Am I being unreasonable to want to get paid to be a surrogate?

[Geanie]

I have already been a surrogate once, I didn't get paid a penny, not even for any expenses. The parents of the baby didn't pay anything towards the pregnancy, which I was fine with at the time as I had a good job and I didn't feel that I needed any reimbursements.

I have been contacted by quite a few people asking if I am planning on doing another surrogacy soon as they are looking for a surrogate.
I do straight surrogacy and there aren't that many of us in the UK so there are always a lot of people out there looking for a straight surrogate.

I definitely want to be a surrogate again, however, since my last surrogacy I was made redundant and am now self employed doing whatever I can to earn and get by, and to be honest I am really struggling.

I use quite a few surrogacy forums online and have noticed quite a lot of UK surrogates are now asking for a specific amount of 'payment' for their part as a surrogate.

I know that it is not allowed to be paid for surrogacy in the uk, but a surrogate is allowed to be paid 'Reasonable expenses' and they are pretty easy going when it comes to what those reasonable expenses are for as long as it is under a certain amount, usually around £15,000.

When we went through all the legal stuff after my last surrogacy I was told that they don't usually even question or check up on anything under £10k, as that is considered the standard amount.

I have thought about it quite a lot and I don't see why I shouldn't be able to benefit from this, I mean realistically I am going to be giving the parents a child, and pregnancy is hard. I don't see why, as long as I am upfront about it, I cant ask for a certain amount towards my 'expenses' during the surrogacy.

I'm not looking to make a profit or buy fancy gadgets or go on holiday. I would just use the money to help pay my rent and bills during the pregnancy.

So would I be unreasonable to do this?

(I have NC for this BTW. Pom bears, the MN scarf, bum sex at centre parks on a friday, and so on.)

SchroSawMargeryDaw By paying the other biological parent for complete control/custody. Rather like buying out an ex-spouse's share of a house.

Lilka OK, I stand corrected. I knew that there could be open adoptions for older children or certain family situations, of course. I was only thinking of newborns and adoptions that are planned prior to the birth. I'm sorry for any confusion on that point.

Katy Those women in India are normally kept in horrible dirty living conditions and kept there for the entire time of the pregnancy and also give birth there and they do it for ridiculously low amounts of money as there aren't really laws to protect them.

That is different to what the situation could be here but I also have no problems with a woman gaining financially from doing this.

maryz In the hypothetical situation you describe, the pregnancy is accidental. The woman is not purposely conceiving a child to make a living. And, I would say that she should pay maintenance to the child if she is the non-custodial parent.

Maryz I'm glad to hear that adoptions are more like that, now. The idea that you just have to hand over the baby to some agency that "knows best" and you must be erased from the picture makes my blood run cold. Of course, there are women in the US who choose to go that route: they don't want to know anything about it. That's their choice.

Loss of earnings comes under expenses. Bills and rent doesn't IMO.

If someone was expecting my child I'm damn sure I would consider a roof over there head and heat water and light to be my responsibility.

Maryz,to answer your question re sperm donor,he is selling half of what it takes to make a baby,yes.In the OP's case,she is using her own egg,carrying it for a full 9 months,giving birth and handing him/her over,for profit.For the 15,000 pounds she would not have if she hadn't entered the agreement.

Here's a hypothetical situation.....man has a one night stand with fertile woman.Gets her pregnant.His wife/girlfriend and himself offer the one night stand 15,000 pounds to give them full custody/parental rights over the child and to remove herself from the childs life. Would that be selling a baby?

SchroSawMargeryDaw I agree that the conditions in Indian clinics may be worse than anything we'd see here. (Actually, the one article I read painted a rather nice picture of the clinic.) But, it's the principle of considering human beings commodities that remains the same, no matter what the conditions. For that reason, I would argue that prostitution is wrong no matter if we're talking about a high-class call girl or someone enslaved in a third-world brothel. It's about the commodification of people.

