And so it came to pass: Mail on Sunday - gay male couple offered fertility treatment including surrogacy

[Needmoresleep]

www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-6636419/Gay-male-couple-offered-IVF-treatment-NHS-time-Britain.html

Oh ffs, think of the women.

People need to get their head out of their entitled narcissistic arses and stop thinking that having a child is a human RIGHT.

It certainly should be be funded by NHS and tax payers ‘ money. This makes me furious. It’s unethical and it’s corruption for the government to piss tax payers money up the wall for this sort of thing, and we don’t have a say.

Should not be..

It also massively devalues women's role in pregnancy, birth and mothering - just another commodity to buy.

It's a slippery slope.

I'm thinking this might actually be a clever move by the NHS. They are addressing the TRA demands that fertility treatment should be available to all but then putting parameters on that make it difficult to actually happen.

However, there is a great danger that abuse will happen to break down those parameters.

I'm still really confused - why is IVF required? Can they not just inseminate the surrogate?

I'm guessing the surrogate won't be using her own eggs so they will also need a donor and IVF. It really is just treating women like spare body parts to facilitate the wants of men.

The surrogate will still have to undergo hormone treatment prior to implantation.

The whole thing is horrific. So much unnecessary medication.

I have to say I'm very surprised the NHS is funding this - I know things are better in Scotland - but still...

Sadly I'm sure the outrage will be more about money than the women involved

It's buying babies. I can't support commissioning babies like you'd do a house. It's just flat wrong.

Not to mention egg donation is much more dangerous than any of these services like to admit, and IVF is hugely invasive. The NHS should not be getting involved when perfectly healthy people want to do something that they can't do by virtue of being the wrong sex - that's reality, not discrimination.

Are the NHS going to protect the welfare of any women involved, ensure they are not being pressured or exploited, give them counselling or psychological assessments which aren't currently required for surrogacy? It's utterly bizarre that the NHS are funding 'treatment' for 2 men, neither of who will be the patient.

The NHS is missing a trick here. They could roll out an egg donor drive, and make a fortune selling the resulting product. You'd get a cup of tea and a slice of cake each time. OMG I think I've accidentally referred to another thread...

In Dustin's podcasts he recoils at the thought of the surrogate providing the egg. This is for two reasons:

In the USA you can choose the egg donor from a catalogue. Particular physical features maybe but especially high IQ is valued.
I assume clever college students get to partially fund their fees by selling their eggs.

The person who chooses surrogacy as a career is unlikely to be part of that demographic.

Also, whilst he waxes lyrical about his wonderful kind surrogate who is best friend ever he certainly doesn't want quite such a close relationship with them as the surrogate actually being the biological mother of his baby ie 50% parent. He certainly doesn't want them to have any parental involvement or responsibility after the baby has been handed over. He talks a lot about "safety" meaning surrogate has no legal rights if they decide they want to keep the baby.
So using a donor egg keeps that distance and makes it a purely service transaction.

I assume there is also a race element. If surrogates are being paid there will be a strong chance that the fathers are rich and white, and the ‘gestational carrier’ poorer and darker.

The whole thing reeks of servitude.

It's eugenics isn't it.

Don't want the egg of the poor unfortunate who is desperate enough in life to resort to selling their body as a gestation device. Chances are they don't have a phd and an ISA.

Women broken down to their body parts to service the wants of consumerist men.

No thought for the babies and their biological heritage.

Let's just make women and children commodities to be bought and created at the will of men. This is hubris.

Fleetwoodsnack, that is awful. The world has gone mad xx

So, as this is to ensure equality, I guess the situation would be the same for a hetero couple where it is known that the woman cannot go through a pregnancy, for a medical reason?
Find a donor and also a surrogate? Is that a usual thing in the UK?

It’s complicated. The argument that you tint have a human right to a child could be used to argue against all fertility treatment 😓

Discussing this over lunch and my 7 year old daughter exclaimed: that’s not fair! Suppose the baby doesn’t want to go? 😯

I think someone above mentioned it was immoral to produce a baby specifically to take it away from its mother. I guess as adults we often get caught up thinking about the rights and feelings of other adults, rather than the baby itself 😪

The thing is it isn't a human right because they need to use somebody else's body. If they can't find a surrogate they can't do anything. You can only have a 'human right' to try for a child if you are both using entirely your own body parts.

Are the NHS going to protect the welfare of any women involved, ensure they are not being pressured or exploited, give them counselling or psychological assessments which aren't currently required for surrogacy? It's utterly bizarre that the NHS are funding 'treatment' for 2 men, neither of who will be the patient.

Indeed.

Fertility is part of health, infertility is not the norm.
Healthcare can cure or compensate for disease or damage to the reproductive system.
One might argue that any non life-threatening condition need not be addressed. No need for corneal transplants or hip replacements, people can cope well enough without.
But healthcare works within its limitations to restore people to the best healthcare standard possible to improve their quality of life.
So a blocked fallopian tube can be unblocked to restore fertility just as a blocked ear canal can be unblocked to restore hearing. Neither are life-threatening but optimal function can be restored to improve quality of life.

In this scenario every participant begins healthy.
By the end, two formerly healthy women have been caused significant health risk, pain and possible permanent damage, even risk to life. And a child has been created and removed from its mother.

Who is the patient in this scenario?
What health condition is being treated?
Who is receiving treatment?
How are they benefitting?
What is the risk?
Who bears the cost?

I had no idea. From the programme linked upthread -
In a Cambodian hospital, a group of terrified new mothers nurse tiny babies under the watch of police guards. They're surrogates, desperately poor women promised $10,000 to bear children for parents in China. But they were arrested under new anti-trafficking rules, and now they face an agonising choice: either they agree to keep children they didn't want and can't easily afford to bring up, children who aren't genetically theirs - or they honour their surrogacy contracts, and face up to 20 years in jail. Tim Whewell reports on the suffering as country after country in Asia cracks down on commercial surrogacy - and asks whether the detained mothers are criminals - or victims.

Always women are the ones who are in the wrong.

Grandma that's just horrific