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 didn't complete my answer.

A pregnant woman, and her partner, if she has one, who finds herself pregnant will be consider the needs of the child and whether she can meet those needs, whether she will have support, be capable, be able to continue to progress her career, return to work etc...all whilst raising a child.

I don't think couples adopting would have different aims, as would couples struggling with infertility, and many buying babies would have similar aims, but I do think there are other aims that could be the priority.

One group is celebrity couples. Without financial strain their concerns wouldn't feature how to support a child, but how they maintain careers whilst raising a child may be one. The recent example of Priyanka and Nick Jonas gave their 'busy schedules' as the reasons for not being able to conceive (though I expect the actual reason is something else). Might there be other motivations at hand if you don't have time to conceive? A status symbol perhaps? The desire to be a mother above the method of how this is achieved? How will they carve out time to raise a child, or is the child an accessory to their lifestyle?

A horrible thought but one that is true of some wealthy parents as it is not them raising the children. There is no shortage of examples of this, whether the children were obtained through surrogacy or not.

(Jon Snow's recent interview pretty much said he did it for his wife as she 'deserved to be a mother'. It wasn't really about the child, it was about his wife.)

Thank you! If "everyday" women of moderate means were becoming surrogates in the numbers some would want you to believe, there would not be countries, where the people are poorer, outlawing international surrogacy. The fact that people think ALL those women in India, Pakistan, Ukraine and other poor countries want to altruistically be surrogates is a frightening thought.
If all of these women only get "expenses" then, please, tell me why people are paying $100K and more for the process? Why are people, as one here posted, selling everything they own if it is such an "inexpensive" process with just the mother's expenses? How much is that fancy law firm that pretty much does nothing BUT surrogacy, stay afloat if the costs are so low? Could it be that they have a lot of reasons to make it easier for people to "find" surrogates?
Again, let's have some stories about rich, privileged women being surrogates for strangers or better yet, for poor strangers. There should be a lot of them.....

It’s incredible. We could even have a baby distribution clinic. Altruistic mothers could go there to have the baby and the baby is then collected through a little hatch in the delivery room.

You can make it as clinical or as soft as you like. The bare facts are the same and no one who is supporting it is putting the baby first. No one. If you were you would look at a graduated approach. Let the baby have a few weeks with the mother, then gradually spend more and more time with the intended parents. Do it gently. You know, like when you get a puppy and they ask you to bring a scented blanket? And they send the puppy off with a blanket smelling of their mum and the litter mates? And you do a few visits beforehand for the puppy to get to know you. Yeah, just like good dog breeders do.

Can we not forget as well that a lot of surrogacy also involves egg donation. Not to mention the surrogates who are also the egg donors....

People keep trying to insist that its lovely happy equal people carrying the bio child of a lovely happy couple for no reason other than to make everyone lovely and happy.

But that isn't the reality. It's an egg bought from one woman, a womb rented from another, exploitation and abuse and unhappiness and cold hard cash to someone who hasn't put their body at risk.
And a child bought and either lied to or who has to grow up knowing they were purchased piecemeal and commissioned in a way that caused harm, to them and others.

I feel like it's the same attitude as shown to small animals a lot of the time - they're little so they must not have the same feelings/matter as much as a bigger one.

Or it's stupidity.

Or they're too selfish to see past their own needs/wants that they can't see it for what it truly is.

So far in this thread there have been:

1. Posters criticising those who have had children via surrogacy, and gone to extreme lengths to make them feel like criminals.
2. posters who have criticised those who have been surrogates, and compared them to prostitues.

The attitudes here are abhorrent, not for a long time have I seen a post with so little empathy and horrendous accusations.

I hope you are all proud of yourselves.

I am sure it has happened and will happen more often as time goes on. Let's face it, if you have enough money, it's getting to the point where you can buy anything/anyone you want.
I think they should ban all international surrogacy and within the different countries, have it be done without "profit motive" involvement.
There is a couple in the US who are actually suing the doctors, etc. because they "ordered" a certain sex and were told that was fine but they got the other sex and want damages for the fact that they "have to raise the girl" along with the two boys they ordered. But yeah, everyone is in it just to be able to be parents.....
Boy, I just hate when I order a steak cooked medium at dinner and it arrives more medium rare.....I SO feel that "couples" pain. NOT.

