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Feminism: chat

Baby born to Surrogate Mother still with her nearly one year on

98 replies

OhHolyJesus · 27/03/2021 18:47

Due to the travel restrictions this little girl remains in the care of the surrogate mother and her husband and as she approaches her 1st birthday she might be with them for a lot longer...

"For the biological parents, the entire process of traveling to and from the US to collect their baby could take up to three months, according to Chrislip.
“I just don’t know if they can take that amount of time off of work,” she said."

So tricky to collect the order you made from China when you can't take time off work...

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/nypost.com/2021/03/24/surrogate-caring-for-baby-year-later-due-to-covid-travel-rules/amp/

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SmokedDuck · 27/03/2021 23:10

They can sugarcoat it all they like....... Its babies for sale

Yup.

IloveJKRowling · 27/03/2021 23:23

The greatest day for the commissioning parents will be absolute torture for their daughter.

And if their narcissism and selfishness blinds them to the extreme trauma this will cause the child they've bought, and they take her, do we think they're going to be happy with a child who cries all the time because suffering deep trauma? It's got safeguarding red flags all over it. Despicable, evil way to treat an innocent child.

IloveJKRowling · 27/03/2021 23:24

When do social services step in and demand a judge look at the best interests of the child?

Good question.

AIMD · 27/03/2021 23:34

@IloveJKRowling

When do social services step in and demand a judge look at the best interests of the child?

Good question.

I agree. I can’t believe these surrogacy arrangements happen so freely without any proper oversight. Involvement of a surrogacy agency whose whole existence relies on surrogacies taking place is not the same as having the best interests of a child considered in court.
TheRabbitOfCaerbannog · 27/03/2021 23:38

Involvement of a surrogacy agency whose whole existence relies on surrogacies taking place is not the same as having the best interests of a child considered in court.

Indeed. This is a key flaw in commercialising surrogacy.

LilacsAndFreesias · 28/03/2021 10:35

The only other time I can think of when a child is moved to a different family without social service involvement is private fostering and Victoria Climbié is a tragic example of that, although hopefully they've tightened things up since then in monitoring it.
It says they can't get 3 months off work, but I thought when you adopt a child one parent was supposed to take time out to settle the child. How are they going to do that?
Poor kid

percypetulant · 28/03/2021 10:56

Doesn't it read like an advert?

"Clearance sale- due to a cancellation due to the pandemic, this beautiful specimen is now available! Well cared for, healthy, ready for new home. Grab yourself a bargain!"

MissBarbary · 28/03/2021 13:41

“It’s unprecedented for a surrogate to be looking after the baby,” says Rich Geisler, a Californian surrogacy lawyer. “We as an industry really try to avoid that. We want to avoid the possibility of the surrogate bonding with the child.”

From the Guardian article. An industry selling babies.

OhHolyJesus · 28/03/2021 17:11

We want to avoid the possibility of the surrogate bonding with the child

Indeed, what a tragedy it would be if the child were to form a moving bond with a primary carer in this case Hmm

A very clear example of what surrogacy is, in addition to this profit-making industry which uses women's bodies to produce products (babies) for sale, at the very root is the severance of what is natural as it is seen as problematic.

I've been pondering on what citizenship this child will have. As time went on she must have been registered for a birth certificate in Idaho with the surrogate mother as the mother but possibly with the commissioning father as the father - depending on whether his sperm was used and if there was a way for him to confirm this? Otherwise would Emily's husband be listed? If they are both listed as the parents surely this will be an adoption situation as legally and would need to follow adoption procedures?

After all the sunk cost and genetic connections you would hope that the commissioning couple don't just fail to fetch her and leave her and with other countries making exceptions for surrogacy I find it hard to believe that there wasn't something that could have been done sooner - but for the child's sake it would be far better for her to remain with this family now, if they aren't just caring for her out of duty but do consider her part of the family.

It's an uncomfortable no-man's land (or rather no family land) for this little one.

A mother who doesn't consider herself a mother, waiting patiently for the absent mother to finally turn up and take her away.

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MissBarbary · 28/03/2021 17:22

I've been pondering on what citizenship this child will have

She will be American automatically won't she? Even if Trump removed the assumption that anyone born on American soil can be an American citizen (which I don't think he did) the woman who gave birth to her is an American citizen.

That's probably the only glimmer of light in the whole sorry tale.

MissBarbary · 28/03/2021 17:27

Otherwise would Emily's husband be listed? If they are both listed as the parents surely this will be an adoption situation as legally and would need to follow adoption procedures?

