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/

Well don't you think a couple should pay for someone to push her lawn mower around once a week if she is carrying their child and subject to pregnancy aches? I would expect that too!

I think you just "Bingoed" with that one.
It doesn't matter if the surrogate does or doesn't get much money. They certainly don't in the Third World countries that the rich seem to be flocking to in order to buy a baby.

It comes down to money talks in every language and if you have enough $$$, you deserve a baby. If you don't have enough $$$ and are still infertile, tough cookies, you do not deserve a baby.

What tweet? But no, they don't want time for the purpose of changing their minds. Surrogates do not think like that.

The tweet I posted would prove your claim not to be true. Not all 'surrogates' think the same way. Scroll back, you'll find it.

If it’s that rare, why does a quick search bring up lots and lots of examples? And those will only be the ones that make it into the media, which most may not do if in the family court for privacy reasons.

It’s all very disingenuous, this “the surrogates want X” stuff. Either they’re clear-headed businesswomen with no attachment to the baby because it’s just a job so they would never want to keep the baby. Or they’re loving mothers who just love being pregnant and just want to give the gift of a baby to others and wouldn’t dream of doing it for financial reasons. Which one is it? And if it’s a bit of both (or neither, or something else), then why are you so quick to say it can’t possibly be a form of exploitation?

If a poor Asian woman is having a white couple’s embryo implanted, at what point does it become exploitative? What’s the income differential when it stops being a lovely altruistic gift? If it’s just all nice middle-class people together giving each other a wonderful present, why the concern around financial compensation and contracts at all?

It’s clearly buying a product, no matter how much one wants to dress it up in emotive terms. What about the rights of the baby in all of this?

Was the judge in that 2011 case wrong in your opinion to talk about attachment and bonding as determining what was best for the child? At six months why not order the surrogate to just hand the baby over?

Actually people who are pro surrogacy would like more safeguards which is why they support the new proposals that will bring greater scrutiny to IPs and terminate the process before it gets started if there are concerns.

With all due respect, you seem distracted or remarkably lackadaisical in your thinking skills.

Whilst you're scrolling @Markasread you might come across this post you might have missed...

Markasread
Sorry not averaging. Higher end of what's accepted is usually that.

How much did you get?

so in your scenario the man doesn’t have to cut a lawn if his wife is selling a baby?

in what part of this is the mother or the child NOT a commodity 🙄.

in your scenario the (theoretical) ‘husband’ gets to do less too for his wife’s pains 🙄.

Still no real empathy for the burden on the mother and the fact that the child is being purchased as a commodity .

Women who do change their minds have not had huge success in the courts because they have been known in the surrogacy community as vulnerable people who should never have been a surrogate and were doing it for the wrong reasons - money and attention.

So, I ask you again — was the judge in that 2011 case wrong in your opinion to talk about attachment and bonding as what should determine what was best for the child?

Plus - “the surrogacy community” 😮 It sounds rather like you’re constructing this business - because it is a business - in the terms usually used to represent a marginalised group. An identity, even. Which is quite an emotive way to represent a group of people seeking to make a legal transaction to create and then effectively to purchase a human being. And al I see in your posts is talking about the wants of the d as ultra involved, and nothing anywhere about the babies.

*the wants and needs of the adults involved

Apologies I’ve had a glass or two of wine and misread your post.

I still think trading babies is wrong. A pregnant single woman doesn’t ordinarily have a gardener .

if you can’t see how expenses can be inflated then you are either dishonest or coming from a different position, or most likely both

A quick search brings up much publicised rare examples over a long time span. You would be wrong to think it common or representative. Obviously the media will not tell you that this is a most unusual occurrence.

They're definitely not hard headed business women but no one in this day and age is prepared to be out of pocket. So no one is looking to make money but there is a strong feeling that it is absolutely Not Done to leave your own family out of pocket. Every expense is expected to be scrupulously met by the ips and these are then studied by the courts. Records have to be kept and sometimes receipts are asked for. The granting of the PO hangs on being able to show that it was not a commercial act because the law shares your concerns.

I'm not sure why you think a middle class woman or secure working class woman who was kind enough to help grow a family would be fine with being left out of pocket. Not being left out of pocket is a respect issue within the ethical standards of the surrogacy community and surrogates will naturally think of their own children and protect them from financial loss. I think it makes sense.

The emphasis on a contract is because, although not legally binding, it ensures that the process is predictable and no difficult decisions (such as who will be in the delivery room) are being negotiated at the time. It is an opportunity for the surrogate to state exactly what she wants and to be in control of anything that might happen. If she has wishes that the ips aren't happy with, the journey will end at that point.

If you had other questions I can't see them from here, sorry.

If a women is happy to be a surrogate and I've never heard of anyone being forced into doing so then that's her right. Everybody else can keep their sticky beaks out.

People fussing about these normally much loved and wanted babies could do with turning their attention to the millions of unloved ,scared, deprived little children living with their natural birth parents. They are in every school in the land.

Not that this is groundbreaking but babies aren't born with any choices.
Many many children are born in to poor unloving uncaring and unsafe families. But I guess that's their "perk" for being able to conceive.

But they won’t have attachment issues associated with being removed from
their mother at birth which grown adults have chosen to afflict on them
either for financial gain or for the selfish belief that there is a right to purchase a baby .

Unfortunately with ever post about this you prove more and more that it’s a business opportunity for a “community” which is all about “getting things done and dusted”, having an eye to what you can get, and keeping forensically detailed financial receipts. (Do you work for a surrogate introduction agency or similar?Certainly sounds like you are in the business of selling something.)

