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 know half a dozen people who were adopted at 1-3 yearsold (by strangers, AND by an aunt, and by grandparents,) because their parents died, and they don't even REMEMBER their birth parents, let alone feel devastation at being ripped away from their bio parents.

Sorry, you know people whose parents died when they were 1-3 and they are completely unaffected and don't even care? I am against surrogacy, yes, but I have to say this is something completely different and even more extreme. It's a very wild claim that a 3 year old wouldn't be traumatised one bit by being actually orphaned. At what age would children start being upset if their parents died, do you reckon?

People keep posting 'evidence' as to how a child born to a surrogate (or adopted) feels like a sad, lonely, lost little lamb who is traumatized for life, but it means fuck-all. It's biased 'research' peddled out by anti-surrogacy campaigners.

Let me get this straight — you’re saying decades of research on attachment theory, the mother/child dyad and adoption trauma from the 50s, 60s, 70s onwards is “peddled by anti-surrogacy campaigners” — all done well before IVF, and the entire basis of modern surrogacy, even existed? Right.

There is a lot of investment here in promoting the idea that removing a baby at birth is not harmful to the baby, when we know perfectly well that separation and loss even at the youngest of ages has an impact on a child. Why do you think adoptees of mothers who gave up their babies at birth go searching for their biological parents, experience grief and loss and lasting impacts on their lives, even if their adopted parents were wonderful and much loved? Why do you think we stopped pressurising unmarried girls to give their babies up to nice married couples? Just to be mean to the infertile and keep all the babies from them?

I know half a dozen people who were adopted at 1-3 yearsold (by strangers, AND by an aunt, and by grandparents,) because their parents died, and they don't even REMEMBER their birth parents, let alone feel devastation at being ripped away from their bio parents.

^I understand people having different perspectives on surrogacy, but trying to assert that children between 1-3 not being affected AT ALL by the loss of the only cared they have known is quite frankly ridiculous. I couldn’t take anything you say seriously after that as you clearly have zero understanding of the needs of babies and young children. I at least respect the views of people here who argue with some degree of logic even if they aren’t sharing my views. But this….nah!

As long as a child is brought up in a loving caring family, by someone who wants them, and loves them, and treats them well, it doesn't matter if it's not the bio parents.

There are so many cases in which this is untrue.

My friend who was adopted has always felt that something is missing. This has been a theme right through her life. She chose not to have children as a result of it. She now has no one. She has a profound sense of loneliness and abandonment from not knowing her birth family. This is despite having a wonderful loving adoptive family.

Why do you so readily dismiss the impact on the Baby who will grow up to be an adult who may or may not be profoundly impacted by the circumstances of their birth?

A baby is not a commodity not something to be created with out due concern for the potential impacts mentioned above. It's profoundly selfish to think, as adults, that there will not be an impact. You can't possibly know.

is your problem more with surrogacy overall or the lax policies surrounding it in some countries?

for now it seems like none of you really care for a child - no evidence that parents who take child do any harm to it, and "only mother its ever known" it a bit of a stretch if someone has been out and alive for 30 minutes

Also - am I understanding it right that you think that the baby will be better off living in that apparent poverty and that parents who were willing to go to such length to have a baby will somehow be less loving the person who gave birth to the baby?

most people are blissfully unaware of circumstances of their birth, so im not sure if you have a good control group for comparison

btw, lonely people also come from "biological" families

Can you imagine growing up and knowing that mummy and daddy were so desperate to have you that you were mixed up in a Petri dish, implanted in a woman’s womb (possibly in another country to your parents) and then immediately removed from that woman and raised by your parents. Your parents have the challenge of magicking all of those 9 months of bonding and attachment out of thin air, and therefore we hope respond to you just the same as a a birth mother would. If it’s two men then we just hope to God they had good, nurturing role model mothers, because they haven’t got hormones on their side.

I didn’t use to feel so strongly about this issue. But we have family members who have been adopted and on reaching adolescence it was really tough for them and they’ve needed a lot of therapy and input. It also wasn’t easy for the adoptive parents to just pull love and bonding out of a bag, much to their distress. It is HARD loving a new person with the strength of loving your own child when you don’t have any of the hormones or attachment in utero on your side.

Coupled with having my own children and comparison with how I responded to the baby compared to my very loving husband - it was undeniable to me that there is a difference. And it’s absolute batshittery to think that it’s a one-sided relationship. The babies KNOW. Evidence tells us that.

It's better if they never existed at all. Surrogacy is an industry. You may like to tell yourself its starry eyed altruistic helpers who only want to give the gift of life, but that's a tiny tiny number of surrogacies. The vast majority are a financial transaction.

A transaction in which women are exploited, abused and abandoned. That's the real reality of surrogacy.

Also - am I understanding it right that you think that the baby will be better off living in that apparent poverty and that parents who were willing to go to such length to have a baby will somehow be less loving the person who gave birth to the baby?

