Comment Piece about Surrogacy in the Times

[Igneococcus]

This is one of the worst articles/comments that I have seen in the Times, there is no concern for the child and just the most superficial concern for the surrogate.
https://www.thetimes.com/article/189228bf-ce0a-49cd-8aef-531bd8e00496?shareToken=d496b5ffc99908554afa9c513ed071ce

Ugh- just zero thought given to anyone’s rights or feelings but his

I remember reading the article and thinking that it was very one sided and really ignored the welfare of the woman who gave birth to the baby. The Times has a journalist who had a child (two?) through surragacy so maybe this article comes from a similar place. I feel really uncomfortable with the whole idea of surragacy and think commercial surragacy should be illegal worldwide.

As someone commented, Rohan makes lots of very good points about why there might be a place for surrogacy, but I don’t see how we get round the fact that this has become a massive, barely regulated international trade in human infants that depends largely on using poor women’s bodies.

Children are being bought and sold, usually from poor countries, including to single people, single men. What could possibly go wrong?

We know that many countries have banned it for that reason, and that the UK is an outlier in allowing it domestically and internationally.

We also know that women are increasingly being trafficked for the lucrative surrogacy trade.

We also know that the average ‘altruistic’ surrogacy in the UK involves expenses of an average £35k, a huge amount of money to a poor woman.

The comments under the article in the Times are aligned with Mumsnet on this one

I think it is important to remember that “the baby” and “the child” grow up to be adults. And like the people who were subjected to closed adoptions in the past they will have lifelong issues.