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’m pleased you’ve read a book from the early 90s. It is wayyyyy more complicated than this and both you and I know it. A child’s bond is not a physical cord that when severed is beyond repair, nor is a given that trauma will take place.

50% of adoptions break down in the UK, I’d love the stats on how my surrogacies “break down”.

I stand that surrogacy is not detrimental to the child. I’m not sacrificing humans for an experiment.

Surrogacy happens and this law is progressive to minimise disruption and support those involved INCLUDING the child. It is therefore positive.

As always with these things making it illegal will push it underground and make it damaging and risky.

I would suggest that anyone who finds it sickening just doesn’t surrogate, or make decisions for a group of women who are more than able and capable of voicing their own opinions. I again would also advocate that you should focus your worries about traumatised children on real children who need help as I’ve previously mentioned not those that are fictional.

Thanks for your post. I find it so sad and quite upsetting to see the lack of empathy or objectivity in many of the detractors posts. Criticising an intelligent, caring and altruistic woman for wanting to help others by being able to provide the same pleasure of bringing up your own genetic child is beyond me. We are not rich, we sold everything we had to become parents and would do it again, but as you say, if a potential surrogate willingly agrees to help a childless family, then does that mean that free will should be demonised? Having it regulated and covered by law must surely be better than driving it underground and potentially doing an even greater psychological harm to every one involved ?

Nothing to do with “a book from the early 90s” - you’re just showing your ignorance there.

How would you know if surrogacy is detrimental to the child or not? Just your own personal opinion?

Having it regulated and covered by law must surely be better than driving it underground and potentially doing an even greater psychological harm to every one involved ?

Thats really not a winning argument. It sounds more like a threat.

So, their cash cows might be limited. It seems all that NGA law cares about is how much revenue they will make. To actually think they are thinking that a child doesn't REALLY need any genetic link to the surrogate's child is just smdh. In reality, it seems they just want to find people poor enough to have children to give to rich people.
Maybe the surrogate doesn't get much in expenses, but how much do the lawyers get?

There isn’t much evidence of the child in your post - just all about you getting to be parents.

Empathy shouldn’t really have any place in legislation about ethics, should it? Legislation is based on all sorts of things, like competing rights, harms and norms, legislative precedent, and what’s considered ethical in a much broader sense. We don’t legislate on the basis of “some people really really want this and are very sad about it”, but on objective criteria. (Well, gender legislation aside 😆.) We haven’t legalised assisted suicide or commercial organ donation or banned all abortion just because some people are very sad about it - heartbreaking as their cases might be.

I could currently donate a kidney to someone altruistically, under certain very restricted circumstances. But does that mean that we should normalise an industry of poor people selling their kidneys, replete with brokering “organ introduction” agencies, because of bodily autonomy; or if the cash would allow them to put themselves through a university degree or whatever heartwarming improbable narrative is offered sounds so empathetic and lovely? After all, free choice and it’s for such a worthwhile cause and all that?

I don’t buy that surrogacy would be driven ‘Underground’ in the same way that other things would. Is that what happens in countries where it is illegal? From what I’ve seen it is extremely rare in countries with tight restrictions and ridiculously commercialised in countries with lax surrogacy rules.

I think we already have a good balance with regards to surrogacy. It’s possible for those who really want to be a surrogate, with protections for the birth mother. However it isn’t incentivised and the principle of the birthing mother having legal parental rights is maintained.

So just an incubator? A vessel?

I can only talk from personal experience, but what you describe is incorrect. Both of my surrogate boys experienced no ‘trauma’ at birth, in fact it was one of the most beautiful and calm experiences I have ever known. Our babies were lovingly placed into my partner & I’s arms by the surrogate, no stress, tears or anguish - just 3 loving parents who cared for each other deeply. As the biological parents there was nothing in that experience which could have traumatised our children, if anything, my embrace was the first thing they had ever felt, and they never looked back from that point on. My son also sought to breast feed from me, and I actually started to produce milk for him 2 weeks later. Whilst I can understand that the thought of some birth mothers having a difficulty in passing a baby to a biological mum is a potential worry, when it is done by a willing surrogate who has been psychologically screened and willing to accept the child has no genetic link to her, there is no trauma to the child or surrogate. She told us that it was an even greater sense of pride in having been able to see the love and joy on our faces when our baby was finally on our arms after years of pain and suffering. Is that wrong?

I respect your opinion, but suspect you can never fully empathise unless you have been in my shoes. You are entitled to be cynical about my post, but my children are probably more loved and appreciated than by those who take childbirth for granted. I had cancer and chose to create our embryos before I started chemo so that I could be there for the children that I could have conceived naturally. If that makes me a selfish parent then there is no compassion in this world. As I said, this is not as black and white as some people are painting it, and it would be helpful if people would consider their words before unconditionally condemning otherwise decent people.

