Mark Feehily wants surrogacy to be cheaper and accessible for everyone

[Wouldloveanother]

www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-11141771/Westlifes-Mark-Feehily-discusses-privileged-expensive-surrogacy-journey-welcome-daughter.html

Why are men so entitled?

Well no - it can’t. First because you’re not advocating banning just commercial surrogacy but altruistic surrogacy too. So the entire basis of this case would fail since it is based on the law around slavery.

Second, unless you think the principles behind slavery should apply to all situations where one biological parent cedes custody to the other and there is some material gain involved (like the divorce example I gave) then there is no basis to do so here.

It is simply ridiculous to compare handing parental responsibility to a biological father through a formalised process with selling a child to complete unrelated strangers with no process at all. If you think they are remotely comparable you are deluded.

Altruistic surrogacy is also banned in many places, as well as commercial surrogacy. So it's already done, and yes both should be banned.

We are not talking about ceding custody, we are talking about a child DELEBERATELY BRED ie surrogacy. They are not the same thing. Surrogacy is nothing like mere custody transfer, and you know it.

If you think it's ridiculous to think that handing parental responsibility to a gay biological father is the same as any other custody issue, you are the one that is deluded.

Again, it's quite obvious if it's merely mum giving dad custody, and mum terminating her parental rights to give dad and husband custody. You cannot hide it.

Before coming out as gay.

Hence, they are not currently in a gay relationship. Hence, they live alone/in a hetero relationship, not two men living together that would arouse suspicion when they take custody of a child. You are really stretching all believability now, and you must know it on some level. The desperation to create a point out of nothing is pitiful.

Now we have gay men viewing women’s bodies as something they can rent for their convenience.

You keep saying it’s obvious but not actually specifying how.

Also, not sure why you had to specify that the dad was gay in there, unless you think that makes it worse. Your mask is slipping.

I have said numerous times, as has the other poster how. You simply aren't listening.

If a woman terminates her Parental Rights to a married gay couple, don't you think that would arouse suspicion that it's a surrogacy agreement? Instead of clutching at straws, try some logic and comprehension.

@Eh? You said a gay man was unlikely to have had a ONS with a woman. I am just saying you can't send him to prison because he is now gay but says he had a ONS 9 months ago with a woman. It's not really on to tell people what gay people do or else they are not really gay, anyway. Are you only against women being surrogates to gay men or do you also think it's wrong for a straight couple to use one?

I am just saying you can't send him to prison because he is now gay but says he had a ONS 9 months ago with a woman.

Are you TeaKlaxon under another name?

No @CatsandFish but I think you may inadvertently be expressing a homophobic view, and feel bound to point it out to you.

This is a bit of a silly argument. It would be vanishingly rare for a woman to agree to be a surrogate using her own eggs, feign a ONS with a member of a gay couple, then relinquish her parental rights after birth. Most surrogates are carrying donor egg babies, or the egg of the commissioning parent.

I’ve already addressed those. Your claims that lack of a name on a birth certificate, relinquishing parental responsibility to someone in a (specifically gay, for some reason) relationship and some ill defined claims about ante natal sessions.

I explained why none of those would be proof that a pregnancy was surrogacy rather than just an accidental and unplanned pregnancy where the mother decides she doesn’t want to raise the child.

You do get the prosecution is not based on ‘arousing suspicion’ but proof beyond a reasonable doubt right?

Of course you could hide it. As I’ve said, criminalising a father who gets parental responsibility because he is in a relationship with a man and you think that equals proof of surrogacy is ridiculous.

The simple fact is a criminal ban on surrogacy - particularly altruistic surrogacy - is unenforceable.

But what’s more it’s wrong! Criminalising a woman for how she uses her body is incredibly anti-women and depriving children of biological parents who pose no risk to their well-being or welfare is incredibly anti-child.

She is not. But she is right.

You claiming that a man in a relationship with a man who gets a woman pregnant is proof of surrogacy is nonsense. It’s also homophobic nonsense sense your proposed crime would carry with it a presumption of criminality for gay and bisexual men that would not apply to straight men.

Not all men in relationships with men are gay. Some sleep with women.

Neither you nor the prosecution authorities have any basis to tell any man who gets a woman pregnant that it must be a surrogacy arrangement simply because he is in a same sex relationship.

You haven't addressed them. It's quite obvious what I mean when arousing suspicion. Health Visitors will need to know the address. A mother needs to apply to terminate her Parental Rights and if she does that to hand custody to a man married to another man, that WILL raise suspicion with government/social services. If you think it won't, you're delusional.

your proposed crime would carry with it a presumption of criminality for gay and bisexual men that would not apply to straight men.

