Mermaids 'power couple' Hannah & Jake Graf say surrogacy laws must be changed to force women to hand over babies

[QuietContraryMary]

Jake & Hannah have joined a surrogacy agency and want to rent a womb. Hannah says, however, the law should be changed to compel the rented woman to hand over the baby at birth.

www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/transgender-couple-ready-start-family-call-uk-surrogacy-law-141118630.html

I just read this article. Couple who have deliberately sterilised themselves want to bribe poorer woman to sell her baby.

Nice.

It's not even "just" about the rights of the surrogate mother (although obviously her rights are hugely important for reasons discussed above).

I used to think I agreed with voluntary altruistic surrogacy, but then I read more about the attachment an unborn child forms to its biological mother (and by that I mean the one whose womb it is carried within) due to her voice etc, and I also read about emotional issues common in children born from surrogacy.

And now I think that to remove a newborn from its mother straight after birth is incredibly damaging and therefore a type of child abuse. I am so sorry for anyone struggling with infertility but I don't believe surrogacy is the answer - it isn't in the child's best interests.

we're going to need a lot more surrogates

Yes and when demand outstretches supply in this way it can’t be good for poorer women.
I imagine that it’ll become normal for it to be suggested that someone can ‘just be a surrogate’ when they are going through financial hardship, kind of how ‘being a web cam girl’ or lap dancing is seen by some as a perfectly normal way to make money for uni.

We’ll all be branded homophobes and get given the analogy SPERF’s (surrogate parent exclusionary radical feminists) for objecting and told it’s a women’s right to be able to sell her womb.

Then there’ll be the agencies ran by men who cream off the profits by putting parents in touch with wombs.

We look back at Magdalene homes, and are disgusted at the way babies were taken from poor desperate women.

At Tuam in Ireland where 800 children are buried on one of these sites, and multiple others were trafficked to paying Americans, a decision was only taken a month ago, in December, about how Ireland's political establishment intends to start dealing with that one site. There are many others. Some not yet investigated.

The UK government cannot simultaneously pick up the pieces of a 100 year old disaster of child trafficking and removal of women's rights, in some cases talking directly to survivors and families of the trafficked and dead, and witter virtuously about how awful it all is, while re establishing it in law for the next generation to suffer the same way.

This is so fucked up

Creating any situation where there's a contractual obligation on a woman to deliver is pretty frightening. Along with the issues raised above another one for me is pregnancy complications/illness; I had horrendous hyperemesis in both pregnancies and it was utterly soul destroying. There were times I hated my babies, there were times I thought about abortion as I threw up bile for the 25th time that day. I battled through - and in part was able to do that because I was carrying my much wanted baby. It's not unheard of for women to chose to abort due to hyperemesis and I have nothing but sympathy for those who do. But how does that work if you have a contractual obligation to deliver?

ownership

Gosh, we’ve come so far since the slavery abolishment act of 1833. What a brave new world we live in.

And yes, it’s funny how everyone knows what a woman is when we’re being stripped down for parts.

This is disgraceful. We must watch closely for when this gets consulted/starts to be legislated. They aren’t slipping this past without a fight

It looks to me like I was bought and sold. You can dress it up with as many pretty words as you want. You can wrap it up in a silk freaking scarf. You can pretend these are not your children. You can say it is a gift or you donated your egg to the IM. But the fact is that someone has contracted you to make a child, give up your parental rights and hand over your flesh and blood child. I dont care if you think I am not your child, what about what I think! Maybe I know I am your child.When you exchange something for money it is called a commodity.

theothersideofsurrogacy.blogspot.com/

We need a serious rethink on surrogacy and all donor conceived babies.

I wonder if jake and Hannah can't afford time and money to go abroad that is why they are harping on about this.