Can only speak for UK law but in the UK Emily would be her mother and all UK citizens' rights would flow from that. The genetic father could not be named unless physically present.

Emily's husband would be the default father as she is married to him.

FannyCann · 28/03/2021 17:34

For the baby, being born in the USA will confer US citizenship. It is one of the reasons some international couples choose the USA, they call them "anchor babies".

"With Surrogate Mothers, US Citizenship Is for Sale
by Jennifer Lahl, CBC President

The international surrogacyy market is fraught with problems, but one major problem that goes largely unnoticed is that U.S. citizenshipp is being bought and sold to international couples who hire U.S. surrogate mothers to carry their children to birth.
Here is a short primer on how one becomes a U.S. citizen. First, most Americans have birthright citizenship, meaning anyone born on U.S. soil is automatically deemed a citizen of the United States. Second, one can become a citizen through naturalization, which happens by going through the legal immigration steps, applying for citizenship, and having citizenship granted.
The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has as its first sentence the Citizenship Clausee_, which states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
But can you buy citizenship in the United States?
The answer is “Yes,” and it is quite easy and relatively affordable, all things considered. Babies born of U.S. surrogates to international couples are often referred to as anchor babies, because by virtue of being born in the United States, these children secure an anchor as citizens, afforded all the rights and benefits of that citizenship.
And those rights and benefits are many: the right to vote, the right to a U.S. passport, and most importantly, the right to “family unification,” or the provision of a pathway to citizenship for other family members who may want to come to the United States.
As Andy J. Semotiuk wrotee_ in Forbes, “Anchor babies, birth tourism, and surrogacy are pushing the envelope of what are the rights of citizenship in North America.”
Reproductive or birth tourism is a booming business. As one country cracks down on the buying and selling of eggs or sperm, or the renting of uteruses, the Big Fertility market shifts to accommodate the change.
For example, in China, all surrogacy is illegal, as is the sale of human eggs, so the Chinese flock to the United States to buy a baby. In fact, I have interviewed several U.S. surrogates who were contracted to carry babies for couples in China.
One whistleblower I spoke with worked for an agency in southern California and handled the VIP clients. When asked who those clients were, she said she worked solely with Chinese, who came with loads of cash to buy eggs and rent wombs.
She described to me how it wasn’t uncommon for the Chinese to hire two or three surrogates, and once their pregnancies were confirmed and the sex and health of the babies were determined, the couple would choose which pregnancy they wanted to continue and which ones they wanted to be terminated.
If that isn’t enough to say we need to stop this birth tourism industry, perhaps these storiess_ will be. A surrogacy attorney in New Jersey reported that a Chinese person approached her, wanting her to represent him in a U.S. surrogacy arrangement, but what didn’t seem right was this person wanted to hire five surrogates at the same time. In another case, the foreigner “wanted to keep two babies, and put the rest up for adoption,” according to a different surrogacy attorney.
With U.S. citizenship granted to five babies, three of which were going to be put up for adoption, most certainly to the highest bidder, it isn’t much of a leap to think of baby traffickingg rings. In fact, two women in Vietnamm were busted on a surrogacy baby-selling ring, selling babies to people in China.
And this practice works both ways.
In 2015, three individuals who ran a multimillion-dollar fertility agency in Irvine, California, were arrestedd_ “in the biggest federal criminal probe ever to target the thriving industry, in which pregnant women come to the United States to give birth so their children will become American citizens,” according to The New York Times.
The U.S. Department of State has a policyy_ on how U.S. couples who travel abroad to hire a foreign woman as a surrogate can be sure to have U.S. citizenship granted to their baby born of surrogacy in another country. Sadly, the State Department needs to address the problem within our own house, of granting citizenship to anchor babies.
As it stands, when surrogacy is involved, the child is used as a commodity, a means to an end, if you will, and that end is U.S. citizenship."

MazekeenSmith · 28/03/2021 17:41

the foreigner “wanted to keep two babies, and put the rest up for adoption,” according to a different surrogacy attorney.

