women & surrogacy arrangements

[TearingDownTheWall]

I read this legal blog recently and was shocked by this case. It is a horrifying account of male entitlement and treating women like a baby vessel by a same sex couple.
Essentially 2 affluent, intelligent men set up surrogacy arrangements with 2 women, treating them like chattel and showing absolutely no regard for them other than as a means to deliver them a child. Throughout the court hearings they continued to show zero regard or understanding of how unacceptable their behaviour was. It's utterly depressing.

Suspicious minds and the baiili transcript baiili

that should read 'She retains her rights/responsibilities despite the 'adoption'' sorry - trying to do too many things at once!

That was a very chilling read, I am pleased X seemed to have good support and it beggars belief why A and B are allowed to retain custody of their twins from Y.

The only issue I would see with making surrogacy illegal is that people would do it on the 'black market', and women would be exploited further, perhaps being forced to use ineffective and dangerous ways of conception, such as PIV sex they don't want or a 'turkey baster' style method.

Once you officially give a child up for adoption you are not liable to maintain it.

Could a man use this to get out of paying maintenance or is this option only available to women?

Caroldecker - a father could prevent a mother putting a child up for adoption if he himself would take on the parenting - in such a case the mother would pay maintenance.

The only issue I would see with making surrogacy illegal is that people would do it on the 'black market'

Yes, although in a way it already is a black market (unless they go through a UK clinic which is regulated as old boots did). The case in the OP was completely unregulated until the men brought it to court. That's the problem, the regulation only starts once the child has been born and the adults go to court to sort out the parenthood issues. By that point you have an existing child and want to do what is in their best interests but in doing that the courts often end up retrospectively approving pretty dodgy exploitative set-ups as in the 'obscene gesture' case I posted above or as could have happened in this case if the judge had decided the child was better off with the more affluent, educated men.

If you made it illegal you'd still have to decide what to do with the resulting child and it would seem pretty harsh to do something that was worse for that child just to uphold the spirit of the law.

oddboots Thanks for the clarification.

It's 4 minutes long but this video that a friend shared on FB today far more closely reflects my own experiences of surrogacy. www.facebook.com/tasha.beer.9/videos/10154490515644292/