All-male Law Commission discussing surrogacy

[NotAtMyAge]

An excellent and justifiably angry article by Catherine Bennett in last Sunday's Observer.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/09/who-better-than-men-to-rule-on-delicate-subject-of-surrogacy-law-commission

That is an excellent article, thank you for sharing it.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3606313-The-Rumplestiltskin-Law

There’s also a thread going on this topic

Ooh, very good. Surprised the Guardian published it. Aren't we all meant to believe that selling women's bodies is empowering now?

This is v concerning.

Good article.

The genetic links stuff. That if it's a donor egg there is no link to the 'gestator'. This is a male view. For them genetics is all, they only provide sperm. For women there is a genetic contribution from the egg and also impact on the child during pregnancy as the baby is grown of her body, a womb isn't a bag separate from the person it's housed in no matter how much some people like to present it that way, notably, anti abortionists.

The baby is a part of her, listening to her voice and heart beat, it is impacted by her moods etc (stress eg is not good, have positive emotions been looked into?). She gives birth to it and her body will be ready to feed it. To say there is no connection between them is a massively male perspective and harks back to the days when men owned the children that the women birthed.

Yes this is all v worrying.

That’s such a good article. I wish more people were talking about it.

*Later in her career, Baroness Warnock, architect of the UK’s fertility legislation, apologised for having “got surrogacy wrong all those years ago”. The 1984Warnock reportshould not, she said, have condemned the practice^

No- she didn't get it wrong. I feel vindicated however that after the first IVF baby in 1978, teenage me, never having read a feminist book in my life, recognised the problem.

Hopkins’s reforms seem more sympathetic to the delusion, long cultivated by fertility industry shysters, that the desire for a biological child – because others may have one effortlessly – cannot justifiably be thwarted. “Sometimes,” the report says, rather carelessly of the implications for property, “surrogacy can be the only way for people to have children who have a genetic link to them.”

Whilst I don't disagree with any of this - who exactly are the "fertility industry shysters" she is referring to?

The idea that having a baby by any unnatural but scientifically feasible way is an inalienable human right is shared by women and men.

Tbh I'm not sure having only men as members of the Law Commission makes any difference. There are plenty of women who support surrogacy.

Thanks, Chatty I looked to see if there was another thread before starting this one, but didn't spot that.

Great article. Thanks OP. We all need to respond to this consultation.
It’s been set up as a rubber stamping exercise as this starting point is that there is general support for it.
There’s no way that most people in the UK would support it though if they were aware of it.
The consultation states in its introductory text that they did a first round of consultation in 2017. They received 341 responses that they claim were broadly supportive of full commercialisation of surrogacy. 341, hardly a valid number!

Even though the consultation is intimidatingly long -118 questions and 500 pages including the explanatory text, we need to just choose one, where we can voice our opinion. The more responses the better, so that this horrible inhumane regressive law can’t be passed.

And in response to Lass, I think being a mother absolutely is of importance in terms of understanding what it means to separate a baby from a mother. The fact that an entirely male group is determining what will be the fate of a massive group of disadvantaged women does mean they lack the lives experience to understand the physical and emotional abuse involved in setting up a baby to never be with its mother.

Entirely agree Joan - thanks for prompt about consultation

I also think having more than one thread is fine - this one is specifically about an article on the subject. There are after all many more trans threads with every development.

Great article from Catherine.

Ooh, very good. Surprised the Guardian published it. Aren't we all meant to believe that selling women's bodies is empowering now?

The Guardian has several women writing for them who are definitely feminist, not woke. Catherine is very good as are Hadley Freeman and Deborah Orr, both of whom outspokenly defend women's rights in the paper and on Twitter. I've only just tracked down Catherine on there.

And in response to Lass, I think being a mother absolutely is of importance in terms of understanding what it means to separate a baby from a mother. The fact that an entirely male group is determining what will be the fate of a massive group of disadvantaged women does mean they lack the lives experience to understand the physical and emotional abuse involved in setting up a baby to never be with its mother

Plenty of women have used surrogates and plenty of women have been surrogates. This idea of "you can't understand unless you are..." is a dangerous way of making policy.

Baroness Mary Warnock, who initially was opposed to surrogacy but changed her mind, is the mother of 3 children.

If she were on it your argument about the necessary lived experience falls flat on its face.

