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Feminism: chat

Surrogacy and Affair - Canadian case

4 replies

OhHolyJesus · 17/07/2021 08:23

This is a interesting case of surrogacy gone wrong with a gossip-y article but it does question the view that if a child is genetically related to you and you're the one giving birth you have parental rights.

A woman is the surrogate mother to a daughter whose father is the man she is having an affair with. The method of conception is under question as they had sex and the money paid was a gift or payment. Custody access to the child is a key part due to guardianship and the child is older and the surrogate mother has a new partner...it's messy.

"Their attempts to conceive included trips to India for IVF and surrogacy — back when surrogacy in India was still legally permissible for foreigners. However, all of the couples’ efforts failed.
Then along came K.B. (the surrogate, arguably), a single mother of two kids. She began an affair with the husband and, strangely, also became close friends with the wife. In February 2016, K.B. then offered to become a surrogate for the couple. She traveled with the couple to India, and had an embryo (genetically related to the husband and wife) transferred to her uterus. Unfortunately, that effort was also not successful.
The couple and K.B. then discussed and agreed for K.B. to act as a genetic surrogate (also known as a traditional surrogate), whereby K.B. would donate her eggs to the husband and wife, as well as act as a surrogate. This generally means that the surrogate goes through a medical insemination procedure with the intended father’s or donor sperm."

abovethelaw.com/2021/07/sex-money-and-a-baby-canadian-judge-rules-on-wild-surrogacy-case/

We often hear that an egg donor isn't the mother but the one paying for the surrogacy pregnancy is, or if the woman paying for it used her egg for conception, then she is the mother. Which is it?

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KimikosNightmare · 17/07/2021 14:18

The surrogacy issues here are a red herring under UK law. The legal parents are the woman who was pregnant and the man who impregnated her- whether in the traditional manner or not.

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OhHolyJesus · 17/07/2021 16:57

Well that is the law currently but under reform proposals the U.K. would be following the American commercial model with pre-birth orders giving rights to the commissioning parents at birth.

The draft bill is yet to be released though.

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OhHolyJesus · 17/07/2021 16:58

The father of the baby is actually the husband of the woman if she is married, this is to give parental responsibility to that man so he doesn't 'pimp' our his wife for surrogacy.

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Delphinium20 · 18/07/2021 05:35

What a mess! Nobody seems to care one bit about the child in these situations, do they? Or the child's older siblings?

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