The Law Commission has Government backing to review the laws around surrogacy, to “streamline” the process, and having agreed government funding, the independent law reform bodies “will strive to make sure that the UK has surrogacy laws which work for everyone in the modern world”.
https://www.lawcom.gov.uk/surrogacy-laws-set-for-reform-as-law-commissions-get-government-backing//_
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/06/keeping-up-with-the-kardashians-paying-other-women-to-have-your-babies-surrogacyy_
Personally I would like a review to ban surrogacy all together, as I remain implacably opposed to surrogacy under any circumstances, and I wish our Government would follow others around the world that have banned surrogacy. I was surprised after a quick look at (yes, I know) Wikipedia to see how many countries ban surrogacy outright including France, Germany, Spain, Iceland, Italy, Sweden, Serbia, Switzerland. An increasing number of countries in the developing world recognise how their vulnerable citizens are being exploited by wealthy international clients to provide a baby factory for the world and are following suit. India, Thailand, Nepal and Cambodia have introduced various restrictions – either outright ban or bans on international arrangements. In Cambodia 32 women who embarked on surrogacy and have been arrested for human trafficking are now in a desperate situation : they must either agree to keep children they can’t afford to feed, which aren’t genetically theirs or face up to 20 years in jail.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001bppp_
The European Parliament rejected surrogacy in a 2015 non-binding resolution,
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/03/left-wing-feminists-conservative-catholics-unite/520968//_
and European feminists have urged the UN to ban it outright, describing it as “incompatible with human rights and with the dignity of women” and “reproductive exploitation” that “undermines the human dignity”.
Feminist writer Marina Terragni who authored the anti-surrogacy book “Temporary Mother” says “To me, fighting surrogacy, it’s part of fighting the patriarchy,…For thousands of years the patriarchy has tried to reduce women to livestock for reproduction, and this is a newer, more extreme form of it”.
Sadly I fear that the ship has sailed in the UK, I believe the general public are so unquestioning, they lap up the joy of the Kardashians and other celebrities who have had children via surrogacy and see it as an entirely acceptable process without a second thought about who the suppliers might be. So the current plan is for “streamlining” and modernising and the laws to provide protection to buyers and surrogates.
I have listened to all six of Dustin Lance Black’s programmes on BBC Radio 5
Surrogacy: A Family Frontier. (Iplayer radio).
I have enjoyed the programmes which are informative and cover all aspects, Dustin is warm and empathetic, baby Robbie Ray gurgles endearingly in one of the programmes.
But make no mistake, Dustin bridles when he comes up against an opposing view, he thinks most of the opposition in the UK boils down to homophobia and he is doing what he can to break down any taboos and to advise the five lawyers currently reviewing our laws with a plan to make the UK every bit as welcoming to parents seeking surrogate arrangements as California is. And lawyers like Natalie Gamble with her ready made agency Brilliant Beginnings are queuing up to be at the front of the gold rush, leading the charge of lawyers looking for a piece of the action.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/04/surrogacy-money-law-women-payments-fairr_
And how business will boom. There will be a need for egg donors, no doubt students will be encouraged to sell their eggs to fund their studies like they do in California. Egg donors with evidence of a high IQ are much sought after.
There will be counselling. Screening. Contracts.
And I believe Britain will be a very attractive destination for international buyers. American customers would make a substantial saving if delivery costs are born by the NHS compared to the medical fees in the USA for instance.
Even now, with less and less NHS funded IVF available fertility services are increasingly the preserve of the rich. How much more will this be the case with a gold plated surrogacy service. No doubt less wealthy Britons will continue to try seek a budget purchase, exploiting impoverished women in areas of the world with less regulation.
How will this impact the NHS? You may say that the infertile couple would have been entitled to an NHS birth, but what about international clients? I do not believe Britons should be providing a service to the wider world, and at the very least I want to make sure that British surrogates providing babies for foreigners do not do so at the expense of the NHS. Dustin interviewed one surrogate who was a one woman baby factory - she had two children of her own and had produced thirteen babies via ten pregnancies counting twins and triplets. (It wasn’t clear if that was thirteen plus her two or including them). It is important that any legislation absolutely limits the number of times a woman can do this, both to protect the health of the woman and to protect the NHS from having to deal with high risk births.
I plan to write to the Health Secretary Matt Hancock and to Simon Stevens, head of the NHS for starters. If laws are to be “streamlined” then other implications must be considered and prepared for.