Er, no. I was using a gay couple of an example, because the mother has to fill out forms (you appear to not have known this) to relinquish her Parental Rights, and any forms will ask for where the child is to go. You seriously don't understand that if a gay couple is married, for example, it won't raise suspicions in govt dept/social services? Are you really suggesting this? You really do think you can hide a surrogacy, don't you? Christ, you really believe it.

Haven't RTFT but for those interested in the impact that separating a baby from its birth mother can have, 'The Primal Wound' by Nancy Verrier is worth a read.

I agree, surrogacy should be banned.

relinquish her Parental Rights, and any forms will ask for where the child is to go.

In the UK is is parental responsibilities not rights and it isn't particularly straightforward to relinquish them.
Social workers would absolutely want to know why the application had been made. In the case of a newborn baby all sorts of alarm bells would be ringing.

Then they have options which don’t involve removing a newborn from its mother:
adopt a newborn from a country where healthy newborns (with non drug addict parents) are regularly put up for adoption. There are plenty of them.

Leaving the surrogacy debate for a moment, this is a bizarre statement. How can "adopt a newborn" not involve removing a newborn from its mother? It's pretty much what happens, by definition (other than in vanishingly rare cases where a mother dies at birth and the father is already dead or unknown; but in cases of genuine orphanhood, babies nearly always go to uncle/auntie/grandparents).

When healthy, non-drug-addled newborns are available for adoption, there is usually an extremely sad story behind it. Even in cases where it's consensual, in most cases the mother could have kept her baby had she had better support and most likely would have elected to. In some cases, babies have been stolen from mothers and outright trafficked. I do absolutely defend the right of a woman to give up a newborn for adoption if she has been offered all the support she needs to raise the child and still feels strongly that giving up her child is the right thing to do, in her case. But the number of cases where women do this is very small compared with the numbers of people who want to adopt healthy newborns.

I think all surrogacy is awful. My friend recently paid a surrogate and now has a baby and I will honestly never look at her in the same way again.

Why do adopted children have parenting needs (if adopted from birth as I suggested) that surrogate babies don’t?

The data we have so far on children born through surrogacy is that they turn out pretty much the same as other child born to families of the same kind of socio economic background, and that their outcomes are not in any way similar to those of adopted children.

I'd have thought the reason for this would be fairly obvious. Children adopted at birth are nearly always adopted because the parents have some serious issues. There may well have been substance abuse or alcohol damage in utero, but even if there is not, the genetic background of such children is far more difficult than the average person. You don't have your newborn taken away by social services unless you and your partner have a track record of some quite serious problems, which can include very low IQ, addiction issues, personality disorders, serious issues with impulse control/criminality, etc etc. Children who have genetic parents with such issues are massively more likely to have issues of their own as they grow up. I should not need to explain that these things are generally not the case with surrogate mothers and the parents who hire them.

I'm actually against commercial surrogacy for other reasons, but we are really really not seeing any evidence that it causes trauma or primal wounds or any such stuff. The kids born this way seem to be turning out perfectly well adjusted.

Yet again - raising suspicion is not enough to support a successful prosecution.

I'm actually against commercial surrogacy for other reasons, but we are really really not seeing any evidence that it causes trauma or primal wounds or any such stuff. The kids born this way seem to be turning out perfectly well adjusted.

I don't think their position has been researched sufficiently well to know that. There was a very articulate poster on here who had been born via surrogate who started to articulate their feelings on this issue. I'm sure on paper they appeared 'perfectly well adjusted' but their lived experience wasn't that positive. At all.

We need to start listening to these peoples stories rather than assuming it's all hunky dory.

What data do we have @user1477391263? Can you post a link?

My understanding is that the relationship with the only other human being you've ever known is critical so I'd be really interested to see research that shows that any old human will do as long as basic needs are met as you suggest.

I'm not opposed to surrogacy - wouldn't be a surrogate myself, wouldn't work with a surrogate myself - I believe that it is the potential surrogate who has the right to choose. That being said surrogacy should NOT be cheaper. A woman is putting her health at risk, taking a step to the side in her own life for not just the pregnancy but for months before and after and dealing with the emotional toll of carrying a baby for 9 months and then having to give it away. People do not have a right to their own biological baby. There are enough children who are in desperate need of homes.

Yet again, suspicions raised means an investigation will be carried out and a prosecution will follow. It is NOT something you can hide. As calmlakes said, it is not easy to relinquish and they WILL want to know why. You're fooling yourself if you think it can be hidden. It can't.