The Archers #109: Pulp Fiction! Hammer Horror (Tracy), Carry On (Brian & Neil), Call the Midwife (Adam, Ian, Lexi) - but no political thrillers, Ambridge remains Brexit-free. Nitpick here!

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Thank you, @PseudoBadger, for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads.

All views on The Archers welcome here! New blood welcomed. We don't all agree on all points and most of us are posting tongue in cheek a lot of the time, so don't worry about revealing that you'd like to be Susan's best friend or other unusual views. grin

Spoilers: not on this thread, please. We don't wait for the omnibus to discuss the weeknight episodes, but we do try our best to avoid cross-contamination from www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3439443-keep-it-to-yourself-the-archers-spoilers-thread-4, where spoilers are positively welcomed!

For newer listeners, lurkers or those who just have no idea what we're talking about, @DadDadDad has created this useful thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3557323-For-Archers-fans-a-guide-to-acronyms-on-the-long-running-discussion-threads-and-any-other-meta-thread-questions-you-may-have BOOP point for him! (See thread for explanation.)

Thanks to Bucking Frolics and LillianGish for the title ideas, which I had to edit down a bit to get under the character limit.

I wonder if Lily will have gone back to Manchester by the time we've filled this thread.

Maybe no legal rights but if your DD/DGD/DNiece asked to address a meeting, wouldn't you say 'yes'?

Oh sure and that is what Phoebe asked and they did put it on the agenda but she isn't a shareholder, doesn't attend farm meetings and was only ever going to be able to request a discussion not require it.

Pip on the other hand, as the future of Brookfield, has been involved in farm meetings and decisions for years. Of the three of them she should be the one who was planning where to seek the land and the kind of land farmers would lease.

Instead of which she made such a dogs dinner of her own participation and relationship management that she can't even get a single acre from her own family farm.

she is doing it as a friend

Lexi said quite early on the process that a key factor in the decision was that the money would enable her to spend the Summer with her daughters instead of strawberry picking.

Yes she regarded them as friends also but it was the prospect of spending more time with her daughters which drove her to take the whole thing seriously.

Lexi is not untypical in that respect of women in commercial surrogacy arrangements (which this is albeit not for gazillions and working around the rules). Poorer women carry babies for wealthier couples, not the other way around.

If Kate had been accepted as surrogate that would be more what most people think of as altruistic surrogacy - a family member or close friend helpingi out. That isn't Lexi's situation - she wasn't particularly close friends with Adam and Ian - she was Adam's employee who had a decent working relationship with them.

Wasn’t she also Ian’s colleague at Grey Gables and became his friend there?

Wasn’t she also Ian’s colleague at Grey Gables and became his friend there?

For the short time she was there yes. But I get on well with my colleagues and like many of them a great deal. I don't for one moment imagine they like me enough to have a baby for me.

For Lexi knowing and liking them may have made it possible for her to consider it but it was the prospect of more time with her girls than made her take it seriously. Without the money from the surrogacy she would have spent another Summer away from home working in Western Europe.

That isn't an equal balance of power from which to make a decision. All the power is in Ian and Adam's hands. They could have accepted Kate's offer.

Of course lexi has been paid just not formally. When those acting as surrogates are the very wealthy then I will believe that there is no exploitation. So if Kim Kardashian and Robbie Williams wife act as surrogates then yes I may believe there is no exploitation. That is not the situation with lexi.
Lexi is carrying the child of course she is biologically connected. She is the child's mother. To relegate women to carriers is deeply concerning

To deliberately remove a child from its mother is cruel which is one of the many reasons surrogacy is banned in numerous European countries. Removing a child from its mother is considered the last resort except strangely in the case of surrogacy.
Indeed interventions for those who can't conceive have progressed however when the needs of the adults are prioritised over the needs of the child then we are in dangerous territory. It would be very helpful to hear the views of adult children born to surrogates rather than many people, including myself, speaking for them.

I hope that Rex is going to save the day. We already have a strained relationship between mother and daughter. If the plan only comes together due to the intervention of Daddy FairBro then we can add a(n even more) strained relationship between grandmother and granddaughter too.
There again, Continuity mentioned Lizzie last night. Maybe she will provide the acreage. It would be ideal for LL's finances to be paid rent for doing nothing to parkland that wasn't doing much anyway.

To relegate women to carriers is deeply concerning

I agree. I find the growth of the vile term "Gestational Carrier" quite chilling.

t would be ideal for LL's finances to be paid rent for doing nothing to parkland that wasn't doing much anyway.

Yes good point. Do we know how many acres LL has? They would also be in a position to maximise the tourism benefits.

Is Lower Loxley actually in Ambridge and does it qualify under the requirements of the trust?

Ha ha, get real! Nobody in their right mind would want Kate as a surrogate, her family know more than anyone how volatile and unpredictable she is! As she proved by forcing Brian and Jenny out of their home to protect her yurts. And can you imagine the gossip that would go round about a man having a baby with his sister?! Yes, it is a donor egg but gossips aren’t going to grasp that nugget. Not to mention that Kate would always be around in the wider family and I am sure that Adam and Ian preferred the idea of a surrogate who would not be so closely involved in the future.

