Law Commission consulting on paid surrogacy in the UK

[PimmsnLemonade]

Sorry, I've no share token:

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/surrogate-mothers-could-be-allowed-to-charge-cash-gfktl290j

Another move towards the commodification of women's bodies. Very worrying.

I hope the Law Commission actually read the contracts surrogates in the US have to sign. There are clauses in them that are horrendous - if the parents want to abort because of disability, if they want to reduce a multiple pregnancy to a single one, the surrogate has no choice about it. If she objects she has to repay all the costs of the IVF and has full responsibility for the baby (waives right to child support as well).

I can just about get on board with altruistic surrogacy for family members, but commercial? Nope. And I say that as someone who's childless (not by choice).

Several posters on here have said this would be the next step. Women are having their rights systematically stripped away and we seem to be destined for spare parts and breeding potential.

On benefits? We will be sanctioning you if you don’t take this perfectly good surrogacy gig...

We don’t allow paid organ transplants or paid blood donations because we know full well that as soon as you put money into the equation ethics and safety go out of the window. Surrogacy is no different. If it’s allowed at all it HAS to be purely altruistic.

Can we keep an eye on this for the inevitable consultation?

I think that it is good that they are considering it. Under reasonable controls it may be a good thing. I would much rather act as a surrogate than go on benefits. Shouldn’t I be allowed to do what I want with my body?

I would much rather act as a surrogate than go on benefits. Shouldn’t I be allowed to do what I want with my body?

That's not an absolute right. Someone (maybe even you) might prefer to sell a kidney than to go on benefits, but the reason why organ selling is not legal is because it is recognised that this results in exploitation of the poor. (You can say the poor are already being exploited, but this is an additional aspect.) It's treating people's actual bodies and their parts, not just their labour, as a sellable commodity. Same with paid surrogacy, where the 'buyers' (intended parents) are treating the surrogate as a human incubator.

Yeah, you'd only be a surrogate for 9 months so it can never be a long term job. Unlikely you'd be able to do it repeatedly. Buyers wouldn't want you after a while either if you ever had any complications (there'd be younger models available with less miles on the clock). Bloody awful idea.

This is very worrying indeed, and it has been predicted to happen.

I don't like doom-mongering but I am starting to agree with those who say that we are in the middle of a massive backlash against women's rights, and that it is based on women's bodies.

There are also significant health risks involved in surrogacy, which are underreported.

We knew this was likely to happen. So we need to get out ahead of it this time, before decisions are made in back rooms behind closed doors like before.

Shouldn’t I be allowed to do what I want with my body?

You can do what you want with your body. Go sign up for voluntary surrogacy today if you want. Your choice.

What’s not ok is PRESSURE to do it.

Why don’t we have paid organ donation?
Why don’t we have paid blood and plasma donation? Because money introduces pressure.

Both my pregnancies have caused significant permanent damage to my body. There are significant physical risks with a surrogacy. It’s unethical to introduce money because it will lead to exploitation.

So yes it’s your body and your choice - that’s kind of the point.

I don't like doom-mongering but I am starting to agree with those who say that we are in the middle of a massive backlash against women's rights, and that it is based on women's bodies.

Under his eye, eh? Dreadful idea, which I hope will never gain ground here.

Isn’t it odd that most right thinking people are horrified by puppy farms but the govt is genuinely condiser making selling babies legal.

Under his eye indeed.

Shudder.

Pretty much the Same here, Lysistrata.

I’d no hope of ever managing to have a child under my own steam, but I don’t believe I have the right to ask another woman to undergo the risk and the pain for me, no matter how much I could afford to pay her. I was content to remain childless rather than do that, because it’s so against my principles.

Meh, can’t read the full article, so if anyone wants to cut and paste it here...

Can’t see this happening, would be extremely suprised I felt it did as within the surrogacy community we have been consulted with for the past 4 years about our views and how we’d like the law to change in regards to surrogacy. The overwhelming consensus is that we do not want commercial surrogacy in the U.K, or pre birth orders like they have in the us.