The attitudes here are abhorrent, not for a long time have I seen a post with so little empathy and horrendous accusations.

No I don't have empathy for those who choose to trade in babies.

No human should have the right to buy a baby, not even if they really really really want one.

The first paragraph here is more true than one could ever dread.
Gay Couple Sues Fertility Clinic Over Receiving Girl Instead of Boy | National Review

Because you are conflicting several different things and rolling them together.
Why are some people paying $100k? Because you see allowed to do it for profit in other countries.
In the uk you can’t, it is the UK where you can only have your expenses covered as surrogate. That is a policy I fully support.

No one is suggesting loads of every day women are becoming surrogates? As much as I support altruistic surrogacy I’m not suggesting it’s an easy process for anyone involved. The woman who becomes the surrogate goes through a lot physically, emotionally, mentally, as do the couple any everyone else involved really. I’m not disagreeing with that and I don’t think a single person has said surrogacy is easy or something to be taken lightly so I really don’t understand why you think it’s going to be common? Surrogacy is an incredibly rare way of bringing a baby into the world.

What’s the cut off? I’m not keen on toddler-hood. Can I pay someone expenses to raise my genetic child until age 3 and then take them for my own? Or does that look a bit more dodgy?

Weird comparison since yea you can absolutely pay for someone to raise your child until 3 if that’s what you want. Live in nannies have been a thing for generations.
It’s not what I would chose but who am I to say another mother uses childcare ‘too much’?

So, how much are the "legal fees" for the process? If a surrogate in the UK might be paid 15K pounds, how much are the legal fees and other fees? More? Less? Free?
And my other question is still, where are the stories of a rich, privileged woman becoming a surrogate for a family of poorer means?

I admit, I am in the US and it's just sickening here with rich people buying children as if it's the Neiman Marcus after-holiday sales. We have people suing because they got a daughter and want her life expenses covered (oh, SHE won't be having any mental/emotional problems when she gets older (sarcasm)), suing because they were IVF implanted with their mates biological son and they wanted a daughter and "are fond of the boy at 1 1/2 yrs old, but not as close as if he were the daughter they wanted.", so that should also work out swimmingly well for that poor boy.
I just want to tell these parents that want "designer children" that you "get what you get and you don't throw a fit" and "if you want a designer something, buy a purse or a pair of shoes". These people didn't want a child, they wanted a possession.

I don’t really understand what you mean about how much legal fees are? Does it matter?
The surrogate doesn’t get the cash minus the legal fees. In the uk there is a very specific set of things that a surrogate can ‘expense’ reasonable expenses to the couple. Things like lost earnings if she is ill and unable to work during the pregnancy, childcare so she can attend appointments, physio, healthcare items, maternity clothes etc. It’s all tracked and monitored.

I don’t doubt it’s an entirely different picture and that’s not a model I would ever like to see in the uk for surrogacy. Similarly I would never like to model the UK after the U.S. in general, mat leave, workers rights etc.

“These people didn't want a child, they wanted a possession.” I don’t disagree with that.

It’s not even ethical to remove kittens and puppies from their mother until 8 weeks yet there are people out there removing newborn humans from their mothers at the moment of birth. For money. It’s abhorrent.

I find that disingenuous:

• Posters criticising those who have had children via surrogacy, and gone to extreme lengths to make them feel like criminals.

Firstly, you don't know how people feel the U.K. law currently allows surrogacy (the point in the OP) so surrogacy isn't criminal, the comments have been focused on 'right to a child' and have been exploring the ethics of surrogacy

• posters who have criticised those who have been surrogates, and compared them to prostitues.

No, the process or act, not the people, has been compared to surrogacy. Both require the 'use' of the female body (though there are male prostitutes too so that argument doesn't work. Men can't have babies and can't be surrogates). The arguments over the ethics of prostitution (male or female) are comparable due to the nature of the human body being 'used' for the pleasure or purposes by another.

