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 a really important point about the shift in the power dynamic Fanny. It creates a different set of health and choice issues and vulnerabilities for the woman which are quite separate to the issues inherent in IVF, egg donation or adoption issues.

Exactly @FannyCann. The mother is the woman who gives birth to a child. In all situations and circumstances. You cannot give other people rights over another human's body.

And while you may know surrogates that weren't paid at all, the average pay for surrogates in the U.K. is £15,000. Average. Surrogacy is ripe for exploitation of poor and desperate women.

I've had an email acknowledgement

I never said I thought IPs should have rights over the surrogacy. I disagree with the American style contracts.
If you keep using language like “buyers” there is nothing I can say so no point in replying to anything more. I believe the parents should have legal responsibility allocated at birth. I think the pregnancy and decisions during that and labour are up the the surrogate; its her body. But people go into surrogacy and discuss together before conceiving what they would do about testing/privlems found etc. So someone who would terminate isn’t going to match with a surejgatwbwho wouldn’t and vice versa. Surrogates done want to be left with a baby that isn’t theirs.

Anyway I wish you all well and if any of your friends or family have children through surrogacy I hope you treat them as the loving parents they are and not the way you view them on this thread.

A fair few surrogates aren't matched through agencies though and do it for friends and relatives so even though they can agree at the beginning, family or friendship bonds can create pressure and there may not be an agreement in place but just a parental order after the baby is born. It's very complex and not always lovely and cosy.

All I wanted from the public consultation was a fair representation and attention paid to both the negatives and positives, so to make informed decisions and give accurate responses. This wasn't the case sadly and it's clearly playing lip service to the process and is driving changes to the laws that ignore women and rights of mothers.

I'm sure there will be plenty of people responding to the consultation agreeing with you Hug and it's probably those responses they will pay attention to and any dissenting option will be binned.

Haven't had a listen yet but posting for those who might be interested.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09wpmym