SURROGACY CONSULTATION ENDS ON FRIDAY 11 OCTOBER - PLEASE SUBMIT A RESPONSE [Edited by MNHQ at OP's request]

[howonearthdidwegethere]

The Law Commission's consultation on surrogacy ends on 11 October. Please consider submitting a response. Needn't be long:

www.lawcom.gov.uk/project/surrogacy/

If you're not sure how to respond (the main document is 502 pages long!), there are already two great submissions you can draw on:

This one from nia, the VAWG charity run by Karen Ingala Smith:

www.niaendingviolence.org.uk/perch/resources/surrogacy-consultation-response-october-2019.pdf

This one from Nordic Model Now:

nordicmodelnow.org/2019/08/15/the-law-commissions-surrogacy-consultation-how-to-bamboozle-through-a-dangerous-new-law/

That's an excellent submission. I think the law Commission are going to be surprised to find their proposals don't meet with the unanimous approval they expected.

Also very pleased to see they picked up on a certain FOI.

I'm going to attempt to do this now, or at least start.

This is hard. I don't even understand the questions...! Using Nordic model answers. But want to add in my own thoughts

"We provisionally propose that, in England and Wales, the court should be placed under a duty to consider whether to make an order awarding the intended parents parental responsibility at the first directions hearing in the proceedings. "

What does this mean?
"at the first directions hearing in the proceedings"

Is this about the "intended parents" automatically being the legal parents?

Thanks for the link the WPUK response-it is really good. I am so happy that WPUK have responded, that makes it harder for the Law Commission to sideline women’s voices once women’s groups are involved too.

As WPUK point out, it does feel that when you read the 25 page ‘summary‘ document, very shocking that the one-sided pro-surrogacy views are all literally quoted like endorsements alongside the Law Commission’s own proposals, saying how good these ideas are. where is the neutrality and the objectivity?
Plus the LC use ‘gender’ when they mean ‘sex’ in their documents which is quite telling politically. )

It feels like people (well, men) who seem to know little about this complex, contentious area, or who perhaps were politically motivated in a specific direction around surrogacy, just went to off the lobby groups and let them draft away.

It’s not hard to imagine that actually happening, because this area is difficult and complicated and these groups had already won the voting system that had chosen the Law Commission to cover this topic of surrogacy in the first place, by making a big response- so the Law Commission already knew which groups would have a clear position that they would want them to follow.

But is that how the UK wants to recommend national law reform on massively socially contentious subjects though? What do the Law Commission think their job we pay them for actually is?

Do they know that they are not a political think tank funded by party donors or businesses or lobby groups?
Do they understand that they are not free to come up with their own independent, partisan recommendations based on lobbying or on their own political beliefs?

They are a public sector organisation and regulatory capture is completely unacceptable. These are all of our institutions. The law commission are publicly funded by taxpayers to investigate ideas for legal reform which affect all of us. So who is running this show?

The LC’s recommendations need to be absolutely scrupulously evidence-based and unbiased, based on having developed a deep knowledge of the topic over the years of the project, which means speaking to all sides of the issue.

As WPUK note, they’ve more or less excluded women and mothers and women bringing up kids, apart from a few who are also willing surrogates. Which doesn’t even, obviously, cover the views of all surrogates.

It’s a classic case of a lack of diversity in thought and representation in action.

Ooh well said Chatty
I will quote you in my final email comments!
Thank you.

Fanny in view of the increased risk of preeclampsia in surrogate pregnancies (especially with donor eggs/multiples) I think it’s worth emphasising the long term consequences of this on the health of surrogates.
These would be a three to four times risk of hypertension, double the risk of heart disease and stroke, increased risk of diabetes. This according to a preeclampsia charity.
Those claiming that the adults in the arrangements are aware of all the risks are probably exaggerating.

Fanny thanks but Catherine Bennett said it all here- I was just really shocked how right she is when I have read the actual consultation proposals..

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

I've just done mine, took about half an hour over it.

Another well thought out and detailed response to the consultation here from an organisation called NIA, a group I wasn't previously familiar with.

www.niaendingviolence.org.uk/perch/resources/surrogacy-consultation-response-october-2019.pdf

Just submitted mine using the Nordic Model answers, which seemed to match my views most closely

feels good to have submitted a response and stuck it to the disingenuous wankers who designed that consultation with the clear aim of excluding the public from taking part

Just read the Nia Ending violence response thank you for adding that link to the thread. I thought it was a really excellent and hard-hitting response.

Just sent mine off. Did it across a couple of days in between chasing a toddler and cleaning up toddler messes. I found filling it in made me so angry. The absolute lack of understanding of what it's like to go through pregnancy and childbirth (e.g. the lack of understanding that a lot of women are simply not in a fit state physically to make lifelong decisions directly after birth), the utter contempt for the rights of all but the richest and for the children born of surrogacy. It was chilling. Whoever wrote that really, really hates women and views children as commodities.

Big thanks to the Nordic Model Now's team whose response I personalised. If it wasn't for them I doubt I could have completed it. I just don't have the time.

Also big thanks to Fanny in particular but all the posters on here who have made me think more deeply about this. I've gone from a fairly disinterested "surrogacy is what you do if you're rich and IVF doesn't work" to "surrogacy involves buying and selling children for the whims of rich adults, can never be ethical, and should be banned".

I thought the response pointing out that the kennel club recommend more safeguards around female dogs than this consultation does around female human surrogates really summed up the whole thing in a nutshell. Just chilling.

