The mother of Tom Daley's child

[Pratchet]

Congratulations on a healthy baby! Hope the birth went safely and that you are recovering well.

I just hate surrogacy in case you can't tell

Why should any human be expected to sell or be sold to make another human feel better emotionally or physically?

Yes, exactly. Its why in this country you can't sell your kidney or other organ. In fact can you legally do that in any other country either? I wonder if that is to do with the fact that it's not something exclusive to women?

IWannaSee then do you support a situation where had this woman changed her mind about giving up the baby she had carried and given birth to, being flooded with hormones, her milk coming in, that baby be forcibly removed from her against her wishes? Because a donor egg was used? To me that is absolutely barbaric.

Man Friday Sunday politics NOW IN TV

I suspect in future these babies and women will be viewed as we now view slave traders and owners.

The surrogate agencies and people buying babies, human tissue and renting wombs.

‘...if a woman freely makes a choice to enter into this exchange of growing a baby in exchange for money, is that not her right?’

In India very often the incredibly poor freely make a choice to enter into an exchange of selling their bodily organs for money.
That’s their right.

Those selling their organs are also incredibly poor.

The rich obtain organs for near peanuts.

Those selling their organs usually have no choice due to the poverty they are facing and certainly no idea of the long term consequences of the decision they freely made, on either themselves or their families.

Trade of people and their tissues and organs and bodily functions is never a completely free choice on both sides.

The trouble with commercial arrangements is you don't really know where 'free choice' ends and 'feeling pressured' begins. That is also why you can't buy kidneys from people in this country.

A baby is affected by

• his / her genetics - from the egg and sperm
• from the womb environment
• from the post birth nurture

I don't suppose there has been much research done into the genetics v womb as until relatively recently they had to be one and the same from the female point of view.

@TacoLover how does that negate the daddy issues?

She is a person who helped facilitate the existance of the child. Gestational carrier sounds cold, but what other term is there, if you genuinely don't believe a surrogate using someone else's egg is a mother?
My terms:
Egg-donor = Genetic Mother
The woman carrying the child for 9 months in her womb, nourishing it with her body, and giving birth to it = Surrogate Mother
The woman who raises the child in her family = Legal Mother
You should not get to diminish the contributions of any of these women, or their role in motherhood, in the process.

What else do you expect them to do, stay childless forever?

Adopt? Foster? Otherwise, YES.

What if one of them needed a kidney transplant? Should they stay on dialysis forever or be able to buy a poor person's kidney?

I have some gay friends who did exactly this in the UK. They found a surrogate willing to carry the baby and everything was above board, the surrogate was a woman who wanted to help out and has been featured regularly on their social media feeds with her consent - they have been on TV with her talking about their journey and why she and her husband felt they could take this journey.

She is a white middle class married woman with 2 children of her own. I don't know her financial circumstances, but from what they've all posted she has been so much more than a womb for hire. She and her family are still a part of my friends' lives and plan to be so indefinitely.

Not all surrogacy situations are as black as you paint. Their little girl is growing up so loved and doted upon. She is the happiest little creature and they are adorable with her. A baby, cared for from birth by two loving parents. There are much worse situations to be born into.

What else do you expect them to do, stay childless forever?

A baby isn't a right, so unless adopting or fostering yes. Another human is not responsible for making your situation the one you desire. We are not here as accessories for rich people.

It doesn't sound "cold", it sounds misogynistic to the level of the Handmaids Tale. Women are not incubator vessels

Usually when posters compare real life to The Handmaid 's Tale I think to myself oh come on, don't exaggerate. However we do seem to have a real life "Aunt" on here.

In livestock breeding animals are used as living incubators. And for the avoidance of doubt - this comment is solely directed to the poster using and trying to justify this dehumanising term

I just totally feel uncomfortable with somebody being able to use their body to grow another human being and then selling that baby, because isnt that what happens in commercial surrogacy?
If a poor gay couple wanted a baby they can’t have one - because they can’t afford to go to the USA and buy a baby.
So ultimately if you can afford to buy a baby you can - it’s just called surrogacy. Selling a human being - isn’t that illegal or another name for slavery?
Humans are made in a females body indicating that a bay needs its mother. Isn’t it wrong to deprive a child who has no say in the matter of a mummy?
If I’m honest I veer from thinking it’s ok ( hey! The baby will be loved! Look at Elton and David and their boys! All happy. Don’t need a mother, plenty of single dads out there doing a great job etc etc) to feeling very uncomfortable with it.
Is it just too much messi g with nature? If two men were meant to have a baby wouldn’t it be possible for them to do this?

I just find myself more and more uncomfortable with it - maybe I’m just getting old.

There are ways for gay men to have babies that don't involve renting a woman's womb and erasing her from existence. Charlie Condou is a good example of this- coparenting arrangement with a close female friend and they share care of their children.

But in answer to the 'should they just stay childless forever'? If necessary yes. Nobody is owed a child at the expense of somebody else, gay or straight.

@ovahere I have lived through a very similar set of circumstances to you.

I've noticed that, in general, on mumsnet, there's a tendency to romanticise adoption and see it as a catch-all solution to a lot of issues.

I'm very interested as to why lots of people see it as laughable that relinquishing a child for adoption may be considered child abuse.
In my, not infallible, opinion as an adoptee - it absolutely is.
The outcomes are very much the same as for many physically and sexually abused children, the lifelong implications are far-reaching and catastrophic. Just because the state sanctions it, does not make it right. Look up the outcomes in life for adult adoptees. The figures are absolutely horrendous.
I had a terrible time as a teenager, but am one of the lucky ones in that I've been grown to be a functional adult.