I am actually very mildly uncomfortable with even the most altruistic surrogacies: such as someone doing it voluntarily for a friend and gestating an implanted embryo. I am uncomfortable because it challenges my ideas about the relationship between a baby and its mother. I feel the same way about egg and sperm donation. But, I am willing to shrug that off and consider it none of my business. However, when issues of financial compensation come into play, then I become very nervous, indeed.

I don't think women should sell their bodies. I don't think poor people should sell their bodies. I don't think there should be a market for babies. After all, if you can carry a child as a surrogate incubator for a profit, then what's the difference in selling other unborn babies? Why shouldn't any pregnant woman (assuming there is no biological father in the picture with an opinion on the matter) offer her baby to anyone willing to pay her basic living expenses?

I hadn't seen your hypothetical,before I posted my hypothetical (and I'm sure I'm spelling that wrong,to boot!!!)

I think my unease most definitely occurs with it being the surrogates own egg...if it were a host surrogate I wouldn't have these objections.And I can't shake the feeling that there is at least a fifty per cent chance any resulting might have that same unease towards the whole situation too.

"It is only buying a baby if (a) there is no choice but to take the money and (b) there is no choice about handing it over."

OK, you've lost me, here. Although it's getting late and I'm a bit tired so I maybe didn't understand the whole post.

Are you saying it's only selling a baby if there's coercion?

I found it interesting that the reason surrogacy contracts are not enforcible in law in the UK is that the courts regard them as being slavery contracts because of the level of control it would give one party over the body of another.

I suspect if men were the child bearers in our society surrogacy would be big business. They'd all be making a fortune.

On a more serious note though, I don't see any problem with a payment of 15k for this, seems more than reasonable to me for what the woman will do and potentially go through. Why should women give up so much for nothing? That is also exploitation in my opinion.

"And going eyes-open into a surrogate pregnancy, working out how much you will be out of pocket financially for the 9/10 months or so that it takes, and asking to be recompensed, with the understanding that legally if you change your mind at any stage you can walk away."

OK! Now I understand you. And, I think you make a fair point. However... how would it go over if someone did change their mind? How would you (hypothetical, general "you") feel if you paid these expenses and were expecting a baby and then the mother changed her mind? If you were the biological father, I guess you would have the right to shared custody and - probably being the more financially powerful party - the obligation to pay maintenance. And your wife/partner would be left in the role of wicked stepmother. That would suck and I can't imaging that being good for any offspring.

Also, you're talking about being compensated for expenses, for being "out of pocket." That is definitely different than being housed and fed, which is essentially earning a living. Some people in discussion would be comfortable with that. For me, that's the absolute final straw and the situation has utterly crossed the line into selling babies.

Did it honestly cost you 1000 pounds a month extra in expenses to be pregnant...because that is what the OP has said she is planning to charge.?

The OP has said she is financially struggling,and that is at working 6 part-time jobs.Anybody who can read that,and say the OP is not doing this for profit,is,in my opinion,deluding themselves.

If the OP was not looking at this from a 'market value' view,then she would be doing it for free....as she did before,when she didn't need the money.

"On a more serious note though, I don't see any problem with a payment of 15k for this, seems more than reasonable to me for what the woman will do and potentially go through. Why should women give up so much for nothing? That is also exploitation in my opinion."

It would be exploitation if women were obligated to do it, yes. I would also agree that surrogacy for nothing would not be an attractive option for many women. I expect that if there were a free market on the service, more women would want to do it because they would stand to gain from it financially. That's only logical.

But, would you be comfortable with a system whereby women could earn a living from conceiving, gestating, birthing, and relinquishing babies to people who want to pay for this service because they want a baby?

The reasonable expenses line is just a fig leaf. It's what you are being paid.

I never looked into the statistics but it was often said by people I've found reliable that it is more likely that the intended parents would change their minds than the surrogate, often if the couple's relationship with each other broke down or if the child had a disability.

It could cost a lot to be pregnant as someone who is self-employed.

What if OP develops HD, SPD or another condition that makes working impossible?