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

I don;t have a close relationship with my father. But when I see him I know where I have inherited various traits from. It does help us understand ourselves.

Thank you WhereDoWeBegin

Rage at being questioned over what he's done. He wasn't stopped from doing it. He did what he wanted. He got what he wanted. But he's enraged that we talking about it in the context of women's rights. This is raw hatred for women.

Given that it is hard to adopt as the bar is set very high, and given that a surrogacy is basically an adoption, why don't the prospective parents have to undergo the same process as with an adoption?

Money.

Actually commercial surrogacy for heterosexual couples was only banned last year in India. And even since the ban on gay couples a few years before clinics have been finding loopholes to get around the law such as moving the women across the border halfway through pregnancy, in addition to offering 'preterm' csections to accomodate the work schedules of the IPs. Any body defending this process is severely lacking in humanity.

@pratchet I think even more important than woman's rights in this instance, are children's rights.
Not to minimise the suffering of women in this context.

Some women are choosing to participate in this.
Absolutely no children are.

You are totally right to draw attention to the problems involved in this.

And to everyone else who has shared their experience of growing up deprived of a biological mother - thank you. I have never felt less alone, after feeling like I've been shouting into a void about this issue for years.

I wonder who is getting up in the middle of the night to make the feeds? Change the nappies? A nanny? A woman?

Children's rights do not override women's rights or men's rights.

And I'm not discussing abortion in this. Because abortion is totally different.

given that a surrogacy is basically an adoption

Not if the baby remains with it's biological father

It's like you all think that a father is completely irrelevant and only the mother matters.

My father was a vastly better parent than my mother was.

Broadbeans you are of course right. What was I thinking.

Oxfam....starving women and children?Yeah we can solve that by paying to fuck you.*
Woman from India poor and destitute?Yeah we can solve that by you selling us your baby.

This!

Women, we will treat you appallingly and subhumanly, but we will pay you for it so suck it up and quit moaning.

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180628120036.htm

Peer-reviewed study here of the psychological development of children of same sex couples (including some conceived by surrogacy) vs children of heterosexual couples.

On reflection actually, I feel very uncomfortable with the insinuation by some on here that e.g. a lesbian couple are being abusive by denying their child a father. Also, that same sex couples are being selfish because nobody NEEDS a baby. Well guess what? Heterosexual couples don't need a baby either- the world's population is at breaking point. But people WANT to start families for various reasons- it's just that it's extremely easy for heterosexual couples to do so and therefore very easy for them to say that their way should be the only legitimate way to have a family. My position is that children need love and stability and that doesn't have to come from two people, or two people of opposite sex, or indeed people who share the same DNA as the child. That does not mean I agree with buying babies or whatever, but I think surrogacy is more nuanced than that.

In UK family law the rights of the child are supposed to be paramount, with their best interests above all else. Except it seems when it comes to surrogacy and then everything we accept about being best for children is routinely ignored.

@placemats I honestly believe any normal, rational adult who wasn't completely selfish would place the rights of the children involved above their own wishes in this situation.
Particularly as the children are being created solely to satisfy the wants or needs of the men and women in this situation.
What on earth is wrong with you?

Peak
The sex or sexual orientation of the people buying the baby matter not to me. Its the buying of a baby the renting of a womb that I disagree with.

@pratchet not to say that this isn't a huge women's rights issue, of course.

you will be happy to know that surrogacy for overseas parents was banned in India several years ago. All women involved have now returned to their lives of destitution and misery.

I'm sorry - you're acknowledging that women were choosing surrogacy over an alternative of destitution and misery, and you think that's some kind of gotcha to feminists arguing against commercial surrogacy?

yes, well done. you certainly showed us the error of our ways there.

Broadbeans A parent can desert a child through a partnership or a marriage and the law cannot force that parent to be a parent.

In what way is this helping the child?

Even though some biological mothers are not the most loving kind, to have known her means not having the question marks over your psyche for your entire life. "What if?" "Does she?" "Why?".. the lack of resolution and suspense could colour everything.

If you have a terrible mother - at least you know where you stand and you can move on.

Broadbeans Usually it is the father who abandons the child leaving the mother and child to seek a 'better life'. And no, I'm not projecting. What the law says is that the mother must allow the father all access to the child to smooth the way towards an amicable agreement. How is this in the interest of the child?

@53rdway quick, we better all get buying clothes from sweatshops too! Better keep those children in employment!

And gosh, we better employ the services of underage trafficked children while we're at it too. If their traffickers don't make any money, how will they feed them?!

some people have a seriously fucked up view of the world.
In this arsehole's case, I'd hazard a guess that it stems from never having anyone prevent his self indulgent desires.

That should be the father leaves behind the mother and child so he can seek a better (sex) life.

Yes imagine having two male entitled arseholes for parents. Twice as bad as one.