To make you aware that surrogacy is going to be liberalised

[VestaTilley]

Today, the Law Commission have published their final recommendations to Government, calling for reform of surrogacy laws in the U.K.

The proposed change would make commissioning parents legal parents at birth. That means that the birth mother would never be regarded as the legal parent, nor would she be listed on the birth certificate.

This has been privately lobbied for behind closed doors, away from women and maternity groups for years. The Law Commission consulted in 2019, but never published their responses or said who had fed in to their consultation.

Law firms and surrogacy agencies are rubbing their hands with glee today: I feel physically sick.

They would have you believe surrogacy in this country is “altruistic”. This is not the case. Women can receive upwards of £20,000 per pregnancy in “expenses” - which is a huge financial incentive to a woman if they are from a poor background.

Do we want to live in a society which creates a servant class of women? Which takes babies away from their mothers at birth?

When pregnant we are all advised to bond with our babies, breastfeed if we can and speak to our babies in utero. How does the NHS square this advice with making it legal for a child to never legally have a connection to its own mother?

If you are in anyway concerned about these proposals please, please contact your MP and raise all the noise you can to try and stop this before it is too late:

https://www.lawcom.gov.uk/surrogacy-laws-to-be-overhauled-under-new-reforms-benefitting-the-child-surrogate-and-intended-parents/

I have experienced infertility and know how awful it is. But I still feel surrogacy is unethical.

Everything I read from surrogacy opponents on MN make me want to support surrogacy more.

Unfortunately the reality that some of you are trying to paint of little babies being born into servitude and damaged for life is not the reality that I live, or many many other surrogate or adopted children experience.

I can't see anywhere that anyone has said that they want babies to be damaged for life, but that it is a known risk of removing a child from their birth mother. It's great that you personally haven't been impacted by that, at least one other adoptee has posted about how they were.

My DC are adopted, I don't want them to have been impacted by the loss of their birth mother, but they absolutely have been - the one who has no conscious memory of her more so than the one who does, in our case.

It should be based on who the biological parents of the child is

I find it very very odd that a surrogate would choose to use her own eggs

Obviously only people who have experienced infertility could purchase there though. As they are the only ones who know how bad it feels and therefore it's ok.

Absolutely, because there are no other ways for someone to become a parent if they really want to. But I guess then they wouldn’t get their perfect (designer accessory) baby.

For me it's not even about the harm to the baby or the potentially exploited women (which I think is probably a bigger risk). It's the very idea that it's socially acceptable to trade humans commercially. Maybe if it was 100% alturistic - so no money at all being exchanged - would I think differently. But even the uk model is just an invitation for exploitation. This is not helped by the surrogacy fans on here talking about it as a job, a transaction. Something commercial.

I'm honestly not @coeurnoir. I'm just surprised that you don't feel betrayed that you were lied to by the people you trust the most. It's a very unusual reaction not to feel angry and hurt by that.

The law changed in 2005 to allow donor conceived children to find out about their origins because so many said how distressing it was not to be able to find out heir genetic origins. Adoptive parents are also urged to be honest with their children from the very start because their children were also damaged by the pretence. I'd imagine people who buy babies from women in a surrogacy arrangement are also advised to be honest from the outset.

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/social-affairs/2023/03/28/i-was-totally-blanked-passport-application-a-degrading-experience-for-mother-of-girl-born-through-surrogacy/

Not all surogates are the biological mother

(obviously I am concerned about the potential harm too - I just mean even without it I think it's massively problematic)

@Precipice @myveryownelectrickitten and @hamstersarse - your comments echo my own reactions to surrogacy.

It's entirely exploitative and should be outlawed entirely - globally. No-one is 'entitled' to a child, regardless of the means by which they claim to have been 'denied the right' to be a parent.

I saw a video recently where two gay men talked about 'their' baby as though it was something they'd 'designed' themselves. It was hideous - this pair of vain idiots wittering on about how they 'chose' the mother as though they were shopping for shirts. Misogyny pure and simple.

I guess if finding the idea of richer people effectively buying babies from those who can't afford to keep them makes me hysterical, then so be it!

Meant to say finding it abhorrent obviously through the hysteria!

*It's about ensuring that people can't buy control over other people's bodies simply because they are infertile and have money to throw at other people.

Y'know, like how we don't allow slavery any more.*

But we do allow, and welcome, women to choose their own career, make their own money, choices, decisions. Nobody decides who can or can't conceive, whether those children are planned and loved, or accidental and unwanted.

If you carry a baby as a pregnant woman it will always be a part of you, even if it wasn’t your egg https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/babys-cells-can-manipulate-moms-body-decades-180956493/

I always wonder what happens when something goes 'wrong' not even seriously wrong but when I was pregnant with ds I developed carpal tunnel, that was 16 years ago. I've had various treatments, even surgery but my wrists are still painful every single day. Would I get compensation for that or is it just suck it up? I'm sure many women experience various niggles post pregnancy that don't fully go away.

Not all surrogates are the biological mother

So what? That makes no odds to the baby removed from the only person they have ever known. Surrogacy is always about the wants of the adults, the baby becomes a commodity, whether money changes hands or not. Buying and selling humans, of any biological make up, is wrong.

I saw a video recently where two gay men talked about 'their' baby as though it was something they'd 'designed' themselves. It was hideous - this pair of vain idiots wittering on about how they 'chose' the mother as though they were shopping for shirts. Misogyny pure and simple.

How is that any different from a heterosexual man talking about the baby he fathered; how he chose his partner to have children with?

You are comparing women having a career to paying for a baby? Would it be the same paying to buy a kidney? Or a retina? Afterall you only need one to get by, so no permanent impact and the seller is consenting....

Not to mention that a lot of the people opting for surrogacy are not “infertile” , they are men.

Mumsnet's view on surrogacy shocks me. Surely a woman can do what she wants with her body and if that means growing a child to benefit another, so be it. I've contemplated whether I'd be willing to do it for a gay friend and think I would if I didn't have a track record of delivering prematurely.

Of course it's open to exploitation, but many things are. We legislate in a way that mitigates the risk, rather than banning things wholesale.

That said, one day hopefully artificial wombs and placentae will be developed that skip the whole problem.

So if the argument is that surrogacy is damaging babies by removing then at birth, are we also all anti-adoption? What about birth trauma? I had a friend who was in ICU following delivery and didn’t touch or hold her baby for fourteen days and nights. What about premature babies who can’t have skin to skin contact for months? I’m not saying the bond during pregnancy and after birth isn’t important but some people are being really hysterical about this. Comparing a willing surrogate to baby trafficking?! And as for all the buying chat, if I agree to be a surrogate for my sister for free, is that completely ok then? There’s a lot of ifs and buts and maybes here, shouldn’t each situation be taken on its own merits?

🤮🤮🤮🤮

So are you also against gay men adopting?

No, not at all, adoption and surrogacy are two completely different animals.