My only point was that it’s not quite right to look at Lexi as a migrant worker subordinate to Adam, because she was Ian’s colleague (didn’t report to him) and they had a much more equal relationship than farmer/picker. She would not have considered the idea had Ian’s desire to be a Dad not come out as part of their socialising at GG. That’s a million miles away from Adam surveying the pickers and selecting one to pay to be his brood mare.

Ha ha, get real! Nobody in their right mind would want Kate as a surrogate, her family know more than anyone how volatile and unpredictable she is!

Well they made a choice - they wanted a baby but not enough to let Kate carry it. They would never have had the control or freedom from future interference that they get by employing a poorer, foreign woman who will disappear from the scene conveniently after delivering the baby.
That was my point really. They wanted a surrogate but not an altruistic one who might be around in the baby's future. They wanted a commercial arrangement which left them in control.

I recall that they spoke to several British potential surrogates before Lexi offered, so I’m not sure that “foreign” was a deliberate choice.

I know this is a serious discussion but I’m sorry “they wanted a baby but not enough to let Kate carry it” does make me laugh- Kate is one of the most monstrous creations in Archers history, they were hardly making a tricky decision there!

Is Lower Loxley actually in Ambridge
Good point, well made. I presume that LL Hall is near the village of LL so that rather scuppers that.
I can't help feeling that there was a reason why golf clubs were so specifically mentioned in the pitch (pun not intended). Do you think that Martyn Gibson will gift Ambridge GC to the useless trio? oooh, was that a pig flying past

You would have to be bordering on insanity to enter into a surrogacy agreement (or indeed any sort of agreement) with Kate. Lexi and Ian were friends - I don’t think she would have considered it otherwise. I’m sure if making money had been her main motivation she could have got a better deal with a stranger. Ian and Adam’s child will grow up knowing how he/she was conceived. It will grow up knowing who Lexi is. In fact the problem (if there is one) might come from not knowing who it’s biological mother is, but would you ban egg donation on that basis?

Kate is one of the most monstrous creations in Archers history, they were hardly making a tricky decision there!

Nonetheless they had a genuine altruistic offer and turned it down.

The British surrogates they spoke to turned them down. I agree they didn't choose Lexi because she was foreign but being a foreign, low paid, worker having to travel to support her family made her the person in the partnership with little power. That is typical in commercial surrogacy - the women doing it are largely poor and lacking in power.

@C8H10N4O2 do you feel similarly that the egg donor has been taken advantage of, or is it just Lexi who you’d say was being exploited in this scenario due to the physical and emotional toll of carrying the baby?

I’m not baiting you, just curious.

PMSL at Kate and the words “altruistic” in the same sentence! Sorry.

I find the growth of the vile term "Gestational Carrier" quite chilling. I think you are making this issue too black and white. In the case of a woman who is unable to carry her own child (or unable to carry it to term) would you deny her the chance to have her own biological child with her husband or partner even though the possibility is there and she may have a willing surrogate who wants to help her?

Kate is one of the most monstrous creations in Archers history, they were hardly making a tricky decision there!

Nonetheless they had a genuine altruistic offer and turned it down

No it was not. Kate cannot be trusted to sit on a lavatory the right way round. Don't confuse what is said on TA with sane propositions in an argument.

I think all surrogacy should be banned. So yes I would. I liken the arguements to those who say some women choose to be prostitutes and I am sure they do. But this leads to horrendous exploitation of other woman. The price is too high. I am not comparing prostitution to surrogacy before anyone starts but the arguement is similar and in surrogacy children are thrown into the mix.
Nobody ever answers why we fight tooth and nail for children to remain with their mothers except in the case of surrogacy.

To deliberately remove a child from its mother is cruel aside from the fact that Lexi isn’t the child’s biological mother, do you also consider it cruel to remove a child from it’s father?

I think all surrogacy should be banned so basically you think the only people who should be able to have children are fertile heterosexual couples and women in general.

The bond between a child and it's mother is different to that of a child and it's father. Only one person carried me for 9 months and then pushed me out into this world.

Agree about the so called comedy. The esprit d'escalier one-liners are brilliant.

Leave out the comedy capers please. They aren't funny.

While I agree with you generally @LillianGiah, I can see the logic in arguments about removing a child from its mother being confined to the idea of removing the child from the woman who carried it, not the owner of the egg. That’s because any trauma would arise out of physical separation from the body in which it had grown and which was there to continue to nourish it. I don’t think it would know or care that that body was not genetically related to it.

As for separation from the father, my take is that as soon as a baby has any concept of who its consistent carer(s) are then it is traumatic to separate them. (I have no idea how early that is, but am thinking weeks rather than months.) Those carers could be anyone- it has no innate sense of who it’s father is. But it does if the mother because it has got to know her over the previous 9 months.

Its father, bloody autocorrect!

Nobody ever answers why we fight tooth and nail for children to remain with their mothers except in the case of surrogacy the answer is that in the vast majority of surrogacy cases the surrogate does not want to keep the baby she is carrying. She wouldn’t be having the baby in the first place if it was not very much wanted by someone else. You might as well ask why we allow women to have unwanted babies who they then go on to neglect. How do you decide who should and shouldn’t be allowed to have children? I’m not saying I have the answers - just that the situation is not as black and white as you are making out.