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 love the article by The Critic. The following got my attention:
"Mainstream feminist opprobrium has been muted. That this story has flown under the radar might seem surprising, given the type of transgression that does get picked up. Today’s feminist is hyper-conscious of privilege, constantly asking, “if your feminism isn’t centring the most marginalised, what is it even for?”

Employ a cleaner and you’re offloading your dirty work onto poorer women; run a successful business and you’re a Lean-In girlboss exploiting your workers in the name of female empowerment. Use your wealth and status to claim ownership of the contents of another woman’s womb, though — positioning yourself as the Biblical Sarah in relation to the slave Hagar, or The Handmaid’s Tale’s Serena Joy in relation to Offred — and you’re fine.

On the face of it, this is bizarre. If a single act could exemplify the one per cent woman treating a less-privileged woman just as badly as men have treated women throughout history, it is this. No other form of exploitation is so sex-specific, so central to the distortion of male-female power relations. If there is such a thing as a female patriarch, it is the rich woman who outsources and appropriates female reproductive labour."

I support you 100% with this.

You do realise surrogacy is on the rise and you're not on the winning side?

The winning side”? Since when has the buying and selling of human babies ever looked like the “winning side” in historical terms?

You clearly aren’t that aware of how you’re coming across, @Markasread . Because the way it’s sounding is something like “we’re a cosy group of people who are a bit on the grift, and any ethical problems that crop up are just from vanishingly rare outsiders who are unstable and don’t know the game, and we’d very much like to have our deal regularised so that we all continue to get what we want, including luxury gardening services, without anyone interfering who wants to spoil the business model by not being a winner”.

If you think that’s unfair, you might want to look at your own posts, your language, and how you’re presenting all of this, because the take-home of most of your posts comes across as something akin to “don’t interfere with our cosy little expenses grift here with any of your ethical issues.”

It’s a grim way of thinking about human life and the renting of some people’s bodies by others. If surrogacy is “on the rise”, how do you think it isn’t going to have more and more exploitation, and more and more unstable situations, and more and more issues that come to the courts?

Just no concern at all for any of the ethics of it at all. Might be more convincing if you could at least acknowledge the ethical issues here, instead of pretending they don’t exist.

IPs often seem keen to ensure that Surros aren’t profiteering from the arrangement, yet the new model would suggest that instead organisations would be profiteering. Regulation would mean independent surrogacy would not be lawful, using an organisation would be the only way to access surrogacy which would also increase the costs for IPs.

Bosses of non profit organisations can earn hundreds of thousands of pounds per year, there’s no cap, do IPs understand that non profit organisations have paid staff?

Do IPs also understand that mandatory regulation and scrutiny will decrease the already small pool of surrogates making it increasingly difficult to ‘secure’ a surrogate.

Many surrogates don’t have the capacity/inclination/interest to understand what the law reform is saying, it’s touted universally that it’s so IPs get parental rights straight from birth, that’s what everyone wants, but it’s much deeper and darker than that.

If we are going to reform surrogacy and it’s in the best interest of a child then perhaps IPs should have to go through a process similar to adoption, rather than just having enough money being a ‘ticket’?

Perhaps surrogates should undergo personality testing like in the civil service to deem if they’re suitable and a multiple choice exam with a mandatory pass rate like a first aid course to assess their level of understanding of what the law (if reforms go ahead) means for them.

These reforms put surrogates in a more vulnerable position than they are now, the reforms appear to be only to the benefit of the IPs and organisations, leaving the surrogates increasingly vulnerable to poor treatment, financial/mental etc abuse.

It is telling that so many European countries have made surrogacy illegal and in the U.K. women’s charities are up in arms about the reform proposals.

@augmum

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

This seems to be one of the cornerstones of anti-surrogacy argument, augmum. As noted to me well upthread, they would be unwilling to remove children from neglectful and/abusive mothers due to the attachment trauma this could cause. Never mind the ongoing trauma of remaining in that situation; we don't consider the child's needs then.

Ideally the best Birth Certificate would be the one that is best for the child. It lists..

-the child's biological parents
-the child's birth mother
-the legal guardians or parents

If need be all three entries would be different or the same but at least the child always has access to it's own information.

Perfect!

I suffered 5 years of recurrent miscarriages, wed looked at all options including surrogacy in great detail. We looked into companies here and abroad. We stopped trying for a year to recover and look into options.

Surrogacy was the only 'solution' that would give us our baby, related to us both, we could afford it... But absolutely no way could we stomach it morally after looking into it.

We are so fortunate we found a medical solution to my miscarriages and now have 2 children. However had that not happened we planned to remain childless and later, when more able to take the time requre, adopt from care, because children adopted from care typically require more time and effort than a non traumatize birth child. Had that not worked out we'd have had counselling and remained childless.

