To say there is no such thing as "altruistic" surrogacy?

[FannyCann]

To say there is no such thing as altruistic surrogacy and that this fiction is a massive state sponsored fraud?

The Law Commission has a Consultation to review surrogacy laws in the UK and you have til 11th October to respond.

There are 16 questions relating to payment, but they find themselves between a rock and a hard place. Admit women are paid for this “service” and recommend full commercial surrogacy puts the UK on a par with countries such as Uganda, the Ukraine and Russia. The UN Special Rapporteur links commercial surrogacy with the sale of babies. So of course we don’t do that in the UK. Oh no. We have “altruistic” surrogacy here. Surrogates are merely recompensed for expenses incurred as a result of the pregnancy, plus the odd “gift”.
So altruistic that from the Law Commioners own research into payments surrogates have been receiving, the median payment was £14,795.54 and 9.61% were paid more than £20,000.

Payments were claimed for things like takeaway meals and cleaners.

This is clearly State Sponsored Fraud. I challenge anyone to produce receipts to prove their pregnancy cost them £20,000

I also suggest that this puts surrogates in a tricky situation should HMRC or the benefits office ever take an interest in the origin of that £20k. It is very wrong for the law to encourage this fraud.

I ask you to look at the background and if you want to have a say into whether commercial surrogacy should be allowed in the UK please respond.

Here is a link to the Nordic Model Now template which you can download and use to respond in ten minutes.

https://nordicmodelnow.org/2019/08/30/how-to-respond-to-the-uk-surrogacy-consultation-in-10-easy-minutes//_

You can find moe background and discussion of the Consultation on this thread.

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

As previous posters have said having children is not a human right - so all those opposed to surrogacy agree we should definitely sterilize those unfit to be parents? They shouldn’t be allowed to have children. Those children didn’t ask to be born or suffer the horrific consequence of being separated from their parents through being taken into care? Or being abused or born drug addicts? Yes. My DP is one of four children removed into care because they were abused when they were tiny. My DP has permanent disabilities as a result of the abuse he had inflicted on him, and the other children have physical scars from their abuse. One was removed at birth and placed for adoption, and we have since found out that the father had had previous children who were also removed.

DP was abused by both his parents. The mother went on to have more children who were not removed, but who have spoken of the abuse they also suffered at her hands. No idea where the father went.

Why should those people have the right to continue having children to be placed in the care system time after time after time. They both should have been sterilised. And if they fail to comply they should go to prison until they are too old to bear children in the mother’s case, but given the father may remain fertile throughout his life sterilisation would be the only course of action which would prevent him fathering more children into the care system.

I don’t really care if that goes against some woman’s human rights or not. You abuse one child, then you forfeit the right to have any more.

@AnnaSteen if it’s altruistic surrogacy then it’s akin to the olden days when e.g. a child of say, a teenage pregnancy was brought up by the grandparents or the auntie/uncle. Knowing that there parent is actually someone else but having to call their relative mummy /daddy. This in the case of straight surrogacy obv. I know people who were brought up by grandparents for instance and they were some pretty messed up individuals and held a lot of things against their actual parent.

I’m shocked that we have here a thread essentially saying that a woman should not be ‘allowed’ to be a surrogate under any circumstances. What else should they not be ‘allowed’ to do?

I understand from the ‘compensation’ side of surrogacy that it could drive up figures of less financially secure women using it as a way to get a decent sum of money and that this is a slippery slope.

But for anybody that feels they have any right to say one sister should not carry a baby for the other - I actually find myself gobsmacked. If my sister came to me heartbroken and asked I would consider it for her. If you’ve never been in the position then in my honest opinion you’ve got no idea what the women who have relied on truly altruistic surrogacy have been through.

My cousin was unable to carry a baby to term, suffered through many many miscarriages and became increasingly depressed because she wanted the chance to be a mother. Her sister offered to carry a pregnancy for her and she had twin boys.

They are now in their 30’s and she has been a fantastic mother to them. They know their Aunt carried them and it’s caused them no issues as their Mother explained it to them when they were old enough to process the information and has always been open about it since.