It's great to see so many people sending in responses. I'm also in awe of Nordic Model Now for their download as I am sure this has helped generate a lot more responses. I was helping my teen send a response this evening, and realised how designed it is to be off putting to anyone who hasn't got a vested interest to respond. Look at the long list of "stakeholders" that you can tick, with "other" at the bottom if you aren't a stakeholder. Talk about spelling out a message "Not wanted here. This isn't for you".

Also I was reading a bit today in the consultation about midwives/nhs management of surrogacy. Apparently surrogate mothers and intended parents had a list of complaints about obstructive hospital staff, doing things like not letting the baby be handed over to the intended parents on hospital property or letting the baby be discharged from hospital separately from the mother.

Midwives and other hospital staff all have mandatory training in safeguarding. The (surrogate) mother is THE LEGAL MOTHER. Any surrogacy contracts are not legally binding.
It seems to me that all the actions complained of are exactly what the staff should be doing for the protection of the (surrogate) mother who is their patient and focus of their care and for the protection of the baby. They can't just hand it over to some random couple rock up and saying "we're the intended parents, here's our contract". No doubt they could behave more sympathetically or might be openly hostile in their manner, but I'm sure at the end of the day they would have been being entirely professional.

Given these complaints it beggars belief that there was no meaningful collaboration with either the RCM or the RCOG during the consultation. I am also furious with the RCM who had their annual conference a couple of weeks ago. I am no longer a registered midwife and no longer a member of the RCM, but I've had a look around their website. There was a very brief mention of the consultation, saying something along the lines of "you can respond to it if you want to". No position statement that I could find.
And NO discussion about it at their conference (I checked the programme).
But these proposals have massive implications for midwives and the NHS maternity services.

I think the WPUK letter addressed some of these issues very well.

It is appalling they haven't specifically sought out midwives etc as consultees or involved them in writing the consultation (maybe they didn't because midwives might be less likely to adopt a 'we're just assuming this is a good thing /inevitable and it's all about tinkering with the legal niceties' approach) but yes, the RCM should be all over this. But it's a very off-putting consultation, only the most tenacious could possibly do it on their own and I'd imagine midwives might feel there are more pressing demands on their time.

Gosh, so shocking that you can't just turn up at a hospital with a contract and go "I'll be taking this baby now" without the staff asking some pointed questions.

Done and submitted.

It wasn't as detailed and extensive as I wanted. But at least something has gone in.

I also lambasted them for the impenetrable design of the consultation. Definitely not inclusive. It was obvious they only wanted a handful of responses from legal firms and didn't want the public engaged at all.

I agree that it’s a terrible consultation. The first questions about judges and lay justices are obscure and off-putting.

If our government is concerned about Britons entering into poorly-regulated and exploitative surrogacy arrangements abroad, surely the answer is to tighten up the regulations allowing these babies to be brought/trafficked into the UK? Not lowering our standards to make UK surrogacy more commercial and exploitative?

Commercial surrogates are in such a vulnerable position. They tend to be much poorer than the intended parents and they often have lower levels of education. Also, the payment arrangement itself creates a power imbalance.

Then there is the fact that women are particularly vulnerable during IVF treatment, pregnancy, childbirth and the post-natal period. The idea that a woman recovering from childbirth (and experiencing a hormonal rollercoaster) should be in a fit state to challenge a parental order in court shows a real lack of understanding and compassion.

Indeed ProdigalKittens One gets the impression the Law Commissioners agree too, those bolshy bigoted midwives eh.
Of course if they get their way the baby will be handed straight over to the commissioning parents. Dustin Lance Black talked of how when he and Tom had their baby in California all the paperwork was wrapped up before the baby was born so everyone knew he and Tom were the parents, the staff knew, it was all so simple.

I'm also amazed at the entitlement - the surrogate mother was placed on a maternity ward post birth. Where else in the hospital should she go. A private room? Well I haven't been in a maternity ward for a while but my memory is of a small number of single rooms available on the wards and they are reserved for women with medical need - poorly mothers, mothers with a baby on NICU or a still birth. One hospital allowed them to be booked and paid for (around £50) a night unless they were needed for another woman with a medical need.
Should wanting to give your baby away trump those needs? Do they think that after paying £££ for the baby they should get a private room for free?

Honestly I think that list of complaints shows ignorance of the law and the workings of a maternity service. No more than you'd expect from a bunch of male lawyers I suppose.

bumping this one

I keep thinking about this (I only knew about it thanks to this thread BTW). Surrogacy is not something I or anyone close to me has been through, consequently I've never given it too much thought. Yet again this board has opened my eyes.

Bumping.

I replied last night and was grateful for the assistance from the linked organisations. It's not an easy consultation for the general public to engage with.

Really don't want to see the changes rubber stamped because those in favour can access the language while many of those against will be excluded.

Lexi has posted an update on the FOI sent to the Law Commission.

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/publicconsultationnonproposed

Personally I'd love to know the objectives of the meetings they had with all those organisations, family law firms etc, if they won't give up the meeting minutes maybe we will get to know what the purpose was at least?

I'd also love to hear from just that One adult who was born from surrogacy.

Come on everyone, one day to go!!!

Open letter from Nordic Model Now to raise objections to the consultation with the Law Commission. One quick signature so get signing. I hear they have over 600 signatures so far.

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdp16TCOzpaHnPuMdxs2pvkaM6g7NPuP3mguJrvBY5ds57VuQ/viewform

I want to keep this bumped.