Infertility is trauma, you need to recover from it either way or that trauma moves to your children, surrogacy rather than recovering from the infertility trauma is using a baby as a band aid. As is adoption of entered into with the same thinking.

So yeah, you can say surrogacy is someone's only option, it's not.

So, it is widely known that removing children from their birth family causes attachment trauma and can cause lifelong mental health struggles.

This is why the bar for removing children from neglectful or abusive homes is so high. People are more than their childhood. Many social studies have shown that outcomes for children raised in less than ideal circumstances are better than they are for children raised in objectively better circumstancea but removed from their birth families.

It's a very tricky question but there are lots of adults in America, adopted through the American private adoption world or bought from surrogates who feel they have suffered to fulfil the needs of their wealthy adoptive parents who once they got the child home and life remained not perfect, because life does remain not perfect, blame the child for all the things they aren't because of their birth circumstances and the child suffers. And that's on top of just the initial trauma of separation from their birth mother.

It's more complex than just the type of childhood a family provide

Hello everyone,

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply to this thread, whatever your views. I’m not sure at what point thread stop taking new comments, but I can start a second thread if of interest.

There’s clearly a huge appetite to keep discussing this. I believe it needs to move far higher up the public radar.

And before anyone wonders - I’m not a journalist! Just a Mum, deeply concerned about the practice of surrogacy…not least when we’re living in a time when language around maternity, womanhood and birth is being neutralized…

Surrogacy creates children to be traumatised.

In adoption situations the children already exist. We do our best to mitigate the traumatic experience and think about the best interest of the child.

Surrogacy is the practise of creating children to be bought and used to satisfy an adults wishes.

I’ve spent the best part of 2 days and loads of ipad battery reading this thread and all the links on it, so yes, please do a second thread, OP. So interesting and informative! Although, on reflection, maybe all the arguments have now been repeated a few times and nothing new will be said…?

But no-one remains in any situation if there is no surrogacy.

The commodity baby simply never exists.

There is so much can go wrong not only attachment issues to the mother and to the baby either in utero or subsequently. We are not imagining these issues, there are already instances of babies being rejected for being the wrong sex or having disorders at birth or defects.

And as for attachment issues, well it's a roll of a dice, my friend (adopted) has often expressed that she wished she didn't exist, there is an example of a tragic adoptee suicide above. The only way to prevent these issues with 100% is to stop the unethical practice in the first babies.

Babies born in other circumstances are not the correct comparator. These babies would not be born if we followed the rest of Europe and other countries which have made surrogacy unlawful. .

The only way to prevent these issues with 100% is to stop the unethical practice in the first babies.

That should say in the first place.

This argument seems to be along the lines of some children suffer, so it’s okay to create children with potential problems as they might suffer less.

If a child needs to be moved from a neglectful home I fully support that when it’s in an existing child’s best interest. Who wouldn’t? It’s a difficult balance though as you’d need to show it’s sufficiently neglectful to outweigh the damage remove would cause.

With surrogacy you are creating these children knowing before their existence that they will have attachment issues. The children with these issues don’t need to exist. The problems don’t need to occur at all. These are issues entirely of their own making whereas, as has been said, adoption or support children who have been neglected is making the best of an already existing situation.

It's good to read another story of someone who has had a similar experience.

I also had children with the help of a surrogate. We went to the US to do it because we felt the standard of living there was comparable to our own.
We have a lovely relationship with our surrogate and regularly send updates about how we're getting on.
The lady in question had 4 children of her own and had been a surrogate for another couple before us. She used the money to buy a luxury car.
My kids know how they were born and we talk about it in an age-appropriate manner. One is interested in the process and the other one not so much (at least not right now).
The law in the state we were in protected everybody and everyone concerned had counselling and support the whole time. It was a lot more than I was offered by my own GP and other medical specialists when they me told I was infertile (which amounted to "suck it up at least you don't have cancer").
My husband was on the birth certificate from the start and I had to wait two years to adopt (one was waiting and other was the legal process itself). Our surrogate and her husband signed over all parental rights to my DH before the birth.

Many surrogates don’t have the capacity/inclination/interest to understand what the law reform is saying

That is categorically untrue and clearly just a ruse to ignore what these women are saying in order to go over their heads. Don't pretend you're helping someone if you're justifying why they shouldn't have a voice.

Bosses of non profit organisations can earn hundreds of thousands of pounds per year, there’s no cap, do IPs understand that non profit organisations have paid staff?

Heads of other much larger charities may earn well but no surrogacy charity/agency in the UK is large. It certainly doesn't attract funding or fees that would allow for large salaries, if any. This is spreading misinformation. Surrogacy is not a money maker in the UK.

