Smug British couple using Indian Surrogate as 'receptacle' for their biological child

[Romilly70]

This article was in the DM (yes I do read it, although I know it's shit).

I was hoping this was a spoof article given their names.
I just cannot believe that people like this woman actually exist!

I come from a third world country.

I think this is great.

That sort of money is literally life changing in the third world, for the entire family. People in the third world have very little to trade - just their muscle, or a few vegtables, in a world that now rewards skills. So if she can do something THAT valuable, carry a baby for a woman who can't, more power to the whole lot of them.

Maryz, that was an excellent post.

I found the original report from the Centre for Social Research

There's more about the CSR here but their website states:

Founded in 1983, Centre for Social Research is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation based in New Delhi. Our mission is to empower the women and girls of India, guarantee their fundamental rights, and increase understanding of social issues from a gender perspective.

Their report is worth reading (tbh Mr and Mrs Surrey could to with reading it).

Maryz I think I actually love you.

I usually end up hiding surrogate threads as I get made to feel like an evil baby snatcher and that my DD will feel rejected and unwanted .

I was incredibly lucky, a friend offered to have my DD, we paid literal expenses. As in clothes, food shopping, child care for her son , treats and days out.

We could have paid her £10 000 according to the law, she wouldn't do it for any money anyway as it was done in friendship but that's legal and fair.
Using an Indian surrogate means there are women waiting to do it and its changing their lives.

Don't judge others til you've walked in their shoes or whatever the saying is

QOD- I don't think there's anything to judge in your case.

If this was true Using an Indian surrogate means there are women waiting to do it and its changing their lives. I don't think there would be a problem. But there's a lot of evidence (linked to above and beancurd's comment) that really that's not true. If it could be made so then I don't suppose people would have a problem (unless they had issues with surrogacy itself).

Something that wasn't really on my radar until I read the report from the Centre for Social Research is that it sounds as if often it is the husbands deciding women should be surrogates and they are left with little choice. That is problematic I think.

What struck me in addition to all the ethical issues discussed already, was the mother-to-be's dismissal of the pregnancy as being an irrelevance to the rest of the child's life. Obviously she's totally unaware of the growing body of evidence that the pre-birth experiences of individuals are some of the most important for shaping their life, personality and health and can have knock-on effects for the next generation and the one after. It's not just the nutritional status of the pregnant woman (both before conception and during pregnancy), but also her emotional state, which affects her physiology/hormones. I think it's a fairly big part of a newborn baby's existence and make-up to dismiss as irrelevant. Genetics are important, but so is nurture, and this is 9 months of nurture they know basically nothing about.

I haven't read the linked articles but I did watch the documentary that someone mentioned upthread, which raised a couple of very alarming points.

1. To everyone who claims that the surrogate has a choice - in many cases, she was being effectively forced into it by her husband. Yes, it is life changing money, but still - the power of men over women in that part of the world still has to be considered.

1. There were some clinics that regularly practiced selective abortion, because they wanted a 100% success rate for the westerners so they would use more than one surrogate; if both women gave birth successfully, they would give the western couple 'twins' but if there were more than two babies they would abort the 'extras' (sorry to use such hideous terminology).

That said there were some clinics that looked after their surrogates very carefully and most definitely did NOT engage in the abortion practice. That doesn't answer the excellent queries raised upthread about babies born with disabilities.

Writing as someone who is going to start fertility treatment soon, I cannot imagine ever being in the position of using a surrogate who I was not 100% certain actually wished to perform the service, whose reasons I did not understand and who I could not, in person, thank for the incredible gift they would be giving me and sacrifice they would be making.

Seems like the UK approach is so regulated, so careful, to protect the surrogate, maybe to protect all parties, that it creates the situation where couples go to unregulated cheap places for this service. This situation in India (+ other places) is the price paid for places like UK adhering to idealistic standards.

I doubt that the women would get all the money. The clinics and husbands would get major cuts. This is not much of a choice.

It should be regulated so the surrogate gets all the information, understands the risks, should be supported throughout pregnancy and afterwards and should get the money promised to her.

I shudder to think what sort of people would be attracted to operating these clinics. There is so much potential for exploitation.

1. I am sure the Daily Mail managed to alter her words to what they wanted to hear but even so she was a bit silly to appear so clinical about the surrogate.

1. Leaving that aside this is a woman's rights issue. It is disgusting we are not allowed to provide paid surrogacy services in the UK. It is the one thing women can do and men can't or one of the few so not surprisingly men through laws stop us earning via that route. People on mumsnet should lobby to change the unfair and restrictive English laws.