That’s a very emotive story, but do you think an entire industry should be created around that? And is it OK in your eyes if your experience normalises poor women being surrogates for rich people who are a hell of a lot more commercially minded about it than you are? Or doesn’t that matter?

I think your response is quite heartless to be honest. You seem to be stereotyping a particular narrative as justification of your view. ‘Poor’ women suggests that changing the law in the UK will in some way make us like India or Ukraine, none of which applies. I think you will find that a significant majority of surrogates would not fall into your suggested category, and many do it for free. I respect your right to an opinion but am now finding this whole debate upsetting. There used to be a time where people could listen to other peoples opinions without demonising them for seeing things differently.

Slight aside here but wonder if anyone can advise or share some links...
Firstly I'll declare I know nothing about surrogacy but I'll assume there are different reasons to pay for and do it so I'm not so much asking about that but im confused about the egg/sperm/womb combos
So surrogate egg, fathers sperms, means surrogates choice (up to 6 weeks). Does bio (and paying) dad have same rights as say any other male who had impregnated someone. Does it matter how the sperms got in there, eg sex, turkey basters, in vitro.

Now let's say paying mum struggles to 'carry' or is a superstar Hollywood actress etc and just needs to 'rent a womb'...so her egg, hubbies sperms and implanted....could surrogate then change her mind? Does she get rights until 6 weeks...its not genetically hers is it.

And finally £2k does not seem a lot at all. With tests, fertilisation/insemination/implantation , gestation then birth...thats a year gone. I bet that isn't even minimum wage! What are the stats on who does it (for a job). Are they vulnerable women?

Thank you

Law and public policy aren’t made on emotive anecdotes or fear of upsetting people, though, and nor should they be. I haven’t been “demonising” you by any stretch of the imagination — only asking questions to you about the wider issues. Legislation is made on these, objectively and not on subjective feelings that things are upsetting or demanding that one’s personal experience be taken as a default. I’m sorry if you don’t like to consider these wider issues: this thread is about specific proposals to legislate around surrogacy, and people are allowed to discuss these in abstract and ethical terms.

This might well upset you, but we don’t ever make legislation just by only considering the views of one group of people who are heavily (emotionally and financially) invested in it. You might not like your experience being questioned. But you can’t expect that nobody else in society should be allowed to have an opinion on something that is of huge ethical importance.

Those wider issues around exploitation and the “commissioning” of and paying money for human children might not interest you, but you can’t stop others wanting to discuss them.

I would not want to be one of those surrogate babies. I'd have a massive identity crisis and emotional pain from it. Feelings of otherness, longings for "normal", what ifs, all the whys.
God forbid the parents were gay. I'd feel like a lab-bred rat. Made in a petri-dish, not the way they teach in Biology books for 9 year olds.

My own mother is not great but I couldn't live not knowing her. And to think that it was done to me on purpose... Nah. People have become monsters.

Aka a person who gave birth to her.

you don’t get to decide how an adoptee thinks of that person.

my parents are the people who raised me. From birth. Maybe 3 days if we want to be technical.

adoptees might not exist without genetic material from others, but that doesn’t diminish that our parents are the ones who raised us.

I had fertility struggles, and had resigned myself to not having a baby. In the past, I thought I could be a surrogate for my sister or vice versa; and thought it was a lovely thing for someone to do.

However, reading some of these arguments and having had a baby a few months ago, I agree that I am no longer supportive of it. All this advice we receive about the connection between mum and baby, 4th trimester, how baby being near mother regulates heartbeat and temperature. Newborns recognise their mothers smell and voice. The poor baby must feel lost after being taken away.

The whole thing is unnatural; to take a baby away. How would most of these surrogates feel after carrying the child for 9 months, and just handing over a baby. Never mind all the hormonal changes.

I’m very close with my sister, but now I can say I wouldn’t be able to do it, nor would I ask her or anyone to do that for me.

The majority of women offering these services are indeed doing it for financial reasons. I hate to think how they must feel after, mh struggles, especially those that have never been pregnant before. Of course you would bond with the baby.

As it is, people that are adopted can struggle with issues of identity etc. What makes us assume, that surrogacy doesn’t cause trauma.

Would you still feel like a lab rat if your two straight parents used infertility treatments?

Why do you think parents would be any less loving if they were gay?

I’m just pondering the reforms and wondering what it looks like in practice.