They still call her Mum and the Aunt that carried them Aunt. You cannot honestly think that anybody has the right to police this kind of decision without taking a huge leap backwards in a woman’s right to do what she will with her own body?

Op, just watcched #bigfertility. Thank you for the recommendation. A must watch for anyone that wants to see the grubby reality of surrogacy.

People on here seems to be talking about a female carrying the intended parents genetic child as the only type of surrogacy.

What about surrogacy when it's an anonymous donner egg. Or the surrogates egg and the intended parents sperm. Are those circumstances still a beatuful gift and of no harm to the baby's mental well-being.

Also for the person that called it bullshit, babies 100% know who their mother is when they are born. They think they're the same person as their mother for the first few months.

You cannot honestly think that anybody has the right to police this kind of decision without taking a huge leap backwards in a woman’s right to do what she will with her own body?

This is very dangerous territory, choices are never made in a vacuum, it’s not ok to just make the blanket decision that ‘women can do whatever they want with their bodies regardless of anything else’ after all men can’t do whatever they want with their bodies (in law anyway).

And the point a lot of posters are making is that true altruistic surrogacy is rare, and the surrogacy route leaves many women open to exploitation, and babies in danger of being rejected and the risk of this can’t be offset. (There is also the ethics of removing a baby from its mother).

We don’t get to decide who is worthy of bringing a child into this world and who isn’t, what a terrifying prospect- who gets to decide who is worthy ? And what criteria do they use ?

Being a parent is not a right, it’s a tragedy that some women/men won’t ever be able to have their own biological child but life isn’t fair.

And no I’m not an advocate of ‘you can just adopt’ because adoption should always be in the best interest of the child not the interests of the want-to-be-parents. A PP made the point that the problem with surrogacy is its parent-centred rather than child-centred I think that sums it up perfectly.

100% agreed @ArabellaDoreenFig

My response was in regards to those happily agreeing that even in the instances where it is done for truly altruistic purposes, it is still wrong to do so.

I think conversations like this tend to lead to one extreme of opinion to the other with very little middle ground.

I understood the purpose of the initial question, it was in rtft that I found myself wondering how many of the people here have the right to decide where the line is when it is such a personal issue for so many.

I do not agree with funded surrogacies. I also agree that being a parent is not a right. But whose right is it to deny those people the option of surrogacy as, with my cousins experience - it was offered freely by her own sister?

Also couldn’t we argue that having children is always “parent centred” at what stage does a foetus get to sign a form consenting to inevitably being born, whether carried within the womb of its own mother or a surrogate? Such a complex issue cannot be boiled down to such a blanket rule as many here seem to be agreeing upon.

I dont think a women should be able to sell (or even necessarily gift) a baby to someone else.

This isn't about what women can do with their bodies but about what they can do with their babies.

The thing is this not about you (general you) or your best friend,or sister or cousin, who I'm sure are all wonderful people.

You are looking at the issue individually and taking it personally.

This is about the bigger picture. A picture where women can be and are exploited. A picture where babies are seen as commodities to be discarded or pick and mix. A picture where a baby is not wanted at the end by the surrogate or the parents.
A picture where a parent can demand for life support to be turned off(spoiler..the baby is still alive). A picture where babies are stateless, with very few rights, institutionalised. A picture where twins are separated. A picture where fuckups and mistakes do happen, like the woman that had no idea that one of the babies was hers, or using the wrong sperm/embyo and the baby is rejected by their parents.

This is not about shaming or slating the wonderful people that helped others out, or the friends/family that needed that help. This is about protecting the most vulnerable in our society and others.

The issue is that - even with altruistic surrogacy - there is potentially an element of pressure. How do you guard against that?