Fuck me. Not much shocks me these days but that has

FannyCann · 28/03/2021 17:44

However this doesn't solve the issue of the baby's legal status regarding parentage as things stand. In the USA surrogate mothers sign away legal parental rights ahead of the birth. I'm not sure that could have been reversed, even if either couple had wanted that, without the other couple being present or some sort of court case. But neither can her parents have officially sealed the deal as they haven't been able to get over to claim her. Or is that pre-birth order so watertight that the woman who gave birth to the baby and her husband will have been able to register the birth in someone else's name? It's all very murky. And a major concern must be medical insurance for the baby. Even without any particular problems she will have needed her inoculations and check ups. But having no official paperwork and thus being unable to get insurance was a specific problem cited in one case in the article I linked upthread. Would Emily's insurance cover the baby she gave birth to I wonder?
If they have had to formalise some sort of temporary legal guardianship then surely that would mean being approved by social services etc?
It's a mess.
Anyone from the USA able to cast more light on this conundrum?

MichelleofzeResistance · 28/03/2021 18:31

Adoption and fostering happen for all sorts of reasons. There isn't a financial transaction involved. The baby isn't an item being purchased.

This.

Adoption:

Child removed from a dire situation as a last resort because removal with all its awful harms is worse than the situation the child is in.

Adoptive parents are extensively and very invasively assessed for fitness to parent over quite a long period and are required to attend training. Not all pass.

The first thing adoptive parents are told in training: adoption is the second choice for everyone: parents and child. It is settling for something much less than the hopes and dreams the child and the parents had. The child is not a blank slate for the parents to turn into the child in their mind, but a person with memories, attachments to previous care figures they may well hold and prefer for a lifetime, experiences, a history. That cannot just be erased for adult convenience.

The transition to living with the parents is carefully planned, supervised by a social worker and there is a period of monitoring afterwards. The child's needs and wellbeing is the central consideration at all times.

This child will not even speak English as their first language.

There is plenty of writings out there from adopted adults talking about how hard and traumatic it has been for them to feel they were acquired in order to meet an adult parent's need and fill the hole in their lives, the living with resentment that they were expected to be happy and grateful for this, that having memories and attachments to their birth parents were threatening and upsetting to their adoptive parents. That their parents celebrated their 'gotcha day' where to the child its celebrating one of the most traumatic and terrible days in their life.

And you may also want to look up the terrible things that can happen to traumatised adopted children in the states when adoptions break down - many of these children have been acquired from other countries. Early childhood trauma is not usually expressed nicely and quietly in an instagrammable way. Being passed from family to family is only one of them: if they're lucky, the families will all be good ones and it will still just compound the trauma.

Now reflect that this human being has been intentionally bought and created to experience all this and to try and get through a life founded on it, so that an adult can have their longed for experience of possessing a baby.

OhHolyJesus · 28/03/2021 18:43

Found another article on this from back in
Oct.

Chrislip said the father, who is a Canadian citizen, has been trying to secure a Canadian passport for the mother so they can travel through Canada to get to the U.S., but they’re still waiting on those approvals.

www.ctvnews.ca/world/the-right-thing-to-do-surrogate-mother-cares-for-baby-as-pandemic-strands-parents-overseas-1.5137860

Noted this

It’s taught me a lot about my mental strength and a lot about just myself in general and how I can love a child that isn’t biologically mine even though I’ve created these specific boundaries when it comes to her,” she said.

So Emily has learnt that she can love a child she gave birth to even after all those months of telling herself she isn't hers.

When it does come time to hand over the child to her biological parents, Chrislip said they will be prepared.
“I think it will be emotional, but we’re ready to get her to her parents and we’re ready to kind of start moving on in our life and try to get things back to normal,” she said.

Back to normal? Though she said this back in Oct what is normal is now for this little girls who is very nearly a toddler to stay with them, as that is what is 'normal' for the child.

I have to say Emily sounds very cut and dried about this...

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MichelleofzeResistance · 28/03/2021 19:19

how I can love a child that isn’t biologically mine even though I’ve created these specific boundaries when it comes to her

Wonder what boundaries the child has created to protect themselves? What understanding the child has that she's going to be handed over to strangers?

It's wicked. It is actually wicked what is being done to this child by these adults.

IloveJKRowling · 28/03/2021 19:49

It's wicked. It is actually wicked what is being done to this child by these adults

One million times this and it would not be allowed if it wasn't for the apparently magic word 'surrogacy'. The poor child doesn't know she's part of a legal contract and it will be as traumatising for her as it would be for any other child to be ripped from the only home and parents she knows.

