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!

the reason i mentioned their child is that she has already gone thru pregnancy so how can she say that the surrogate is just a vessel, and has no connection to the child. i guess i wasnt expecting her to be so cold about it.

I think there is a lot of preasure on women to feel like a mother to their unborn child, I really don't think that is fair, in my experience I enjoy being pregnant and I like feeling my baby kick and I am protective of my bump but if this baby was a another couples baby I would care for myself and my bump but I would not feel like it was my baby or that I wanted to hold/feed the baby at birth. Everyone is different and I'm sure some women are 100% bonded with the baby from the first positive test, my mother said she knew me when she was pregnant with me, she knew what every kick ment and she knew my personality but I just don't feel the same even for my own child. I don't think that is wrong of me it's just different and maybe the surroget feels like that, maybe Octavia felt like that in her own pregnancies, we can't judge either of them without knowing them.

however you dress it these surrogates are going thru a very risky process for not much. I don't think it is very risky in comparrison to the other life choices that the women would have. A singleton birth in a clinical setting in comparison to possibly not having food to feed your own children is not risky in my opinon.

not to feel a bond to the baby is not the issue here.

that doesnt mean that you dont find out how the surrogate is living, make sure that she isnt being coerced, and put pressure on the clinic to disclose to you how much is going to the surrogate.

a pregnancy always has risks and the surrogates should be adequately compensated, which i dnt think she will be. i think someone linked an article upthread that a surrogate bled to death so of course the risks are high.

The surrogates do well out of it. It is life transforming for many of them and involves giving on both sides. These are lovely happy stories and it is a pity British law cannot be changed to allow women to use their own bodies, their own property, as they choose.

My desire for a child does not give me the right to forgoe the safety and life of another woman just because I paid her.

Fertility is a harsh lottery and I sympathise with infertile couples it must be heartbreaking. It still doesn't justify buying a baby through such questionable means though.

A fronds partner has undergone several surrogate pregnancies for other couples - for no cash - this is a beautiful and altruistic thing. Indian baby farms are something quite different.

Oh come on. Pregnancy is to "forgoe [sic] the safety and life of" a woman now, is it?

there are 212 maternal deaths in india per 100000 so the risks are very real.

aside from the fact no1 knows how much money goes to the lady and if the couples dnt pressure the clinics the woman would get even less.

also the little money they get will not transform their lives. there are a lot of medical problems which can arise and no1 is there to look after the woman's own children if something were to happen to her. but hey ho they are poor indian children their life is already shit, who cares if it gets more shitty.

I would actually question the motives of women that do repeatedly become surrogates for 'altruistic' reasons.

For many of them a pregnancy is the only time they feel useful or wanted and, consequently, enjoy the attention it brings.

Many of them are very sad, damaged women.

xenia that is not a life changing amount. Trust me. £3000 works out to INR 210,000 ie what you would say rupees 2 lakhs and ten thousand. It's NOT life changing. Certainly not with husbands and fathers taking away part of it.
The arrogance of the woman in assuming that it is, is what upsets me.

hopingtodrive - I would imagine that a surrogate's chances of death through childbirth would be dramatically reduced since she is giving birth in hospital under medical care.

Although if you read the reports I linked to above nancy - post partum haemorrhage is not covered. One surrogate who died started bleeding after she had given birth and her husband was told he had to pay for an ambulance to take her to a hospital. She died.

Xenia - I'm surprised at you. If you read the report I lined to you will see that these are more often cases of husbands making the decision, sometimes following that up with abandoning them. It also mentions cases where full payment is not made as the women (and presumably the husbands) do not have the education to keep track of payments. Only 2% of surrogates (again according to the report) have a copy of the contract. It's hardly women empowering themselves.

Thank you darksecret. Despite my huge reservations of the system in India, I do obviously wish you well.

you would think but it isnt so. many women die in hospitals bcz the infrastucture isnt there, its a terrible state of affairs and that is why the responsibility is on the couples using the surrogate to see the living conditions and the hospitals.

there is no accountability for the clinics.have you been to india? and experienced the hospitals? the picture isnt as rosy.

"there are 212 maternal deaths in india per 100000 so the risks are very real"

Get a grip. This very low figure hasn't stopped Indians from getting pregnant on their own so why on earth should it stop Westerners from getting them pregnant?

You can download the report here.