1. In India this does huge benefits too - the money goes to women, not men and they often use it to educate children. It is a wonderful wonderful process which I hope all women would support.

Purchasing another human being (baby) for cash = slavery.

You either believe slavery in any form is wrong, or you don't. I happen to believe it's very, very wrong. For me the issue is black and white. It's totally unethical and should be outlawed. In the West we women have freedoms others can only dream of, to abuse our freedoms by exploiting others is wrong on so many levels, it doesn't bear thinking about.

A situation like this cannot be compared with a sister, or close friend carrying a much wanted child for love. The child in this situation has a back history they can be proud of (conceived, and carried from love).

It would be hard not to feel some level of resentment as an adult on discovering how you were purchased, that the person who nurtured you for 9 months was treated as subhuman. Or that you were a mere commodity in a business transaction. The exploitation of the surrogate sullies that which should be precious.

Xenia- flying in the face of all the reports to the contrary, and the knowledge of women of that particular section of society in India, how are you so sure of point 3?
Please bear in mind I have nothing against surrogacy.
I am however against people acting superior about how lifechanging that money will be when the reality is most of the women don't see most of it.

http://m.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/05/india-surrogates-impoverished-die?cat=commentisfree&type=article and http://todayhealth.today.com/_news/2012/05/28/11883566-a-baby-made-in-india-a-couples-dream-comes-true?lite

My husband and I have recently decided to do what the Orchards have done. No, I don't think it should be happening in a perfect world. And yes, we would rather adopt. Especially from India. But we would never be approved because our child is under four and I'm in a wheelchair.

Ironically, we have a long-running association with an orphanage in a deprived region of India, even donating sums of money we couldn't easily afford to build a bedroom for girls who had previously been sleeping in the orphanage's hallway. We sponsor three girls who are fast becoming young women. If we heard they were considering being surrogates, we'd feel we had failed them.

And yet. We have chosen a new clinic that has voluntarily set out to be a 'gold standard' for ethical conduct. Granted, that doesn't make commercial surrogacy acceptable, and some will feel it is always wrong. I know that surrogacy of any kind can be distasteful to many. However, our surrogate mother is willing and healthy. Octavia is right to assert that the lady she is working with will be financially much better placed after their association. Unlike Octavia, our surrogate mother is welcome to as close an association with us as she would like, now and always. Similarly, we would meet any medical need in a heartbeat, now and always. I can't imagine being indebted to someone more.

The outrage against Octavia Orchard is entirely appropriate. Her attitude is obnoxious, not that I suspect it matters very much to the lady she is calling a 'vessel'. But that's all superfluous to the real issues surrounding international commercial surrogacy. Helen Roberts and Frances Hardy have squandered a golden opportunity to talk about the changes required in Indian law to protect women from being exploited by unscrupulous clinics. (Some would say exploited more). Not surprising for a paper that habitually goes out of its way to promote British indignation at India receiving foreign aid.

Out of everything my husband and I have experienced together, I think we'd be least proud of this accomplishment of getting a lady in India pregnant. I'm not saying that it's wrong, or that it's right. Only that I doubt we'll ever know for sure.

THISbochead Purchasing another human being (baby) for cash = slavery.It would be hard not to feel some level of resentment as an adult on discovering how you were purchased, that the person who nurtured you for 9 months was treated as subhuman. Or that you were a mere commodity in a business transaction. The exploitation of the surrogate sullies that which should be precious.*

What has Octavia Orchard said that's so terrible?

She's said that she is grateful to her surrogate and that she wishes her well.

She just doesn't want to have a personal relationship with her. Her choice.

I think the use of the word 'vessel' is being twisted. It sounds more likely to me that she is distancing herself emotionally from her surrogate because of how she feels about herself, not how she feels about the woman who is carrying her baby. It's an attempt to mak herself feel like more of a mother to this baby, not to make less of what the surrogate is doing.

That's how it comes across to me anyway.

darksecret I just want to say good luck and that I really hope you are successful.

thank you ellangirl :)

Bean curd I'm not even faintly surprised by your first post (the pimp one). I think I see this issue in the sense of worst case scenario. I read the dm article and immediately envisioned women chained to bed being forced to gestate - in the style of trafficked women. Your post confirms I wasn't far wrong.
I found the Octavia women v disturbing. Her refusal to want to know anything about the surrogate suggested to me how uncomfortable she is about the whole thing and v possibly feeling guilty.