How also do you deal with the following:
mother and/or baby dying in childbirth
mother and/or baby being seriously injured in childbirth
mismatch between what the mother and the gamete providers want in the event of a foetus being seriously (or even mildly) disabled)
mother changing her mind
gamete providers changing their minds

Incidentally, I'm using the word 'mother' deliberately because a woman who gives birth to a child is that child's mother. If a woman who uses donor gametes to conceive a child for herself is a mother, then a woman who uses donor gametes to conceive a child for someone else must also be a mother.

Motherhood is not conferred upon us depending on what we choose to do with the newborn afterwards. If I drown mine or leave it in a bin, I'm still the baby's mother.

As has already been pointed out there are lots of things we’re not allowed to do with our bodies, eg live organ donation.

@OrchidInTheSun is right - legally in this country it's the woman who gives birth who is the LEGAL mother irrespective of whether she is the biological mother that's why there has to be a sort of adoption process once the surrogate baby is born to transfer LEGAL rights

I don't know if this is the same in other countries

This isn't about what women can do with their bodies but about what they can do with their babies.

This this this this this.

And 💐 for brillohair.

@itwasalovelydreamwhileitlasted the problem is the the new proposals want to change the law so that at birth the child's mother is no longer the parent legally and that the people buying the baby are instead.

I find it terrifying that a women are going to sign contracts for money that remove their parental rights before their child is even born.

I would urge everyone to fill in the consultation. Link in the OP.

My oven, their bun.

A very apt summing-up of the horrible dehumanisation inherent in surrogacy. A mother (and yes a surrogate is a mother however deep in denial some may be) isn't an 'oven' and a baby isn't a 'bun'.

If the 'bun' isn't tasty enough, can it be returned to the shop for a refund?

Ah @GrapefruitsAreNotTheOnlyFruit
I wasn't aware of that.
Tricky one.... my initial thoughts are that it should only be changed so that the receiving mother is the legal mother if she is ALSO the biological one?

I know adoption isn't an easy process but I would struggle with the morality around a surrogate carrying a child for you if you weren't it's biological mother either. Although there is such a thing as embryo adoption now.....

the receiving mother is the legal mother if she is ALSO the biological one?

You mean the genetic mother? What is the woman who created that child out of her own body, who shared her bloodstream and oxygen with that baby and who then pushed it out of her body, if not the biological mother?

@IcedPurple

But see also the definition online of biological mother The woman from whom one inherits half of one's DNA and who is the source of one's mitochondrial DNA

So blood supply and oxygen aren't taken into account....

That definition (which has no legal basis) doesn't take into account the - very new and still rather rare - situation where the woman who gestates and births the baby (sounds like a fairly biolgical process to me) is different from the woman who provides the egg.

The baby simply could not exist without the mother creating it from her own body. Her vital contribution to the existence of the child is 100% biological in nature. Though some would prefer to think of her as an 'oven'. Ugh.

my initial thoughts are that it should only be changed so that the receiving mother is the legal mother if she is ALSO the biological one?

So the surrogate spends 9 months growing a baby, bonding with that child, and then when the time comes she changes her mind and refuses to hand the baby over. Because it's not genetically hers, you would enforce the baby being taken from its mother against the wishes of the mother and baby.

I can't ever support that.

Thank you @womanaf

@Teddypicker1
Yes

Why become a surrogate if you don't intend to go through with it or if there is even the slightest chance of that happening

In many countries it is the intended parents who are the legal ones - Australia and Brazil included

Why become a surrogate if you don't intend to go through with it or if there is even the slightest chance of that happening

Because carrying and giving birth to a baby is not the same thing as signing a contract to renovate an attic or work on an oil rig for a few months.

Pregnancy and childbirth should never ever be considered a business arrangement. A woman's right to the child she carried and birthed should never ever be voided by a legal contract. It's inhumane and horrific.

@itwasalovelydreamwhileitlasted because life,bodies and hormones work in their own ways.

Many women will stick to the agreement,either for the sake of their loved ones or because they need/want the money.

But there will be times where a bond will form,the scans ,the kicks and little flutters etc. And 9 months is a long time to carry a baby and care for it(diet,vitamins etc) and form an attachment.

Why do some parents go through the process just to change their mind at the end?