Very very different from some of the other pro-surrogacy posters on here, who would have us believe it’s all cost altruistic loving gift exchange with nary ever a thought to the pocket! Doesn’t really add up, does it?

Whatever it is, you’re clearly promoting a business model complete with advice about how to game the expenses to get your grass cut as a perk. And clearly you don’t really get that in doing so, you’re actually confirming exactly what many women object to about surrogacy and what is clearly under all the talk of “giving the ultimate gift” and so on. Money. It’s ALL about the money, and you’re unwittingly confirming it with every post. (Still no mention of the effect on the baby…? That’s the product line that gets your grass cut, I guess.)

Gah, autocorrect gone mad there. Too late at night for my phone 😂

The surrogacy community is a community, not a business. You will find they often socialise regularly and this is really good for the children because everyone in their life story is known to them. This is a key difference between altruistic surrogacy in the UK and commercial surrogacy in the US. Friendships within the surrogacy community often go back many years. I think you're being a bit ridiculous suggesting anything that describes itself as a community is trying to be a marginalised group. You may as well know the facts - these friendships come into existence before a child is born and continue long after the child is a baby. Not always but often.

The 2011 case is unusual as it's always unusual for a surrogate to change her mind. In this instance she was judged a great parent and she got to keep the baby. Both parties behaved badly during the pregnancy and the relationship broke down. When making his decision, the judge took into account the six month long period of bonding that the baby had done with the surrogate, who was her mum to all intents and purposes. This is in line with what I would expect and nothing about the new proposals would place this out of a surrogate's reach. The key points were that Mum was doing a great job and baby had bonded over a long period of time. The courts rightly centered the baby's needs I also think that, provided there is sound mental health on the surrogate's part, she should be able to change her mind if she wants to. The alternative is not something I would feel happy with. This is a very unusual situation. While the legislation should take it into account, it's important to also legislate for the practical needs of the situations that are much, much more common.

It completely baffles me that the people who have the anti surrogate argument resort to such repulsive language towards others.

Your argument is to act as though everyone on mum's net has an informed and very thorough background in all known surrogates from around the globe,
to have on hand all statistics to battle this argument.
The original poster wanted to rally support in the changes. Fine. Their personal choice and opinion.

My personal entire argument on this thread has been about the attack of the women involved in these circumstances and it just seems that all you can do is use awful hurtful language towards women who are already battling enough.

There are ways to share your opinions and it's a shame that this can't be done without treating the other as though they are a fucking idiot.

Sorry I do need you to explain this to me? Are you saying potential attachment issues outweigh children raised in unloving and unsafe families?

@augmum Nonsense, where’s this hurtful language? Give evidence.

The thread is about legal changes. We don’t make laws on emotion and feelings. We make legislation on logic, rational argument, precedent, worst case scenarios, ethical principle. If you want to come on a thread about the ethics of a legal report and then complain that posters are treating it as an evidence argument and that it’s is hurtful, you don’t understand either rational argument or how the law works. Sorry if that’s hurtful, but it’s true. Ethical issues should be debated — not shut down with appeals to hurt feelings.

If anything surrogacy should be outlawed. Wombs are not incubators for gay men or the infertile.

Since it took me asking more than thrice what the costs were and having the answers deflected unto something else, I figured the costs were in line with what people are paying in the US and elsewhere.
The fact that it's relatively inexpensive to pay for your child in the UK is still not a win. I still and will always feel that surrogacy should be left in the "close family or friends" range and not be outsourcing uterine use to the masses.

Not at all. A surrogate mustn't be taken for granted. There is a conflict in the way you're swinging from seeing them as victims who must be protected (if it doesn't sound like receipts are sufficiently forensic) and business women looking to get rich quick (if they're savvy enough not to be left out of pocket). The gift is the thing they're willing to do for another family. Making sure they're not left out of pocket doesn't detract from that. But paying expenses is the least ips can do. Oddly enough that would indeed include paying for the lawn to be mown if that's something the surrogate would usually do! When you're pregnant with your own child you might be prepared to cut corners and have a shaggy lawn but there's no reason why you should as a surrogate. This applies to other things too - if a pregnancy massage would help you and it's an agreed expense, you're perfectly entitled to it. Whereas with your own child you might just soldier on.

I couldn't work for an agency because there are no agencies like that to work for gahhhhhh. I would have to go to the states to get such a job and I would have an ethical problem with doing so!

The receipts are forensic to ensure money is changing hands purely as reimbursement not payment so for exactly the opposite reason you're concerned about. If commercial surrogacy was legal you would have a point but it isn't.

I will need to lie down in a darkened room after this conversation.

That's fine. I don't think anything was hoping or planning to give you a win.

You do realise surrogacy is on the rise and you're not on the winning side? By all means apply pressure and demand what you feel you need to demand but the practice is established in our culture and the government is not interested in changing that. You'd be better adjusting your ideas of a win to close regulation.

If you read this whole article, you will find that human trafficking is STILL being done in many countries as are women being forced to be surrogates or feeling forced due to economic realities.
If you have never, ever heard about anyone being forced into it, then I don't even know what to tell you.
The fact that you actually think all surrogate children are just loved to death and only natural birth parents can be nasty shows me you are not seeing reality. There are two articles throughout this thread about surrogate parents who are being total azzhats because they didn't get the sex of child they demanded.
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