'Plenty of women have used surrogates and plenty of women have been surrogates'

But it's perfectly valid to have the decision made by a bunch of people who never have and never will be pregnant and give birth, and further have no idea of the experience of even being female and so even less chance of being able to empathise, ie men.

Every day we see examples of how little most men understand the female experience at all. Or even want to try. Yet they are, and always have been, the ones deciding what we can and can't do with our bodies, what we must do, what we must be shamed for, and etc.

The argument that it's a great idea to leave it all to men to decide everything in law about women is a shit idea and has been through history.

Christ alive this is FWR let's all give up and go home eh the men know best for us little ladies

If she were on it your argument about the necessary lived experience falls flat on its face.

It doesn’t actually. The argument isn’t we all, with the same lived experience, will think the same. The point is, you need at least half the commission who do know, so that decisions affecting women are made by other women who will have insight into what impact it can have. An all male commission is a disgrace. Men deciding if rich people can pay poor women for use of their bodies is a bad idea, it shouldn’t need spelling out why that is.

The argument that it's a great idea to leave it all to men to decide everything in law about women is a shit idea and has been through history

I am not saying that. I am saying there is no substance to your arguments that a woman will see any objections to surrogacy.

The point is, you need at least half the commission whodoknow, so that decisions affecting women are made by other women who will have insight into what impact it can have

Well Baroness Mary Warnock thinks surrogacy is fine; my husband would ban it.

You do not need a woman to make this decision. You need people who can objectively look at the normalisation of the ever increasingly unnatural ways of creating babies to order and the commercialisation of that process.

Frankly, if anything given this sorry mess was supported by infertile women in the first place I don't see why you place reliance on a female candidate.

You’re really not getting it.

No , I'm sure I'm not. Stupid me.

Equally I don't get why you place so much reliance on "female insight".

This issue affects humanity. I think there is a serious lack of logic being displayed here.

I am not sure it is lived experience so much as the hierarchies of power which affect people differently. Thus the threat in my opinion of legalising commercial surrogacy comes from the reality that it will be women who are in more desperate circumstances who see this as a means to make ends meet, possibly also to provide for children they already have, with a risk of exploitation for those women. These are decisions which male people will never have to make, because they do not have the reproductive capacity. Sperm donation is not analogous because it does not involve more or less growing a baby, feeling that baby inside you etc etc, and then having no rights over that baby.

It is a sex-based, probably also racialised, issue and the reason having an imbalance of power in the decision making body is problematic is because there is more likelihood of that imbalance and the hierarchies of power being replicated in the decisions made.

I also think there are issues for a baby in being taken away from its mother (using mother in the sense of having grown and birthed the baby, not genetics) - and I think it is barbaric to plan to do that in advance. I hesitate to use the word barbaric because it is so strong but I am struggling to get my head around the extent to which the commodification of child-bearing is being normalised.

Sorry in my point about imbalance of power, I missed the obvious point about wealth (ie class) being the biggest differential.

This issue affects humanity. I think there is a serious lack of logic being displayed here

By you. This issue affects women primarily, as the sex class that carries and births these babies. Not including women on a panel to discuss an issue that affects women more, is sexist bullshit. This is not a hard concept. It’s not a new discussion. It’s pretty much a huge part of feminism, making sure women have a say and have power over things that affect them. It’s just idiotic to argue it isn’t.

These are decisions which male people will never have to make, because they do not have the reproductive capacity

I think the killer point is that no one would contemplate consulting on legislating on matters which would affect religious or ethnic minorities without including them within the decision making panel.
If you want to argue experience shouldn’t matter, fine, but that should be applied across the board. The fact it isn’t, and that it’s always biological females who are left out, tells us a lot.

Thus the threat in my opinion of legalising commercial surrogacy comes from the reality that it will be women who are in more desperate circumstances who see this as a means to make ends meet, possibly also to provide for children they already have, with a risk of exploitation for those women

And the reality is there will be women exploiting those vulnerable women. Try reading the final few posts on the Rumplestilskin thread. There's plenty of the precious female insight there - and all saying surrogacy is wonderful.

This thread reminds of equally blinkered posts on threads about abortion - that only women should have a say in framing legislation. Good luck with that- in the UK polls show it is women, not men, who want to reduce time limits.