It is selling of babies. It is ownership of human beings via legal contract.

toffeebutterpopcorn · 28/03/2021 20:19

You have to jump through hoops of fire to adopt - how does surrogacy work? Are there any checks? I’m thinking of 2 stories I read about recently - one where a couple had ten babies within about a year (and mum announcing she’d like to have 100 children) and another on one of those gushy tv shows on the states where a couple were given a surprise gift of... a surrogate (or money to get one). I just thought - wow!

partyatthepalace · 28/03/2021 20:48

@RachelRoth

What does this have to do with surrogacy? What point are you making? I thought it was quite clear. A one year old baby does not understand the reasoning behind the actions. To all one year old babies taken from a carer for their first year and handed to someone different is the same. To the one year old child they have lost their primary carer.

As adults we can apply reason to the situations. But to the child the situation is the same.

How do you think it is different for the child in the case of this surrogacy and adoption of a one year old?

@rachelroth

The point people are trying to make to you is that adoption is not a deliberately created situation. Of course foster to adopt is a great idea when it can be made to work, but as a PP has already explained to you there aren’t enough people willing to do this - because if you are hoping to adopt a child, the prospect of loosing the child after a year or so is so traumatic you would either never risk it, or be so traumatised by such a loss you’d likely abandon the idea of trying again.

So, we are likely to remain with a situation where some babies who end up being adopted are placed with separate foster carers first. It’s not ideal, but life is not perfect - if it were babies wouldn’t need to be adopted.

OhHolyJesus · 28/03/2021 20:50

You have to jump through hoops of fire to adopt - how does surrogacy work?

It varies country but country and in the US, state to state. I used to think that the commercial model in US states was solid in this area but this rid me of that view.

The surrogate mother has the FBI turn up at her door to ask if she was part of a paedophile ring. (Obviously protecting a potential surrogate born child from ending up on the hands of a paedophile relies on them being caught in the first place.)

In the U.K. I'm told that background checks are done by the surrogacy agencies like Surrogacy U.K. but I'm not sure how detailed or effective they are, as in, whether they are full DBS checks through police as these are lengthy and expensive (perhaps it's part of the membership fee that is paid to this non-profit org) or if it's a simple survey that commissioning parents complete upon application. Much of the message from surrogacy agencies is about trust so I'm sceptical about how thorough their checks are. I'd be very happy to be proven wrong.

This is an old BBC programme that has a surrogate mother who works for COTS who mentions the lack of checks but this was back in 2014.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b04dqrt1

It's certainly never brought up in any media coverage and any mention of it is met with 'but why are they needed, people who can have children don't get checked before getting pregnant do they?'

Hmm
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manatsu · 28/03/2021 20:55

Oh god, you can't just send a toddler away to a foreign country, away from the only family she knows and with new people she's never met. That's going to be traumatising. Poor baby. This has really upset me.

MichelleofzeResistance · 28/03/2021 21:09

I feel the same way. What mother would hand off a terrified toddler to strangers and leave it to cope? I've had a friend who has supported adoptions in China from orphanages to carefully assessed and prepared homes, she's seen those terrified, frozen children and they're going from orphanages sharing care with multiple other kids, not being handed over by their birth mother.

I've also got concerns as to whether the child is now at further risk, after a year of life and those first precious months of baby experience having been lost, of being left while the commissioning adults repeat the surrogacy with someone else. There's no regulation, that child has no protection, there is nothing more than hope that the adults with the power in the situation choose to prioritise her needs and feelings. Hope is not enough.

OhHolyJesus · 28/03/2021 21:27

I have similar concerns Michelle and even though Emily says there will be a period of transition for her daughter to 'get to know' her genetic commissioning parents there is no support mentioned and when you think of the time, people and preparation that goes into the adoption process it's difficult to imagine them at these two inexperienced young parents will manage that process in the best way for the child, esp when she said back in Oct that they want to get back to normal - and it's now nearly April and they have no idea when this Chinese couple are turning up.

It's not the same but I'm reminded of Myka Stauffer and her adopted son she had 'rehomed' - he had already been taken from his birth parents and his country of birth, integrated into a large family in a new country, with a new language, where the support for his learning difficulties wasn't enough for her and her husband and they passed him onto another family they claimed was better suited for him. I didn't get the sense that authorities were involved and it was just their personal choice of who this little boy should have as his 'forever home' (ie the first people they could pass him off too).

All the articles on this child's circumstances come from Emily's perspective and no one is asking any questions about how they propose to sort this out with the child's best interests at heart. It's being presented as an inconvenience to the surrogate mother but she's happy to care for her daughter and she's lucky that the little girl sleeps and is a happy child and how sad it is the commissioning parents can't get there because of the travel restrictions.

The media spin on this is astonishing.

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BewareTheBeardedDragon · 28/03/2021 21:55

If the father is a Canadian citizen surely he could have come alone long ago?