I don't understand this question. People who think surrogacy is immoral don't think the baby should be created in the first place.

A baby should not be a commodity.

Thankfully most of the civilised world sees this. Unfortunately some countries think that babies can be bought and seem to care more for the rights of adults who can pay for a child to be created than the woman who gestates the baby or the baby itself.

I tell myself that this is a transaction made by people who desperately want children and people who are willing to incubate the pregnancy for upwards of 20k

as for you all being so concerned with babies being brought into this world as "commodity" - these babies are wanted, desperately wanted. One look at this forum and you may find that a lot of babies were brought into this world by failed contraception so maybe hold your judgemental horses

Most surrogates, worldwide, do NOT have full agency or control over their bodies.

They are trafficked into surrogacy - as many girls are into prostitution, or are forced into surrogacy by poverty (like much prostitution).

And donating organs, entering war zones etc - those things don't directly involve intentionally bringing a small. vulnerable human being into the world, only to hand it over to someone else.

And even if the mother (ie the person who gestated the infant in her womb) is someone who can blithely part with their child, the baby itself feels that separation hugely, as many on here have already stated. There is much research on exactly this subject, and it all points the same way.

Your many analogies are false.

They are desperately wanted (by people with money) so its ok to exploit women (with no money) to have them?

Kidneys are desperately wanted too. Are you ok with buying them from exploited poor women as well?

So if you're poor and want a baby but are infertile or gay tough luck.

If you have a spare £20K you can buy one.

Not an industry.

Nothing unethical there.

Or paying for a surrogate for no health reason at all just because you are too busy to take on the burden.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/may/25/having-a-child-doesnt-fit-womens-schedule-the-future-of-surrogacy

The baby is a commodity in all cases.

I am sure I once saw a ted talk or similar from a now adult child of surrogacy. It had a profound effect on her being bought. I am trying to find it to post on here.

nobody loses a kidney in this scenario

I agree that the processes should be heavily controlled from the legal point of view to avoid human trafficking. However, it does not mean it's inherently bad.

Back in the early 20th century people believed adoption should be illegal because "people with money" were literally buying children. Instead, the administration process was improved

If I desperately want a 2 year old, can I pay a woman who needs the cash to give me hers? If I really want to and I'm very sad and the other woman is cool with it?

So-called altruistic surrogacy is problematic enough, but I get why people think it's OK. It always blows my mind that anyone is willing to bat for blatant commercial surrogacy. Babies deserve the same human rights as all children. You can't buy and sell babies and avoid human trafficking because that's exactly what it is.

People are still buying children. By adoption but increasingly by surrogacy.

Would you want to be bought by your parents? Would you like to know that the woman who gave birth to you was driven to it by poverty, or trafficked, or left damaged or ill by pregnancy/birth and abandoned, with someone else keeping most of the money?

I am afraid my reply may rise your blood pressure...but:

I would not have minded being adopted, born through surrogacy or IVF for that matter. I would have minded the human trafficking involved but again - this is an administrative issue, banning the entire thing is not a solution.

Would you want adoption banned too?

I would not have minded being adopted, born through surrogacy or IVF for that matter. I would have minded the human trafficking involved but again - this is an administrative issue, banning the entire thing is not a solution.

You don't know that! You cannot possibly know you 'would not have minded', and it's really offensive to people who have been affected by these issues for you to blithely assume you know how you'd feel. You can't, and you don't.

Human trafficking is an administrative issue? I think not. And you didn't actually answer the question.

Would I want adoption banned? No. But ANY adoption for money, for expenses, for anything other than a determination made by sensible people that the child cannot ever be cared for by their biological parents...yes, any form of adoption other than that should be banned.

@PaintedEgg nonsensical comment. You can’t possibly know that. I was born via donor conception and I mind. A lot.

then why did people ask? :)

In this sense - yes. For example, international adoption is hard to regulate and there should be more rules in place to ensure children are not being trafficked. The same for surrogacy - as you are right that people going specifically to another country, known for poverty, screams human trafficking and forced labour.

But that does not mean surrogacy should be completely banned

Any child who has been adopted in the 21st century in the UK will have been removed from birth parents who are completely unable to provide for their needs. We don't live in a world where single mothers are forced or coerced into giving up newborns due to a sense of shame. Adoption under those circumstances is really doing the best for that child. It might be the only way to keep them alive. We don't buy adoptive children in the UK, so why are some so keen to buy a baby by surrogacy? On another point, what happens if the baby dies? Or has congenital issues, or learning disabilities? Or the birth mother dies? The whole thing is just a minefield of issues, and I just feel it's not really considered.

Just because you really, really want a baby doesn't mean you have a right to one. You don't. No one does.

And if you think that buying a baby is a perfectly fine thing to do, then I'm sorry, but I don't think you deserve to be a parent.