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 did Woker - it made me think of that too. The guy had a whole business going with a gang of vulnerable women.

It makes me think more of Handmaids Tale though. Throw in some pseudo/psycho religion, a military coup and patriarchal movement and we're all set for series 3!

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

It doesn't matter whether you are voluntarily or voluntarily infertile, gay or straight, parenthood is NOT a right!! And never should be. Or we are indeed heading towards a Handmaids Tale.

voluntarily or INvoluntarily infertile

It doesn't matter whether you are voluntarily or voluntarily infertile, gay or straight, parenthood is NOT a right!! And never should be. Or we are indeed heading towards a Handmaids Tale.

Seconded. I can’t believe this even needs saying

So much shite all my adverts have turned to cat litter to cope

I vote we ban surrogacy

Anyone else remember when the Catholic church had private adoption clinic's? They closed them rather than let gay people adopt? Or that was the intention anyway

I can't sell my children. It's rightly banned. Just as I wouldn't be able to sell Joan next door or my mum.

Why can I sell my baby? Why is using women as incubators to grow a baby for you because you cannot (or cannot be bothered - I direct you to an alarming post on surrogacy board here) bear one yourself acceptable?

At what point does it become acceptable to sell a child? Is it only if that agreement is made before the baby is born?

The whole system is a nightmare

we are indeed heading towards a Handmaids Tale

Nah. The British are Stroppy, bloody minded so and sos who don't do co operation. And the female of the species is more deadly and bloody minded than the male. And a hell of a lot better organised.

When you think of the hoops ordinary people have to go through to adopt an existing child, like everything else money talks even when a child's life is involved. Can't adopt? Just buy.

And under what circumstances must the NHS fund? I notice their website mentions single people but I haven't dug further
but are they really saying that the NHS should fund IVF surrogacy for any individual, single or couple, who wants a baby but can't gestate one themselves.

Really?

I know IVF funding is contentious anyway but IMO there is a massive difference between a couple who cannot reproduce because of a medical issue (i.e. a m/f couple where one or both has some fertility issue) having IVF using the females own body, and an individual or couple who would never be able to reproduce within their current arrangement. And then another gulf again to funding IVF surrogacy.

Funded IVF surrogacy for single men? Nah, sorry.

Didn't know that about the UK requiring genetic material from at least one intended parent.

“Obviously, a huge scare for us. But it’s the same for the surrogate because they don’t want to be left with the child and all the legal responsibility.”

Ban surrogacy then. Problem solved.

My god. There are thousands of childless couples in the UK.

Infertility is a reality for many. 20% of women in the U.K. will never have children, do they all whinge and moan about wanting to purchase a kid?

About wanting the NHS to foot the bill.

Self-absorbed entitlement, such a lovely trait in a future parent.

No way. Ban surrogacy now.

On Chicago Med (A US hospital drama, bit like a soap really) they showed what can happen in emergency medical situations. I'd read the appalling US surrogacy contracts before, but this was actually how one would be implemented.

Surrogate presents to hospital with asthma, five months or so pregnant with twins. Intended parents turn up. Scan reveals one twin has severe problems that if untreated may eventually kill other twin too. Doctors say can either wait and see but may lose both twins, or selective reduction.

Surrogate wants to wait and see. Intended parents want selective reduction. Dr says that the surrogate is the patient, it's her choice. IP get their lawyer into the hospital room of a sick pregnant woman and threaten all sorts of legal action and tries to bypass her wishes by going to the hospital's legal team. Surrogate is terrified as she can't afford to pay back all her expenses and the cost of the IVF.

It all got resolved perfectly amicably in the end with the surrogate putting her life on the line going through an experimental treatment to try and save both twins. Being TV of course it worked and everyone was happy.

DH and I haven't been able to have children. Under no circumstances would I pay to have another woman go through it and buy the child: I often see people saying that until you've been through infertility you don't know you wouldn't. Well, I've been there and I wouldn't.

I can just about get my head around altruistic surrogacy - so for your sister, cousin - but even that I'd probably ban if I could. If that does remain legal, I do think it should be tightened up so that only those with a link to the parents can become a surrogate, not just finding them on Facebook.

Also please note the 4th recommendation:
Parental orders available...where neither partner has used their own gametes. Ie has no genetic relationship to the baby

This jumped out at me, if the child has no genetic connection to either intended parent then it becomes completely ridiculous.

Especially when it is a heterosexual couple who have made themselves infertile intentionally.

No genetic connection really is just buying a baby isn't it? No egg, sperm or gestation... I struggle to call it much else tbh.

I think altruistic surrogacy should require evidence of a long standing solid connection with at least one of the couple involved.

Either bearing a child that is going to be adopted by a couple is a gift: that is, a free choice made by the woman; or it’s something that can be compelled by a legal contract.
Jake is covering up a rather nasty idea with pretty words. The aim is to take away the woman’s choice, power and control.
I hate the word surrogate. It’s purpose is to minimise the woman who gives birth.

*•Parental order/surrogacy birth data should be centrally and transparently collected and published annually.
•IVF surrogacy cycles and births should be accurately recorded by fertility clinics/ Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA).
•NHS funding should be made available for IVF surrogacy in line with NICE guidelines.
•The rules on surrogacy-related advertising and the criminalisation of this should be reviewed in the context of non-profit organisations.

Aand....Of course...the NHS must fund. *

And meanwhile there's a 4 months long waiting list for breast and bowel cancer screening and a huge backlog in the cervical cancer screening programme.

Of course some of those are women's cancers, so...

...birth data should be centrally and transparently collected...

...cycles and births should be accurately recorded...

Oh, biological reality matters, then?

Well that's creepy. Unsurprising, but creepy.

Dear TRAs, women are not the axolotl tanks from Dune and are not created by nature to be at your disposal.

Intended parents like Jake and I are worried that a potential surrogate could get attached to the baby and not want to give it over.
How very unreasonable of them!

I hate commercial surrogacy. It's so fraught with potentially serious problems. I want to see it banned!
I can just about deal with altruistic surrogacy in some circumstances but it has to be assessed on an individual basis.

Women's bodies and babies are not commodities to be bought.

I don't know if this pair are intending to have a 'genetic connection' to their putative, surrogate-given child - but not to insist on a direct genetic connection is to enable the obtaining of a child by anyone who decides they want one, for whatever reasons.

If the law was changed as proposed and intended parents had no biological link to the child how much is it a step to say.. Produce a child then sell it?
I don't think all surrogates are poor vulnerable women just as not all intented parents are as pure as driven snow...
But with no biological link I can see not a slippery slope but a bloody great precipice
I'd ban all surrogacy, and I don't think altruistic surrogacy is less fraught. I'd imagine emotionally even harder

Jake "hoping someone will give us that ultimate gift"
"Hannah" on the laws of surrogacy-"Intended parents like Jake and I, are worried the potential surrogate would get attached to the baby and then not want to give it over".
These people made themselves sterile and now want a law to say a surrogate can not change her mind.
Brave and stunning.
Under his eye.

What a fine pair of misogynists.