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

*typically a mother giving birth for her daughter

"Typically"?

By the time her daughter is of child-bearing age, her mother would likely be in her 40s or 50s, so probably infertile or at least well past her peak fertile years. And in this 'typical' situation, would she use her daughter's egg for the pregnancy, thereby giving birth to her own grandchild?

Doesn't sound 'typical' at all.*

A few years back a 60 year old woman was granted permission to carry her dead daughter’s child using her frozen eggs. Thus giving birth to her own grandchild. I’m not sure whether she ever succeeded in doing so.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-36675521

This didn’t seem right to me at the time and it still doesn’t.

Crikey. I'm a bit stunned by that. In whose interests was that?

Thanks @MonsteraCheeseplant That's terrible, I hope the poster has the strength to tell her mother to fuck off.
I have just read Broken Bonds by Jennifer Lahl,

www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1925581551/ref=cmswemrmtdpU_GZGEDbD4AETYY

A couple of the cases in the book involve cousins, who were once close until it all went horribly wrong.
I think family coercion is a massive risk, and also, because it is family they seem more likely to make an off the cuff arrangement rather than having full legal advice and proper contracts so it is all a recipe for disaster.

I also came upon this article, which dates from 2008

www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30Surrogate-t.html

At a superficial level I suppose it is the story of a commercial arrangement that actually went OK, without any major problems. But it made me deeply uncomfortable: although the surrogate and her husband seemed to have good jobs, still the temptation of earning an extra $25k (twice, it was her second surrogacy) to help fund her children's college fees was the motive. Plus her daughter had already been an egg donor for the same reasons. The attitudes of the commissioning mother, who is married to a wealthy investor and presumably is used to buying whatever she wants are pretty patronising.
The fact her surrogate used a computer for her application reassured her that "she must live in a house with a computer and know how to use it". And as for the picture of her with her baby, with an ethnic minority "baby nurse" dressed in uniform, literally standing to attention - I suppose that sort of life is so far out of most of our experience it's hard to describe my feelings. But I know I don't want those sort of people at the top and a class of "breeder" women serving their every need right down to carrying their baby for them. But that is the way it is in the USA now for lots of people, just look at certain celebrities that have used surrogates.

I want surrogate mothers to be paid A LOT, maybe enough to buy a house. And end this bollocks about "altruism", this is offensive. For this is someone who is offering their body as a host and will suffer all the effects of the pregnancy. People do it for money, and the shocking crime is that they are not paid enough.

If someone wants "an altruistic" person to do this kind of service to them for the peanuts of recompensing for "meals" and "transport", then I don't know what to call these "parents". Scum?

Women and children should not be bought regardless of the price. It's not about the sum, it's about the fact that human beings or their bodies are not products.

Buying children is wrong.
No amount of money could ever make it right.

For this is someone who is offering their body as a host

To say she's a 'host' is to imply she's a passive vessel. She is not. She is growing that baby from her own body, the body which will be used to birth the child and feed it, were it not taken away to be given to someone else.

She is that baby's mother.

The baby/child/adult always comes second, at least, in surrogacy and that's so very wrong.

Can you pay someone sufficiently to die in childbirth? Because let's face it, it's gonna happen eventually in one of these cases.

There is an interview with Jennifer Lahl here, I think it starts about 8 minutes in. She is very disheartened that the press have no interest in publicising a story about the recent death of a surrogate and the twins she was carrying from placental abruption.

www.dailysignal.com/2019/05/23/the-surrogacy-risks-the-media-wont-cover/

No one wants to hear those stories.

Nia response here: www.niaendingviolence.org.uk/perch/resources/surrogacy-consultation-response-october-2019.pdf - also good responses from woman's place UK, EVAW UK, and Nordic Model Now. These proposals change the issues of consent - basically assuming consent of the mother unless within 5 weeks of giving birth she initiates legal steps and then dispute criteria which are biased against the mother, these proposals basically enable commercial surrogacy, surrogacy industry, paid surrogacy, age of 18!!!!! no cap on number!! and total negation of woman's humanity adn bodily integrity and massively facilitates potential for abuse and exploitation of poorer, desperate women - likely to disproportionately also include BME/migrant women.

If surrogacy were treated like a proper business it would be better. Life and critical health insurances could be bought. The money would be enough that maybe 1 or 2 births would set up a surrogate for life.

Sorry, I haven't read the full thread. I tend to agree with the OP on surrogacy. I was shocked by a thread yesterday about 'the worst husband', whose husband had pulled out of a surrogacy deal in Eastern Europe. The wife got almost universal support from most posters. It was her that needed a surrogate including egg donation because she could not carry a baby.
It did strike me that most women are against surrogacy as I am, unless it's another woman who needs a surrogate , ( eg too old to have a baby) then they are supportive.

Interesting thread from yesterday because the OP received a lot of support for her quest for surrogacy

To think my husband is the worst?

Surrogacy meets a need and the system is too far gone to change. It just has to be accepted and is a choice.