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/

It’s a very different thing going through the process to parent an existing child who cannot be cared for by it’s biological parents and creating a child with the intention of removing it from its biological mother because “I want one” and I can pay for it.

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?

RTFT. In adoption and when babies have to be removed for medical care, that is about the best interests of the child, it is the best which can be done for that child in that circumstance. Surrogacy is about the wants of the adults, the child is deliberately created to be removed from the only mother they know. It's not the same!

Ok, I was just wondering as lots of the arguments on this thread are based around removal of the baby from the pregnant woman at birth being bad for the baby, even if the baby isn’t biologically hers. So you would think adoption would have a similar trauma? Private adoption can also be paid for especially from abroad. Seems odd that lots of people on here are ok with one and not the other.

There are lots of sides to it though, I’m fine with any way of creating a family as long as everyone involved is a consenting adult and the children are loved and cared for.

It’s a tough one as a lot of surrogates don’t want to be names on the birth certificate. They don’t see it as their baby (and biologically it often isn’t) so being recognised as the mother in the eyes of the law is difficult for them.

But the surrogate isn’t always the biological mother? That’s a false statement.

I don't think that's amazing, I think it is spectacularly irresponsible as a parent. Pregnancy isn't risk free, it's not reasonable to take that risk when you have kids for somebody else. I also don't understand why any woman would think it was reasonable to ask another mother to take that risk on their behalf.

Isn’t adoption also based on the wants of the adult? The adult who doesn’t want an abortion? The adult who doesn’t want to parent the child?

I understand you and feel the same. It is bizarre.

Surely you understand that in all of your "what abouts" nobody has actively chosen to create the situation, except in surrogacy?

Sorry , pressed too soon. It’s like someone donating a kidney and someone selling a kidney. There was a recent case where a rich family found a poor young man, lied to him and to the medical team about their relationship, they were going to pay him a pittance for using part of his body with no thought as to what would happen to him afterwards. If someone chooses to donate a kidney , or a kidney is donated after death that is a completely different story. Paid surrogacy will lead to the exploitation of poor desperate people by rich desperate people.

@ClaraThePigeon - I saw the Morning Live vet too and was v shocked by the casual way he said "we have a surrogate helping us out". Helping you out is babysitting or changing a nappy, not gestating and giving birth to a baby ffs!!

I had quite liked the chap up until that point but must admit that my views on him have changed somewhat...

I find the whole idea v upsetting actually.

And I am not against gay men raising a family as have relatives doing just that having adopted a couple of siblings. But there is something about surrogacy in that way this that feels off, in a visceral way.

It's not usually is it? That's why so very few babies are adopted. Usually there are other issues involved, such as addiction.

Adoption is often a choice? Not in cases of removal by social services but voluntary relinquishing a baby for adoption is definitely an active choice.

Isn’t adoption also based on the wants of the adult? The adult who doesn’t want an abortion? The adult who doesn’t want to parent the child?

No. Modern adoption is not relinquished babies, it's children removed from birth families who have been proven to be unable to keep them safe. It's very very rarely newborns who are unwanted being adopted now. Adoption centres the needs of the child, who exists and deserves the best they can get in their circumstances. It's not creating a child to order and deliberately causing it to be removed from all it knows, because an adult wants that

Research shows that surrogacy is not a factor in poor child development:
Families created through surrogacy: Mother-child relationships and children’s psychological adjustment at age 7 - PMC (nih.gov)

In fact the family unit may benefit from more confident parenting: Surrogacy families | BPS

I am against women being exploited but I am not against women choosing of their own free will to carry a child and be the saviour of a couple. If the surrogate is also the egg donor then I agree they have had biological input. If the surrogate is carrying the baby then they are of no biological relation to the child. It would be lovely to have a relationship with them (and I've heard stories of children raised to know their 'tummy mummy'), but they are not a parent.

Are you no longer talking about the UK then? Because no, it's not often an active choice. That's why there are so few babies.

I agree entirely.

And I am not against gay men raising a family as have relatives doing just that having adopted a couple of siblings. But there is something about surrogacy in that way this that feels off, in a visceral way.

I feel the same.

This is horrendous. I had no idea this was even in the pipeline.

It is people-trafficking (specifically baby-trafficking) by another name, The potential for abuse is huge.

There should be an immediate stop on it. It is a vile practice.

The new system would improve the current process, which involves a sometimes complex and lengthy journey through the courts after the child has been born, resulting in some couples waiting up to a year after birth before they become legal parents of the child.
The report also outlines a clearer set of rules governing the payments that can be made to surrogates, under which “for profit” commercial surrogacy would continue to be strictly prohibited.

Folks are very angry about people who profited from people bought and paid for centuries ago, less bothered about those trafficked for gain in the past decade and incredibly relaxed about babies contracted for before gestation.

Apparently, Amazon, Facebook etc have taught us nothing about accounting losses in one tax jurisdiction offset by colossal profits in another, there will be no profits and nothing to see in the UK.

This seems to be another situation where freedoms demanded by the rich and powerful will adversely impact the poorest and weakest in society.

I am against women being exploited but I am not against women choosing of their own free will to carry a child and be the saviour of a couple.

Again, it should not be about the wants of the adults, it should be about the baby. A baby is not a present or a purchase, a baby is an actual human with needs and rights

Surrogacy is abhorrent and needs banning. The thought that it could be more widely used, than it is already, makes me feel sick.

Being a parent isn't a right.

Commissioning a woman to gestate a foetus for you - with all the associated risks she will take on - isn't a right.

Removing a newborn baby from the woman who gestated it (we used to call them mothers) isn't a right.

Commodifying women's bodies isn't a right.

Purchasing (via payment of "expenses") a human baby isn't a right.

The (post)modern rollback of women's and children's rights continues at pace, and we will all be worse off for it.

Don't be a surrogate if you are going to view the baby you are carrying as yours. It's simple.

It's not ismple at all - nature and hormones interfere with logic.

So does carrying the baby make you the mother? Or if its your egg in someone else are you the mother? I don't really see how it's all that controversial to give parental rights to the biological parents pre birth.
You can be morally opposed to surrogacy but legally I can't see the controversy with the proposed bill

I wonder why this is though. Is it made difficult for mothers who decide during pregnancy that they do not want to raise the child themselves?