surrogacy agency in the States, it's common to have had children and so be able to prove your ability to have a healthy pregnancy and live birth. You need to be of good 'breeding stock' you see) and any partner she may have. She probably nearly died and if she didn't then she will be very unwell. A premature birth at 27 weeks is no walk in the park for any woman or baby.

I think its because this is the stray that broke the camels back. All the celebs you've mentioned have been brought up on here when their news became public. Its only with SM that Ive realised the sheer scale of celebs and their surrogacy stories. I mean you go from looking at Andy Cohens profile and his surrogate boy then you realise his fellow presenter/friend Anderson Cooper and his son, then you click on to their friend who wrote will and grace and see him and his husbands surrogate twins, it just goes on and on. Why do these blokes think its their right? Its oh so fashionable? I believe one of their fashonable friends even has triplets what poor woman went through that pregnancy?

Its nothing like the infertility struggle people posting on here have. There is no fertility struggle when its blinking obvious why they have gone down the surrogate route.

And dont get me started on the ones that have had a child and then decided its not convienient to do that again. SJP, Kim Kardashian for example.

Honestly @Soffit would love to know where you got that info from. The average age of an educated women having children in India is increasing as it is around the world. Many are having children late and fewer than historically. Of course that is different in villages where literacy attainment and overall levels of education are low or non existent but why would that apply to Priyanka?The couple live in the US where surrogacy is not considered as alien or 'wrong' as it is in the UK. Its almost normalised over there. Not all surrogates are mothers who have heart wrenching had their children ripped away from them! Most choose to do it for whatever reason they justify it, some altruistic, some financial and don't see themselves as parent in any wayl. There are also different attitudes towards surrogacy in India especially amongst Bollywood celebrities, not saying I agree at all with this.

There are lots of people who will criticise but I don't remember the level of vitriol aimed at Cameron Diaz that was against Kim Kardashian. People assumed with Kim it was because she is image obsessed but she did share her struggle with oedema in pregnancy, pre eclampsia and csection births. The difference between the two is that one courts press whilst the other no longer does, one is also white.

I hope the baby is OK as is the surrogate and wish them the best as new parents. I am not an advocate or supporter of surrogacy in any way but I recognise that I am privileged to have been able.to get pregnant and carry my own children, not everyone is able to.

I don’t know why people are saying that this couple are getting a hard time compared to other celebrities. Perhaps it’s just the sycophantic press and social media you are reading? I’ve seen plenty of mounting criticism, Khloe Kardashian recently expressed her annoyance that a surrogate would be able to terminate a multiple pregnancy and it ‘should be my and my partners decision, not the surrogates’. Jen Atkins recently had a baby by surrogate and fully admitted she didn’t ‘have time’ for pregnancy.
People are also beginning to see how the industry is now deliberately dehumanising women in order to legitimise this. They have gone from being surrogate mothers, to simply surrogates (deliberately excluding the term mother) and now they are being referred to as ‘gestational carriers’.
It’s chilling.

@Omicrone

Jesus.

What happens in a surrogacy situation if a baby is born very early and dies? Does the mother still get paid?

Does she get paid if she does actually become pregnant but then miscarried at say, 10 weeks? Is there some sort of cut off for payment written into the contract?

What happens in a surrogacy if the mother dies, do her existing children and family get paid or looked after at all??? 🙄