Did everyone know that MN now has a surrogacy board?

[Anothernotherone]

With posts from single men looking for women willing to be surrogates to "help them get a child"

This just popped up in active:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/surrogacy/3698500-I-am-looking-for-a-surrogate-mother-in-the-UK

Following the pro surrogacy infomercial on the homepage a few months ago MN is taking a very pro surrogacy stance - yet threads on surrogacy even in chat and AIBU are usually very sceptical and aware of the absolutely enormous raft of ethical and practical problems with all surrogacy, with perhaps 30% pro "altruistic" surrogacy, and only a tiny minority in favour of commercial surrogacy...

My sister suffered life-threatening complications just from donating her eggs. Surrogacy must be an order of magnitude more risky. I honestly don't even think gamete selling should be allowed.

A huge thanks to everyone who has filled in the consultation, well done everyone.

I'm sorry to hear your sister suffered such serious complications WombOfOnesOwn .
I have been trying to find good statistics for complications, but they vary enormously depending on whose data you look at. This is from what I consider a trusted source, the RCOG 2016,
which gives rates of 3.1% - 8% for moderate or severe OHSS.
Rates vary with different centres, different treatments and different studies but a different source quoted life threatening complications in 1-2%.

At an anecdotal level, the area of the hospital I work in has nothing to do with gynae or maternity. But in recent months two women have come through my department and told me their tale of woe, one requiring ICU and nearly dying from OHSS and the other being very seriously ill albeit not needing a trip to ICU.

There are also other complications can occur at egg retrieval and include ovarian torsion, haemorrhage, pelvic abscess, puncture of the bowel, peritonitis, damage to the ureter. All reportedly rare but none the less sufficiently serious that they should not be understated.

This is without looking at longer term complications such as infertility, and an increased rate of ovarian cancer. All hotly debated as there is such inadequate follow up of egg donors and limited research.

I am utterly shocked that the Law Commissioners have cheerfully excluded all matters relating to egg donation from the Consultation. Egg donors are an essential part of the process and these women need protection from exploitation and with high standards of follow up and on going research.

This is just one of the many major issues in a deeply flawed document that I believe should be abandoned due to the limitations of the Consultation.

https://www.nap.edu/read/11832/chapter/5

https://www.rcog.org.uk/globalassets/documents/guidelines/green-top-guidelines/gtg55_ohss.pdf

Very strange for Mumsnet to be promoting surrogacy... At least they removed the baby buying post.

Thanks Fanny for keeping the consultation active in people’s minds.

Object now also have a help page in how to do it in 5 minutes if anyone is really strapped for time.

www.objectnow.org/news/2019/9/10/surrogacy-consultation-uk

Just competed this in a our an hour usi g the Object answers plus a few of my own thoughts. It looks worse than it is. Not all questions need to be answered. Please contribute

I wonder if all people who are so dead set against altruistic surrogacy have children? Because if you'd just look at what childbirth does to a body why is that ok if it's your own kid but a willing surrogate sister should be prevented from having any complications be ause its bad because she is a surrogate? And the bollocks that baby misses it's birth mum, but people who naturally have babies are fine with leaving a baby with dad because he is their dad after all, while he is just as much a stranger to a newborn as a surrobaby is.

Thank you for raising awareness of the consultation, which I have completed.

Salmon rose, the dad doesn’t force the mother to abandon her own newborn baby. A surrogacy arrangement does. The UN human rights of the child say that a baby has a human right to be with his / her own mother.

A baby is a human being, they’re not a commodity or a present to be given away.

It’s well documented that there is real damage done to babies who are separated from their mothers. Adoption bodies acknowledge this.

Would you think it sad that a newborn baby’s mother died in childbirth?

A baby wants and needs no one else but their mother when they are born. The rights of the baby need to respected. A baby is a human being - no one has the right to a child.

HandsOffMyRights - well done for completing the consultation!

Imo, altruistic surrogacy is entirely limited to family, life long best friends etc.

That's what I thought it was. So imagine my surprise when I went to the consultation to hear the lawyers call complete strangers being matched up for a surrogacy agreement through fee-charging agencies "altruistic surrogacy". And then they spent fully half their presentation time discussing the many different ways they propose for surrogates to be paid, including for their "reproductive services".

This law is paving the way for commercial surrogacy in the UK. That was blatantly obvious from the lawyers' attitudes coming in to the consultation meeting and from their responses to anyone raising objections.

Which was not the impression I had on first looking at the proposals on paper, but the impression I got from the lawyers directly involved. Mind you, on delving deeper into both the issue and the consultation paperwork, I think even that gives the goal away.