To me, it is an absolutely unconscionable act and I would not have anything to do with somebody who (except in very, very particular circumstances) gave up a child.
I understand this is an unpopular opinion.

Surrogacy is far worse - to plan to conceive a child who will suffer unimaginably for your own gain is in my honest opinion one of the most evil things a person could do.

All children deserve their parents. No adult "deserves" a child.

I find this story very upsetting. Those two infuriate me with the language they have used to describe how this baby has been created for them. You’d think they were custom designing an item of jewelry. No reference to a mother for this baby. No thanks or thought to the woman they have paid to give away her child. They have deliberately muddied the waters by using eggs from one woman and the womb of another. Who the hell is the mother?

They speak of her as a machine. A non-person. I hate how surrogacy for gay men erases women from their life-giving role in humanity.

Surrogacy is an insult to the dignity of human life and creation. Women’s bodies are not timeshare apartments.

What will they tell this little boy when he asks why he doesn’t have a mummy? In the case of adoption they can explain that the mummy wasn’t able to take care of him for whatever reason. But this? What do they say? We decided you didn’t need a mummy so we went out of our way and spent a lot of money ensuring you don’t have one.

But Narnia, the point is your friends didn’t do exactly the same thing. That’s the thing Tom Daley and his partner could have done and chose not to.

Instead they went to the US and chose a commercial surrogacy which is a moral minefield and where there are known issues about the exploitation of women.

Pretty much the only reason for doing that is that the only person you give a fuck about is yourself.

to plan to conceive a child who will suffer unimaginably for your own gain is in my honest opinion one of the most evil things a person could do.

All children deserve their parents. No adult "deserves" a child.

This

Oh and we don’t know which of us is your daddy either - what a hoot!

I would share many of the views and concerns around commercial surrogacy but I can't get my head around a the idea that this woman should be forced to be considered the mother if that's not how she views herself.

There was a v sad case I read about a few years ago: a woman had had a hysterectomy due to cancer and her sister, who had finished her family, offered to carry a baby for her and her husband. I struggle to have any issue with that situation to be honest. Because of the laws, it was agreed they would legally adopt the child, but the surrogate sisters marriage broke down (for unrelated reasons, may even have been before this happened) and her husband realised because they were still legally married he was legally the father and could block the adoption- I can't remember if it was out of spite or to extort money.

Anyway, the point is, the baby's auntie who carried the child in no way saw herself as the child's mother. She was a close family member, they will be open and transparent with the child about its origins, and I think it's offensive to consider her a mother in that situation when she is not the child's genetic mother and doesn't see herself in that way.

That situation is a million miles away from people going to India and finding a poor woman to carry their baby, which I agree should be illegal.

There is a need for a broader conversation about this, I do find it odd that it's only really causing controversy when it's too men. Go to the infertility boards: you see many women talking about egg donation as if it isn't anywhere near as significant as I think it is, and still viewing themselves as essentially the biological mothers when I think those children actually should have the right to now some basic info about their biological parent as per speem donation. Then on the other hand you see people looking into surrogacy as though it is purely a service and again, the biology is the most important link.

We need much more robust ethics around this, but I don't think the tone on this thread necessarily helps, as it's projecting onto this woman in a way that is completely denying her agency- it may be she needs that, but there are many cases of family member surrogates where that kind of attitude is patronising and doesn't reflect the situation of the surrogate.

Narnia- what your friends did is as unlike what Tom Daley and his husband have done as it is possible to be and still be a way for a gay couple to have a baby!

I'm someone who lost my mother as a baby. The impact it has had on my life, my mental health, my sense of identity, is immeasurable. I had the glib way mothers are seen as an irrelevance to babies, and the comments that all they need is love, like any adult is interchangeable with the woman who gave birth to you. I WAS loved by both my father and stepmother. That doesn't alter the profound loss of my mother and its impact on me.

Lass I admit I didn't know the history of the term. I don't believe the surrogate is less important than the baby or is reduced to only being valuable for so long as she is pg. I do not support the US system of paying very poor women to be surrogates, because it does lead to questions about true freedom of choice.
The first time I heard gestational carrier used was by Nicole Kidman and it seemed like a 'neat' way of differentiating between biological/genetic mother and carrier of the baby. Imho NC was the mother of her child, not the person who carried the bsby for her.
I don't agree that the surrogate is the 'real' mother (for want of a better term) if it is not her egg. You could say birth mother, but that doesn't differentiate between a surrogate who uses her own egg and one who doesn't and I believe that distinction is important.

Is the money a form of coercion? I'm not convinced. Certainly in some countries it would be, where women have fewer rights over their own bodies or where lack of a decent benefits system could influence this decision. In the UK, not so much. There are surrogates who enjoy pg, want to help others and if they make money too, I think that is their right. I'm not entirely comfortable with women telling other women that they can't do something with their own bodies.

Sorry, forgotten the poster who asked, but yes, I do think that it's tough luck if a surrogate changes her mind, if she is not the biological parent of the baby. I truly believe the parents are the couple whose embryo used.
Women who enter into surrogacy arrangements have to seriously consider what they are signing up for - which is why I think going abroad should be banned and everyone involved should have to undergo proper checks and balances, to avoid it going wrong down the line.

That is an interesting post redress but entirely focused on how the woman may view herself and her rights. What about how the baby might feel?