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

@elvis86 What do you think of the current proposals?

I think that if there is a contract, money changing hands and a baby being handed over then it's a sale.

@FannyCann well I'm intrigued now!

If you view an altruistic surrogacy arrangement in that way, then it says more about the type of person you are than it does about the people involved

What do you call a contractual arrangement where both parties are bound by certain conditions and money changes hands other than a sale?

I get that you personally don't want to think of it as such but that's exactly what it is!

@elvis86 What do you think of the current proposals?

I think there are legitimate concerns and will be responding. I don't approve of commercial surrogacy and I wouldn't want to see the UK go down that route.

But the nature of this thread has to been to assert that altruistic surrogacy doesn't exist, and that women in the UK are currently being exploited and just doing it for the cash. This simply isn't true.

I’m not twisted. If you hand over money to a surrogate for a baby you are buying a human being. You just view the parent as more important than the baby which is pretty twisted.

Anyway, what is the cut off age for buying a person? 2 days old, 6 weeks, 2 yrs old? Is there a precise age when this is illegal?

Here's a UK based example

www.bionews.org.uk/page_95590

Luckily the mother was able to keep her child but if the law commission get their way she will automatically lose her parental rights.

What is it about our society when people can’t just say something isn’t for them and they wouldn’t do it and leave it there? Why this evangelical urge to make the entire population march to their tune?

Luckily the mother was able to keep her child but if the law commission get their way she will automatically lose her parental rights.

I wouldn't say there's anything "lucky" about that story. It's obviously terrible, and not the kind of arrangement I condone whatsoever. Nobody comes out of that looking good.

In my experience there are many more positive stories than horror stories like this, though.

Can you not appreciate the difference between your personal feelings about something and whether it should be permitted for anybody else?!

You missed the point of my post - you cannot comprehend how damaging it could be to carry and birth a child to then hand that child over to someone else until you have actually carried and birthed a child.

Having babies should never be reduced to a business transaction.

You missed the point of my post - you cannot comprehend how damaging it could be to carry and birth a child to then hand that child over to someone else until you have actually carried and birthed a child.

ArabellaDoreenFig - but you only know how you felt.

So surrogacy was something that you were previously fine with in principal and even thought you might do one day, but once you had your own kids you realised you couldn't. All fine.

It's the leap to the whole thing therefore being horrendous and needing to be banned that I don't understand. Just how arrogant are you?!

I agree with Arabella. Having a baby is a big deal even when it all goes well. The mum and baby in the early months should be treated like a unit. Removing a baby from his or her mother should be a last resort.

Surrogacy is wrong no matter how its done.
So one of my siblings saying if it came to it she'd carry my baby was wrong? That's good to know.

Nice to know there's women out there who want to police what other women do with their bodies and reproductive systems.

The mum and baby in the early months should be treated like a unit. Removing a baby from his or her mother should be a last resort.

But surrogates aren't the babies' "mothers" in the traditional sense of the word. They have no "motherly" intentions towards the baby from the off.

These babies are planned and very much wanted by their own parents - even before they're conceived, the surrogate isn't thinking about the baby as her own child.

This isn't teenagers having unplanned pregnancies and couples they don't know from Adam coming along and taking their babies.

Would you tell a woman who raised adopted children that she's any less of a mother than a woman who raised her biological children?

The baby doesn't care about whatever intentions anyone has. They are born wanting their mother.

It's not about adoptive mothers being less but about the best interests of young babies. For what it's worth I do think predatory adoption like in Juno is also wrong.

Those figures do suggest that de facto commercial surrogacy already exists in the UK.

I disagree with that, and with paying surrogates overseas.

🙄
My altruistic surrogate baby is 20 now
I didn’t ask. I was offered
My surrogate is a bit older than me, degree educated and works full time
I have O levels! And work part time - she’s waaaay more intelligent than me and I agree wholeheartedly that NO ONE who has no experience of infertility has a right to make
Sweeping decisions on something that has fuck all to do with them and affects them
Not at all

QOD I've read your previous threads about your surrogacy experience. It's clear that your surrogate had some underlying MH problems and you said she wanted to 'atone' for previous abortions. You have said yourself that at the time you were just so happy and grateful that you didn't consider any of her issues. This is understandable but maybe a reason why issues of the ethics of surrogacy and the potential safeguarding concerns should be discussed by wider society and not just those in the thick of it who may be unable to be objective.

You cannot know that posters who are against commercial surrogacy haven’t experienced infertility.

The stats OP has posted suggest that many surrogates are paid way more than actual expenses.

Friends of ours tragically had their baby daughter die at two days old.

They have had multiple attempts at IVF and it hasn't worked. She is in her mid 40s now and it isn't looking like it's going to work out. It's utterly heartbreaking for them, for us to know about and not being able to help.

I was thinking, randomly, I would consider being a surrogate for someone, a friend, in this situation.

I wouldn't want or need payment. I have two healthy children already.

Surely this is absolutely altruistic surrogacy. Why would you want this banned? The gift of life is surely the most precious thing you can give.

My altruistic surrogate baby is 20 now
I didn’t ask. I was offered
My surrogate is a bit older than me, degree educated and works full time
I have O levels! And work part time - she’s waaaay more intelligent than me

Can someone please enlighten us as to who was exploited and damaged here?

A debate about the proposed changes would have been interesting, but this thread is vile. Sanctimonious, bitter posters (all with their own kids, naturally), being completely dismissive of those people who can't carry their own children for whatever reason, and deliberately misrepresenting what is actually a beautiful thing for one person to do for another.

Reproductive and bodily autonomy is just that. It should be sacrosanct. The state has no business interfering it in. So yes, YABVU and unsurprisingly racist and homophobic. Nice. You want to police what women do with their bodies under the assumption that they are too stupid and naive to know what they are doing when they consent to exercise autonomy over their reproduction and have been insulting and patronising towards those who are infertile, comparing it to breeding fucking puppies, yet preaching from the standpoint of having had children.

The cherry on top was referring to some book where the author himself admits he changed some details to protect those involved from being outed/doxxed and which might be entirely fiction as a basis for the state further policing peoples' bodies.

Fortunately we live in a society where people are able to input on things that "have fuck all to do with them" and so we hear the broadest possible perspectives on a range of issues.

So I will keep fighting for rights for female prisoners, despite the fact that as a lawyer I'm unlikely to find myself incarcerated.

I'll keep fighting for the right to choose an abortion despite the fact I cannot get pregnant.

Etc etc.

It’s not homophobic, racist or unkind to people with fertility issues to object to commercial surrogacy.

I don't get how racism has come into this.

It seems that my point is being missed by those that agree with surrogacy-

Carrying and birthing a baby is something that you absolutely can not comprehend until you have done it.

Of course people who would benefit from surrogacy are going to defend it ! But some of you aren’t listening to the points being made -
The benefits to the people wanting the baby are far outweighed by the risks (emotionally and physically) to the birth mother and baby.