Out of interest, how much did it cost for each child and how much did the surrogate mother get in total from each pregnancy?

@Markasread

As you're back this morning I wondered if you could answer my question on how much you were paid for your surrogacy pregnancy, I think I read that you are a surrogate mother?

I was also interested in the change in language from 'surrogate' to 'mum' when referencing the 2012 case that was being discussed yesterday. Any reason for that?

I'd also be interested in your thoughts from the tweet from the surrogate mother responding to the law commission report.

I think you missed this so here it is again.

twitter.com/harybo007/status/1641072375415357441?s=46&t=3vhG_KDq77qvuwlnTiE6jg

Blatant misinformation. It is you who have failed to acknowledge how the proposed reforms would better safeguard children and families. I'm sensing that it is of no interest to you too help children actually going through it because you don't think they should exist in the first place. This is a common viewpoint throughout history (ie let's not help single mothers because it will only encourage more and their existence insults my ideology) that generally leads to callous and irresponsible government. I'm glad you're not having the opportunity to impose this lack of interest on policy.

If surrogates were being taken advantage of and out of pocket you would doubtless have a problem with that. Keeping an expenses sheet and showing receipts is straightforward best practice for financial clarity, not because anyone wants to make a buck. And no, I don't think ips paying for heavy yard work to be done when the surrogate is heavily pregnant is the smoking gun that this is all about the money.

I know exactly how I'm coming across and happy to do so. You clearly lack a lot of information and have been forming quite a histrionic picture. I've been happy to explain. We can disagree on the level, there's no need to be disingenuous.

I'm not sure the of the total amount she got. But we had twins so it was $35,000 for the surrogacy itself plus all expenses (including covering health insurance and medication (because US) life insurance, clothing allowance, and a monthly allowance for whatever she needed, plus extras if requested). She was already financially independent and so was her husband as they both had full-time jobs.
We also spent extra on housing costs and flights for ourselves, insurance for the babies, medical costs for myself (like IVF) and all legal fees (with separate attorneys for everyone).

Yes I ignored your first question deliberately because I haven't disclosed I was a surrogate so not obviously in a position to have that question put to me. I have given my thoughts extensively and I know yours well now too.

Yes the change in language to mum was because a surrogate is not mum unless she decides to be. There is no mum there in almost all cases. Her task is different be choice-she's helping another person become a mother. However in this case the surrogacy did not eventually happen - she did not want to go ahead with the initial task and had chosen to be the child's mum for six months - clearly she was mum. But in the vast majority of surrogacys, the baby at six months old has a different mum.

I have responded to the tweet actually and said what has surprised surrogates about the proposal and I could go into the reasons why but they're a bit niche which they are. I think you just want to make the point that surrogates want to have time to change their mind though and suffice to say that's not it.

I think if you have opinions formed on direct experience where money has changed hands there is some responsibility in being transparent about it as you would be an individual invested in surrogacy, but that's fair enough if you want to keep your personal transactions and agreements private. This is a public forum often read by journalists so that's fair enough. Interesting though that you don't wish to disclose any details in your arguments, to shore up your position.

There is no mum there in almost all cases.

How revealing a statement.

However in this case the surrogacy did not eventually happen - she did not want to go ahead with the initial task

However a child was born, a baby being the desired outcome? Another twist in language. "Go ahead with the initial task". She wouldn't have become pregnant if that was the case, or was it too late to back out and the initial task was the giving of the baby, that's the final task, not the initial task.

I have responded to the tweet actually and said what has surprised surrogates about the proposal and I could go into the reasons why but they're a bit niche which they are. I think you just want to make the point that surrogates want to have time to change their mind though and suffice to say that's not it.

It seems you didn't read the tweet or maybe just briefly and you weren't keen to know much of that surrogate mother's experience, nor want to read further background but it's there for all to see so other posters here may want to read that account as her experience is key IMHO. This woman met with the law commission and shed tears as she recounted her experience.

Niche is welcomed by me, feel free to educate us further. What surprised 'surrogates' about the proposals - did it not go the way the pro-surrogacy lobby were expecting?

And finally

Yes the change in language to mum was because a surrogate is not mum unless she decides to be.

That's not what the law commission are proposing and this goes against the image of altruistic surrogacy being based in friendship (that's not going to last if she changes her mind is it).

It would be a legal process, made worse for her than it is now and it's wouldn't be a case of a simple "no, I've changed my mind."

The woman in the 2011 case wasn't granted her the status of 'mum' because she claimed it, it was the courts. It has to be argued, paid for - with pain and anxiety and stress as well as money.

"Unless she decides to be". If only it was that simple. I don't think you have even read the report in order to even type this.