Does anyone know if there Will there be some sort of court process prior to birth that enables the intended parents to have legal rights from birth? I’m just wondering how that would work as currently our system is build on the birthing mother always automatically having parental responsibility at birth. Are they going to change that so the birthing mother isn’t on the birth certificate or she will be but they will be another legal process/order prior to birth? Just struggling to see how that that would work prior to birth and presumably that process would have to happen prior to birth in order for the intended parents to have parents rights from birth?

Further to the above I wonder what happens in the rare situations where it ended parents then don’t want to parents the baby once born (for example due baby being disabled etc). Are they forced to take on the legal parentage anyway if they started that pre-birth or can they opt out.

Im also interested in the section about international surrogacy. The link states the reform are supposedly hoping to encourage less people to use international surrogates from places where exploitation or child and surrogate is more likely….and yet they appear to want the legal
processes around international surrogacy to be make easier (eg getting the child citizenship). Wouldn’t that just encourage use of surrogates from other countries.

50% of adoptions break down in the UK, I’d love the stats on how my surrogacies “break down”.

Thats nonsense, adoption breakdown is estimated at between 3% and 15% depending on how you define breakdown. Disruption is more common in the adoption of older children for many reasons, which isn’t really relevant in comparison terms to surrogacy. Maybe look at the disruption rate for children who are adopted as infants for a realistic comparison.

This a million times over

I can only talk from personal experience, but what you describe is incorrect. Both of my surrogate boys experienced no ‘trauma’ at birth, in fact it was one of the most beautiful and calm experiences I have ever known. Our babies were lovingly placed into my partner & I’s arms by the surrogate, no stress, tears or anguish - just 3 loving parents who cared for each other deeply. As the biological parents there was nothing in that experience which could have traumatised our children, if anything, my embrace was the first thing they had ever felt, and they never looked back from that point on

With respect, you can't know that. No matter how wanted, no matter how loved, a baby removed from everything it has ever known is impacted. I understand how much you need to feel that isn't the case, but you wanting your child not to be impacted doesn't make it so, and unless your children are now adults you have no way of knowing. That impact can be felt much later or indeed all through life. Your embrace was not the first thing your child ever felt, I'm sorry it wasn't but it wasn't.

I get wishing that your child has always only known love and safety - I have adopted DC. I would love to believe that they are unaffected by being removed from their birth mother, that my intense love for them overrides the circumstances of their start in life, but that is not true. it isn't, it doesn't. And if I'm really honest I feel a bit anxious about desperately wanted children of surrogacy growing up with parents who so badly need them not to be affected by it. How will they have space to understand and process how they feel, if their mother needs them to have 'never looked back'?

The government link is for the current law which states the surrogate mother is the legal parent at birth and so she is able to place the child in adoption or foster care of she wanted to, if the commissioning parents didn't want the child she would be able to do this. The law doesn't force her to take the chosen. So the law need not change.

From the law firm:

What is often even more of a shock to all involved, is that where the surrogate mother is married at the time of the birth of the child, her husband is deemed to be the child’s father for legal purposes and is granted parental responsibility automatically upon the baby’s birth (provided he consented to the arrangement taking place).
The husband of a surrogate mother can opt out of parental rights and responsibilities by completing a form. So again, this option is available and the law need not change.

From the Child Law Advice link:

"The situation is the same for surrogate mothers who are in a same-sex relationship; if the surrogate mother is married to or in a civil partnership with another woman at the time she conceives, her wife/civil partner will be recognised as the child’s second legal parent. "

Again, the partner or civil partner of the surrogate mother, in a same sex couple, can opt out of legal responsibilities by completing the same form.

None of these links force a woman or her partner to raise the child. No where here does it say anything about adoption or fostering as the panicked narrative being spun is that the surrogate mother will be forced to raise the child. She won't. There is paperwork to be completed but giving that there is a child at the centre of the decision making it's not too much to ask is it?

Consider why @UpToNewTrix it might be that originally a husband or partner was given legal responsibility for a surrogate born child that his wife or partner gave birth to. Was that clause in the 1985 Act because there was concern over domestic violence/coercive control within marriage and relationships and that a man could walk away without legal responsibilities as it was the woman doing the actual pregnancy and birth part? You can refer to Hansard for more as a genuine source for more. The 1998 Brazier Report will also assist you.

I'm reposting this post from @glasshole from the other current thread on surrogacy because it's so eloquently and clearly put:

When a baby is born all it recognises is the smell, taste, heartbeat and voice of its mother. It even recognise her body movements from being perched between her hips for so many months. That is ALL it wants. It's MOTHER. Not the person who the egg came from. Not the man the sperm came from. It doesn't care a fig for genetics. The woman that grew the entire baby inside her. That's the mother and its what the baby needs.

This. Ripping a child from this primal bond is cruel and unnecessary.

Surrogacy should be banned.