Shouldn’t I be allowed to do what I want with my body?
Yes. You can get pregnant and have full autonomy over your body.

What you can't do is sell a baby that your body created.

There are two sides to a surrogacy contract.
There is no way in hell I will accept the selling and purchasing of humans.

Nor would I ever sanction laws that give men enforceable legal rights over a woman's body and health.

We are racing backwards to legalised slavery, only this time women have swallowed the lie that they've chosen it so it should be celebrated.

There have already been cases in the UK where a toddler has been removed from a mother who loves it because the law deemed the surrogacy contract gave owners rights to the 'commissioning parents'.

No-one can sign away their human rights for a price, nor the rights of a child.

I'm genuinely scared we've moved into an era where ethics have been subsumed under men's rights to legally own women.

Legal reformers are looking at whether to change the law so that surrogates can profit from having babies for others.

The Law Commission is consulting on the subject and is to publish proposals in the new year. Sir Nicholas Green, chairman of the independent body, said that the existing laws, which were drawn up more than 30 years ago, were not fit for purpose.

Surrogacy, he said, had increased ten fold in ten years. The main problem was that the law was “quite cumbersome” and often required people to go abroad.

He told The Times that the commission, which is looking at the issue jointly with the Scottish Law Commission, had identified three main areas, one of which was payment.

Sir Nicholas said: “You can have purely altruistic surrogacy where no money passes hands. You can have another form of altruistic surrogacy where compensation or expenses are paid, and that’s what’s allowed in this country. And then you can have a third type of surrogacy based on a commercial arrangement where, for example, a surrogacy agency puts together the intended parents and the surrogate and takes a fee. We don’t have that here.”

He said there were strong views on whether that should be allowed and there did not seem to be a consensus.

The consultation by the commission, independent law reform advisers to the government, is also looking at parental orders, when parentage transfers from the surrogate mother to the new parents. At the moment that process happened after birth and was then subject to “some quite difficult and technical conditions,” Sir Nicholas said, before there was a court order.

“It can take months before the intended parents become the parents,” he added. “What happens if the child is sick? What happens if invasive surgery has to take place . . . what happens if life support has to be turned off? The intended parents don’t have the legal right at the moment so that creates a problem for the hospital.”

Sir Nicholas, 60, who is a judge in the Court of Appeal, sits for one week in four as chairman of the Law Commission, and has succeeded Sir David Bean.

“It can take months before the intended parents become the parents,” he added. “What happens if the child is sick? What happens if invasive surgery has to take place . . . what happens if life support has to be turned off? The intended parents don’t have the legal right at the moment so that creates a problem for the hospital.”

I am not convinced by the morality of or need for surrogacy but this is more pertinent.

Should the parents be allowed to reject a disabled baby? Does that happen in practice? Who decides on postpartum testament? Should a surrogate mother have an absolute right to refuse consent for a parental order?

Isn’t it odd that most right thinking people are horrified by puppy farms but the govt is genuinely condiser making selling babies legal.

Exactly. This particular form of commodification of women's bodies is just as repugnant as prostituting women.

Everything Barracker said. This is horrendous.

www.spiked-online.com/2015/06/01/the-inhumanity-of-britains-surrogacy-laws/

This case horrified me.

This is a really good article, Barracker, and what strikes me is the reference to the way in which the 'moral landscape' has changed since the 1980s. We are now much more comfortable with treating women's bodies as commodities.

And what is also made glaringly obvious by this case is that this is about class and economic inequality. Which will be projected, so that we will get not just economic inequality but also reproductive inequality based on economic inequality. I just don't understand why can't talk about this clearly.

And the language referring to surrogacy reform as making a 'process' less 'cumbersome' seems familiar somehow. Masking very difficult philosophical and moral questions.

No, I do not want this to happen. What is going on at the moment with this onslaught towards women's rights? I find it unnerving and disturbing.

So where can we find the consultation to respond to it?

And what is also made glaringly obvious by this case is that this is about class and economic inequality.

Yes, the comment "I would much rather act as a surrogate than go on benefits." upthread illustrates this.