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 want women to be able to control their bodies - insofar as anyone is able to do that - which means that they need to know the consequences of surrogacy. The child in the womb belongs to the womb-owner not the child buyer. That description is what surrogacy is: hiring a womb as though it were an incubator and buying a baby - part of what is called modern slavery.

Beautifully expressed.

The baby isn't grown in a plastic bag, nourished by nutritive injections.

He or she implants into the very wall of the womb, grows and develops nourished via a placenta which brings the mother's blood containing all of the nutrients they need. The foetus is affected by the mother's diet, health and mood; knows the scent of their mother's body and the sound go their voice. Newborns are comforted by these sensations, and they also prefer the taste of their mother's breast milk to that of other women, if given the choice. We KNOW these things.

And for most women this relationship is a two way one - they know their own newborn's cry and can pick it out from others. They develop a relationship with the infant in utero, even before there is any sign of a baby being present, or before any movement is felt. Nature designs us like this, so that when our baby is born we have a huge protective impulse, and being separated is physically torturous. Mother and baby share blood, hormones, and exchange cells throughout the pregnancy. They develop a relationship.

We are not conceived, gestated or born in a vacuum, even if we are conceived in a test tube.

My take is that it should be similar to organ donation - so genuinely altruistically only (and not arranged through a profiting agency) and with full rights for the doner/ surrogate to change their minds at any point before handover. There should be zero chance of anyone being able to buy a baby, absolutely including from abroad.

Hardly, we are discussing policy in the UK so I am discussing surrogacy in the UK.
You cannot pay a surrogate, you can only cover some basic expenses.

This is the state of play at the moment, except abroad.

The potential for abuse is huge.

20k…

Why do you think a woman who has been a surrogate needs the consequences of surrogacy explained to her by you?

That's not what happened at all in that case.

So because it is possible to create a non-ideal situation, the solution is to just create more situations that potentially could cause harm to individuals without any voice? I'm flabbergasted by that way of thinking.

Err, what?! You don’t think there was any potential for abuse in letting a child abuser purchase a baby??

There is absolutely nothing to suggest a couple who go down the surrogacy path are any more likely to sexually abuse their children it’s disgusting to try to suggest that.

Absolutely!

Your description is horrendously incomplete - read up on what happened and at least get your facts right.

Good advertisement for regulation for surrogacy which ironically is what you're railing against.

I posted a link already to what happened, please do explain how it was all perfectly safe. You can find the article about a page back.

I just said it's a good advertisement for regulation of surrogacy, didn't I? Would you like to explain why you don't want a proposal to go through that would have uncovered that man's past before he got near a surrogate or fertility clinic?

Oh and whilst you’re explaining why this convicted child abuser wasn’t a risk, maybe you can justify him leaving behind the twin that had down syndrome too?

As above!

Sure, right after you answer my question as to why this convicted paedo wasn’t a risk factor as you claimed, and why him leaving the twin with Down syndrome behind, was also fine.

“According to a report by Surrogacy UK, surrogates typically receive £10,000-£15,000”

This is what can be claimed for

• the surrogate’s loss of earnings
• the surrogate’s partner/spouse’s loss of earnings
• additional childcare to support pregnancy and clinic/antenatal visits
• help with additional cleaning to support pregnancy
• additional food and other supplements
• additional classes or therapies to support pregnancy
• travel and accommodation before, during and after pregnancy (whilst setting up the surrogacy arrangement, treatment and in recovery)
• maternity clothes
• a modest recovery break for the surrogate and her family
• other incidental expenses that relate to the treatment and pregnancy

Any cost covered for the surrogate must be detailed out and accounted for.

No surrogate in the uk is getting a 20k.

Lets not twist things.

No, my question to you is genuine and I never said he wasn't a risk factor so I can't answer that. Genuinely, why would you not want legislation in place that would prevent him working with a fertility clinic? That's what it would amount to if the proposal goes into law are fertility clinics will require it.

I didn't say by me. I said she needed them explaining. Why would I think I can explain? But others can, those who deal with the consequences of surrogacy. Surrogacy strikes me as another form of modern slavery, I am afraid. The rich (people like Elton John) being able to buy a baby just because they can. There is no right to have children.

Apparently yes, the naiveity is astonishing.

*Let’s face it, no child has a say what family they were born into so it’s a fundamentally flawed argument.

Your angle seems to be the child doesn’t have a say and if they did they probably wouldn’t agree so it shouldn’t happen.*

Once again, no. It's not about wanting children to have a say in what family they get. There is a wealth of evidence that children removed from their birth mother and placed with other parents, however perfect, can be impacted by the pure fact of removal, no matter how good the reasons for removal. It's about not deliberately making choices which are known to be harmful to babies, in order to give adults what they want.

No surrogate in the UK is getting 20k…

Expenses can run up that high if loss of earnings, bedrest, childcare are involved. No one's twisting anything saying that.