The summary says

The research study was conducted in three of the most prominent areas of Gujarat state (Anand, Surat, Jamnagar), where one can find the most famous clinics providing surrogacy arrangements. The sample size consisted of one hundred surrogate mothers and fifty commissioning parents and their families in three cities of Gujarat. The methodology, adopted for the study, was exploratory research using both qualitative and quantitative research tools, such as the situation analysis, the informal investigation, survey analysis and questionnaires. The research findings indicate that in the absence of a concrete law regarding surrogacy arrangement all the three parties involved i.e. the surrogate mother, the commissioning parents and the child are subjected to the whims and caprices of handful of infertility physicians who gained the most out of this arrangement. The unfavorable socio-economic conditions make the surrogate mothers financially vulnerable to search for extra income. There is very little interaction between the surrogate mother and intended parents, who in their desperation to beget a child do not question the clinics? dealings with their surrogate mother. The research reveals that it does not seem to be a problem for intended parents to acquire a baby through surrogacy arrangements, whereas the surrogate mother sometimes has to pay a high cost of exclusion by her family members and society. Last but not the least the child born through surrogacy arrangement also at times has to suffer due to the crisis regarding citizenship issue, divorce of intending parents or physical abnormalities. Hence, the study strongly recommends certain policy formulation for surrogacy arrangement with the enactment of a concrete law.

I don't think simply getting a woman pregnant is an issue. I think this: whereas the surrogate mother sometimes has to pay a high cost of exclusion by her family members and society on top of the risks of childbirth and pregnancy are very big issues. I also think it is problematic that the surrogates usually have c-sections so they fit in with genetic parents travel dates. (Having had 2 sections myself).

3 sections myself, not 2. But the 2nd and 3rd were not without problems.

Coted u shd get a grip. will you or any other uk memsahib get pregnant and be away from your own children for 3000£

in uk the maternal death rate is 11.39 per 100000 and in india its 212 per 100000 so no its not very low.

56000 women died in india in 2010 that is in only one year.

56000 women died in childbirth in india in 2010.

jimjams - The Westerners' intervention is getting the Indian woman pregnant. All of the rest are risks that exist in her country, to be undertaken if she were to get pregnant on her own.

It is patronizing to assume that no Indian woman can take this decision by herself, knowing the risks involved, and so they have to be protected with a ban.

Besides, the friend who was a surrogate to someone's baby is celebrated on this thread as a wonderful altruistic person and nobody is blaming the parents for having forgone "the safety and life of another woman". So is money the only problem here?

hopingtodrive - Yes, 0.002 is a very low number. That is why Indians still get pregnant and have babies.

"will you or any other uk memsahib get pregnant and be away from your own children for 3000£"

What on earth are you talking about? What is a "memsahib"? Surrogacy isn't giving birth to "your own children".

You really need to calm down and lose the emotive language. Maybe then you can talk about the real issues.

There's a difference between a choice made by someone able to feed her children, with equal status to her husband and able to read the contract.

If you read the report you will find that the contract is usually not signed until the end of the first trimester - leaving surrogates very vulnerable in the first few months. The report also says this Often, the surrogate is unable to read or write, hence, she, and her husband are told about the contract by the clinic/hospital authorities in suitable language, and terms which the surrogate cannot verify by any means

If you think that is ethical, well, I don't and can't .

The report I keep referring to was produced by an Indian NGO. They are the ones raising the issues about exploitation. Not a patronising westerner.

Oh the report also says She has to sign the agreement as she is already 4 months pregnant and being poor has great financial expectation exaggerated by the hospital/cinic...

And The research findings revealed the majority of the surrogate mothers have not received any copy of the contract. Surprisingly, only two surrogate mothers in Anand and Surat respectively stated that they got a copy of the contract

Sorry I cannot see the above as a women empowering herself by making a free choice.

WHO estimates 254 maternal deaths in 2008 and says "some large countries such as India have witnessed quite rapid increase in birth attendance in recent years".

Also, the care surrogates get is far superior to that provided to the average Indian peasant giving birth, so I don't think it is reasonable to compare national averages to this special situation.

The surrogate mothers btw stated that they understood the contract, but when the research team questioned them about clauses in the contract they didn't know. The hospital/clinic said they must have forgotten what they had been told

Honestly I'd read the report tbh.

The report is quite shocking tbh. It says surrogate mothers may be given 20-25 rounds of IVF, that 5+ healthy embryos are implanted, that if more than 2 survive then reduction will be carried out, often with female foetuses selectively aborted. The surrogate mother may be unaware that sex selection has been carried out.

It's all fairly murky.