I can see that if you remove the trans agenda from the issue and look at it solely as a surrogacy issue, it's so complex.
Especially if the child is biologically the commissioning parents. They have effectively "rented" a womb. At a price. And should they not be afforded some consumers rights?
Then on the other side of the argument that surrogacy can prey on vulnerable poor women or the young who cannot fully grasp what they are getting into?
I do have sympathy for infertile couples who use a surrogate who then changes her mind. It must be devastating.
What we need is an overhaul of the law, to include criteria for counselling pre any embryo transfers are done. Counselling for all parties, focusing on the issues about attachment and implications of handing over a child or accepting a child.
But a law to protect commissioning parents in event of disability or miscarriage is an awful prospect.
On the flip side.. There was radio 4 programme recently about a s Asian country, and I am sorry I can't remember which, which recently outlawed surragacy and those ladies pregnant were locked up in a hospital and were going to be forced to keep the children... The children were not biologically theirs and may not be same ethnicity and now doomed to a life of poverty when their bio parents were left heartbroken.
It was awful.. So both sides of what can be wrong with surragacy.

We should call it "the human property" law.
Or just "slavery 2.0"

Yup. This.

I too am amazed at how many are willing to completely forget about the rights of the child not to be intentionally created to be taken from its mother. Does nobody understand a thing about pregnancy, the connection, the reason it’s important? This upsets and enrages me in equal measure.

Women are not incubators and children are not objects to own or sell.

But I thought TWAW - from what I've seen plenty go through menstruation including the need for san pro, ice cream and rom com boxsets. Surely conceiving and carrying a sprog should be a doddle?

There was radio 4 programme recently about a s Asian country, and I am sorry I can't remember which, which recently outlawed surragacy and those ladies pregnant were locked up in a hospital and were going to be forced to keep the children... The children were not biologically theirs and may not be same ethnicity and now doomed to a life of poverty when their bio parents were left heartbroken.

Surely that’s just an issue with changing the law suddenly and not an ongoing problem?
They should have grandfathered the law in.

Well its an ongoing problem for those women and children, isnt it?

Here it is.

Crossing Continents - A Stark Choice for Cambodia's Surrogates - @bbcradio4
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001bpp

Yes of course it is, but not one with outlawing surrogacy. It was a badly managed law change that created the issue not the law itself.

Like I said before they should have grandfathered the law in rather than changing it at once.

I would imagine that there is a huge difference emotionally for the resulting children between different types of surrogacy and egg donation too. I know all have challenges but I'd imagine that from the point of view of a child growing up there is an enormous difference between "my mum wasn't able to sustain a pregnancy so my Auntie June carried and gave birth to me using my mum and dad's embryo" vs "My biological mother was impregnanted with my dad's sperm, she gestated and gave birth to me then gave me away. My parents paid her $30k to do this" - and all the different shades there are in between.

I'm aware family surrogacy is often discouraged for other reasons btw, I am just talking specifically about how those situations might feel for a child/teen/adult coming to terms with their origins.

It's funny how for all the TWAW mantra everybody knows who is really a woman when they need them for their body parts.

FUCKING THIS!!! 👆👆👆

Jesus Christ

I didn't see these guys on Lorraine but I did catch the end of the programme where she was referring back to them and reading the messages.

She kept saying how 'lovely' it was that 'all of the messages' had been so positive and supportive, read a few out, and then said again 'oh it's so lovely that everyone is so supportive of this, it makes me so happy', with a smile plastered on her face.

It was very obvious that not all of the messages had been positive!

So - how long until surrogacy is an option at the Job Centre? Sanctions for refusal, of course. Even more sinisterly, what if a surrogate is raped while carrying the baby? Will the people who commissioned the baby have the ability to sue for damages?

littlecabbage I agree.
I find it difficult subject to navigate partly because some mums do not bond during pregnancy ( which is perfectly fine) nevertheless the baby will have a bond to all that it has known for its first 9 months of existence. The baby’s needs should be prioritised.

It needs establishing now, in law, that children are not a right, not an entitlement, not a necessary accessory to a chosen identity

This

It's funny how for all the TWAW mantra everybody knows who is really a woman when they need them for their body parts

And this

One of the big arguments in the transgender debate is that young men and women are deliberately making themselves infertile in order to 'transition'.

'Well its fine, they can just use a surrogate when they are ready for kids' is a nice convenient come back for that isn't it? Addresses that little sticking point nicely...

They had a film crew in their home recently, if that's it at it's TV best, it's not a safe environment for a child.