Catherine Bennet in the Guardian

[WSPU]

Good piece on surrogacy and a swipe at Maria Miller’s ‘understanding’ of women’s biological reality. Sorry, can’t do linky as on dodgy phone.

The guardian article linked seems very sugar coated.

"What we see on the ground is that the clarity of the US approach to surrogacy actually supports the relationship, with the finances agreed and then put to one side, and with each side feeling the other is benefiting too. Lifelong friendships are common and to be encouraged whether compensation is paid or not."

Not quite what happened with Jeff Lewis and Gage Edwards "I guess we won't be using her again" is it?

Not to mention a lawyer's goal to draw up proper contracts etc. Of course they want a piece of the financial action.
Meanwhile Dustin Black has produced a series about surrogacy on radio 5. I haven't had time to listen to it all yet but it seems hardly coincidental that a man who was shocked at the UK's mean restrictions on surrogacy should be exploring the subject at the same time our lawyers are also working on a review.

Good points bananafish81. Not sure I have any answers. The first point about an increasingly elderly population is in overdrive in Japan, 'super-aging' they call it.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Japan
Shame that 'cost' always appears as a benchmark of our humanity.

Adoption or fostering doesn't have to be the responsibility of infertile couples, any more than infertility has to be the responsibilty of fertile couples...yet this is the crux of what this thread is about...you've tried IVF, so have people in my family (unsuccessfully too), I'm also adopted so...we all find our own way through I guess.

My point is continual population increase is not working out for us as a species (and definitely not for other species) so it would just be prudent to have these sorts of conversations instead of burying our heads in the sand and pretending everything is ok.

Absolutely in agreement Socrates11, these are important discussions to have

The issue of over population doesn't tend to come up much on threads where someone is discussing whether to have a second DC (or even third) - the discussion tends to focus more on whether an only child would be lonely. When posters discuss starting to TTC for a first DC, the question of why don't they just adopt, as the world's already over populated and there are so many children in care in need of loving homes, doesn't tend to get raised.

I don't have any answers, I just wanted to make the point that the question of having biological children when the world is over populated should apply to fertile and infertile couples alike. Which I think we're both in violent agreement about!

I think in the UK with decent access to contraception and no pressure to have large families anymore the birth rate has naturally ended up at around replacement rate so I don't really think we in the UK need to have a conversation about number of biological children we have.

The biggest influence on population is women's access to contraception, a big factor being males in their culture allowing them to use it. Africa is the continent still with the fastest growing population. There are a number of grassroots charities there desperately trying to get the message across that women must have control of their own fertility. When women are in control of things we tend to sort it out. No surprise.

I totally agree it's not infertile couples' responsibility to adopt.

Environment and space issues are why I am against the high net immigration figures we have seen in the last twenty years because I don't believe it's in our country's interests for the population to increase any further. We might manage but nobody can sell it as an environmental good. I'm always amazed how the Green Party ignore it. People pursuing IVF or surrogacy or any individual path like that surely have a negligible effect on population so I would never use that as an argument against providing fertility services.

I did think about adoption desite being fertile but to be honest the children in care are older and can come with major issues because of their birth family and background and it felt like a very different issue to having a biological child.

I'm against commercial surrogacy.

Don't want to derail the discussion any further, but the Lancet study into global population data confirmed what most of us already knew - precisely what you describe about access to contraception in developing countries.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-46118103

There has been a remarkable global decline in the number of children women are having, say researchers.

Their report found fertility rate falls meant nearly half of countries were now facing a "baby bust" - meaning there are insufficient children to maintain their population size.

In 1950, women were having an average of 4.7 children in their lifetime. The fertility rate all but halved to 2.4 children per woman by last year.

But that masks huge variation between nations.

The fertility rate in Niger, west Africa, is 7.1, but in the Mediterranean island of Cyprus women are having one child, on average.

In the UK, the rate is 1.7, similar to most Western European countries.

Whenever a country's rate drops below approximately 2.1 then populations will eventually start to shrink (this "baby bust" figure is significantly higher in countries which have high rates of death in childhood).

Modern adoption isn't for the faint hearted, but I wish more people would come at it as a first choice rather than a "second best because we couldn't have a biological child of our own"

(I've got one bio and one adopted child, BTW)

Listening to Dustin Black's "Surrogacy - A Family Frontier"

I'm enjoying it, it's informative and thoughtfully put together.

California well regulated big business sanitation doesn't mean I'm going to change my views and welcome the same here though.

Talking admiringly about their lovely surrogates who are so generous - why would anyone want to be so generous? Financial screening so people aren't doing it for the money, choosing middle class women, well that's a bit disingenuous, they are still getting a hefty chunk of money that could go a long way towards paying off college fees for instance.

OP - didn't @mumsnetHQ want to change the title so people know what this thread is about?

Their report found fertility rate falls meant nearly half of countries were now facing a "baby bust" - meaning there are insufficient children to maintain their population size.

This is probably a good thing overall isn't it? The earth is massively over populated. Why must population sizes be maintained?

Some capitalists and economists might not like it in their quest for the the fallacy of exponential growth, but smaller, populations can only be a good thing in terms of finite resources. Economies will adjust. Should adjust. We can't keep creating more people just to keep economies going.

Surrogacy must not be commercialised.

OMG. There's a British surrogate who is a one woman baby factory. Two children of her own, 13 surrogates (ten pregnancies including twins and triplets).
At least this wouldn't be allowed in California as she would be screened out as a high risk pregnancy after having a certain number (I think).

Episode 3 of Dustin Black's series.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06w31c0

Iused no. They wouldn’t change it.

They wouldn’t change it.

MN have been happy to do this in similar circumstances where a thread is about a newspaper article etc. Especially when the journalist writes a number of articles which are of interest.

I was quite surprised.

Yes I was surprised too. Perhaps if one or two others suggest the same, they might?