Exactly charlie. It's now being used as an alternative to outright describing it as buying a baby.

And even with close family and best friends, I think there has to be a great deal of thought given as to whether someone may feel unintentionally pressured, and to how the future dc may feel.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/apr/27/secret-diary-of-a-surrogate-mother

Altruistic surrogacy: a brother persuades his 48 year old sister to carry twins for him.
Of course the NHS gets to pick up the pieces of these high risk pregnancies and the poorly babies that are delivered.

@CharlieParley Did you go to the most recent Consultation event in London?
I went to one in Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago. When asked why there was no mention of egg donors they said they had confined themselves to issues relating to surrogacy and egg donors would be regulated by the HFEA. When questioned more they threw up their hands and said they weren't doctors, they were lawyers!

The central dishonesty at the heart of the Law Commission’s plans: They recognise that the commercial surrogacy model is not popular in the UK : “14.63 Even with safeguards in place to protect against the exploitation of women, it may be considered that allowing payment for the gestational service a surrogate provides would send out the wrong message about how surrogacy is seen within the UK.”
So in order to seem more palatable and to comply with recommendations of the United Nations they seek an “altruistic” model. However this creates a dilemma as the commissions’ recommendations will lead to a much larger surrogacy industry with many players making a profit but they can't pay the surrogate mother.
“14.54 ^It is notable that other people involved in surrogacy receive payment for their contribution. Lawyers and medical staff receive their professional fees, while private fertility clinics, for example, operate on a commercial basis. Indeed, it seems that the role of surrogate – a role uniquely played by women42 – is the only one that the law prohibits from being recognised by receipt of payment. It may therefore be argued that not permitting payments undervalues the role of the surrogate:
14.55 It may be suggested, therefore, that not permitting surrogates to receive payment is a form of exploitation: surrogates are uniquely deprived of the choice whether to be paid for the service that they provide.^”
Thus they seek to pay women, so as not to be seen to be exploitative, by dressing it up as expenses, whilst maintaining a fiction that it is an altruistic model.
It is nothing less than state sponsored fraud.

FannyCann I went to the one in Edinburgh as well. And asked a question about egg donors

And thanks for the astute analysis. If you don't mind, I'm going to use that for my submission.

@CharlieParley Aha. Well asked. I remember. Sorry I didn't catch up with you after. I was with my daughter and we headed off for
I lost my cool over lack of medical protections for women eg no limit on numbers of surrogate pregnancies they can undertake.

At least I didn't get hissed at like I did in Cardiff !

You spoke very impressively CharlieParley

CharlieParley of course you can crib off my post. I just want as many critical voices as possible to pour ice cold water over the proposals.

In case you haven't seen it here is Nordic Model Now responses.

nordicmodelnow.org/2019/08/30/how-to-respond-to-the-uk-surrogacy-consultation-in-10-easy-minutes/

Anyone wondering about the repetition of objections for some answers this is because statistical analysis is done for each question separately. DD who is studying Quantitative methods explained it to me. So this weekend when I do my final submission I have to edit many of my answers in keeping with NMN advice as it is important not to be seen to endorse any of the proposals.

But individual responses will add to the clamour.

Answers to questions 79 and 107 have been edited by a GP with an interest in obstetrics and gynaecology and are very interesting.

Thanks for the reminder to fill it in.

I also want to highlight the risk of gestational hypertension and pre-eclampsia is significantly increased in oocyte donation and surrogacy. These are life threatening conditions that can cause life at of problems both for mother and baby. Are they proposing tissue typing similar to that done for other transplants? How are they proposing the NHS will cope with the cost of monitoring these pregnancies with increased risk, and the subsequent problems (preterm delivery, increased rate of caesarean etc)

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/26627731/

Interestingly, if genetics are causal in hypertension and pre-eclampsia then maybe familial surrogacy (ie sister carrying for a sister might be safer).

Very interesting research Goulash Thanks for posting.
The increased risks are substantial. The knock on effects for the NHS which will have to pick up the pieces of these complicated pregnancies are significant. It is shameful that the consultation has not included any form of impact assessment related to the NHS.
I will be adding this to my comments when I do my final submission over the weekend.

I thought MN didn't allow people to offer to be, or advertise for surrogates on the boards?
The adoption board is forever being posted on by people trying to sell babies too.

tldr Really? I've never looked. I assume they get deleted pretty quickly.

Yes, really, and yes they do. Horrible.

Bumping this weekend's homework, thanks for the reminder.