Surrogate mothers themselves are not the same as prostitutes, but there are comparisons to be made.

Re-writing the nature of the majority of comments on this long thread as a disingenuous summary won't wash.

Many of us have been here discussing surrogacy for a very long time.

It’s all tracked and monitored.

By whom?

It goes through the court. The expenses are retrospectively approved and paid, or not.

My friend had a wonderful upbringing with her adoptive parents. She still has a fundamental yearning to understand where she really came from, she has no history in her opinion. It starts with her adoptive parents. She is deeply traumatised despite a wonderful upbringing. It has affected her entire life.

My friend was the same. She was adopted as a baby and had two wonderful parents, her mother adored her, she was absolutely cherished. The minute she turned 18 she tried to find out who her birth mother was, she wanted to understand herself and felt like she couldn't without knowing where she came from. She ended up taking her life when she was 24 after spending her early 20s in somewhat of a drunken haze. She was deeply traumatised, felt that something was missing from her life. It was such a heartbreaking situation watching her destroy herself and then what felt like the inevitable end.

Approved by a judge?

Ok. What do you think a judge would look for in the expenses receipts so to establish the approval of the parental order or not, when the child is in the custody and care of the commissioning parents, CAFCASS report the child is fine and the surrogate mother is in agreement and happy with the amount paid?

This post is the most arrant load of rubbish. Nobody has made anyone feel like a criminal, nor compared surrogates to prostitutes. Arguments identical to those used to justify sex work - bodily autonomy, choice, etc. - have been used in support of surrogacy; but to say that pointing that out is “comparing surrogates to prostitutes” is the claim of someone with poor comprehension and a difficulty understanding arguments.

But I suspect that you aren’t that stupid, and instead you’re just saying this in bad faith rather than through stupidity. In this case, then, you ought to know that trying to make bad faith arguments like this just makes you look extremely hard of understanding, and not some kind of moral warrior.

@Albiboba are you able to give an example of where a parental order application was rejected and the baby returns to the mother as the applicants paid too much to the woman who had a baby for them?

Are bank statements provided, so to be sure large sums haven't supplemented the 'out of pocket expenses' of the surrogate mother?

Do judges ask for a written statement so to be sure that gifts, beyond a simple 'thank you' aren't given and no one is paying for any post birth holidays for the mother and her family are they?

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/07/01/couples-paying-60000-surrogates-despite-uk-system-reasonable/

I love the women who do social surrogacy because they are "too busy" to be pregnant. You know that child will be raised by nannies and other people and "mommy" will blow in now and again for a hug and kiss (as long as the child is freshly washed, isn't ill or holding anything that can mess up mommy's outfit).
Too busy to be pregnant=too busy to be a mother.
I won't even touch on the old women giving birth or the parents who used their son's dead body for their own selfish reasons.
That article made me feel sick to my stomach. Especially, because in the good old USA, people do it for the $$$ and the clinics do it for the $$$ and the law firms do it for the $$$ and the clients pay handsomely from all over the world because they have $$$$$$$. Exploitation at it's finest, including the military wives because many times, their husbands are not getting paid that much and they actually qualify for benefits.
LOVED the surrogate who said, "I risk my life to give a couple a baby because SHE doesn't want stretch marks?" Perfectly put in 90%+ cases of social surrogacy.

I can only tell you that I have personal experience of it. No it wouldn't be life saving care since they don't ask questions there. It is all the other checks and treatments for childhood ailments. It is indeed very time consuming and awkward.

This sounds fairly sane if you haven't met loads and loads of surrogates (or been one) and had the opportunity to know they are perfectly strong, resilient women who have had children before and made the decision to help another family knowing exactly what they were doing. And have often gone on to do it again with great personal fulfillment. These women are people you would respect and listen to. They're not people you know better than for any reason.

You would sound less out of touch if it wasn't the UK though.

The only good that came out of that debacle is the banning of using Thai women for international surrogacy. The rest of it is mind-boggling.
Hopefully, more and more countries will ban the use of their women for international exploitation...I mean surrogacy.