Woman asking nhs to pay for US surrogacy

[hoorayforharoldlloyd]

A woman whose cervical cancer was missed by the NHS is suing for over £500k to enable surrogacy of 4 children in the US as she wants the legally binding contract that isn't available here.

Initial ruling found against her, appeal court for, going to supreme court.

Very concerning for opening the way to commercial surrogacy in this country.

This scares me massively. This is not what the NHS is for. This is not what other women’s bodies are for.

Yeah, that would be an awful precedent. Her grief and anger is understandable, but this is not the way to go.

Thanks for this OP, have you a news link? I'd like to read more on this if possible.

www.theguardian.com/law/2019/dec/15/supreme-court-to-hear-case-of-woman-seeking-us-surrogacy-costs

Yes i heard this on the radio this morning. She (and her partner presumably) want 4 children. As far as I know the nhs will only fund ivf for 1 child (we weren’t entitled as we already had a child) so if nothing else I can’t understand that argument. And I also don’t think the nhs should be funding fertility treatment abroad no matter what the cause of infertility. I think the surrogacy model here is correct - the birth mother has rights.

I don’t think her surrogacy should be funded, but I do think she should be compensated for severe medical neglect.

I think if her lawsuit pays out for them missing her cervical cancer then she can do whatever she wants with her money.

We don't police everyone's spend from compensation .

Iirc she has already been compensated to the tune of £500k for the medical neglect. She wants another £500k to pursue a version of surrogacy where the surrogates have so few rights that it’s illegal in the UK.

Nobody’s preventing her from spending any money she has been awarded in that way Bernadette. Commercial surrogacy is illegal in the UK but it’s legal to go to the US and have it there. The argument is whether she should be granted additional money specifically for that purpose even though it would be illegal in the UK as a matter of public policy.

It’s different from (say) a very specialist fertility treatment on her own body which happened to be offered only by one very expensive (say) Swiss clinic. In that case she’d definitely be entitled to claim for it if it was genuinely the only effective treatment.

There was a brief mention on the when I was driving to work. The case is being heard today. So much wrong with it on so many levels. As pp's have said, she wants funding for FOUR, and for a type of commercial surrogacy which is illegal here.
I sincerely hope the Supreme Court do not allow this - whatever your views on surrogacy it cannot be right that the NHS should be forced to fund something that is illegal here.

• on the radio

I quite agree Fanny I don't think cosmetic surgery should be funded by the NHS but commercial surrogacy which is illegal here? How can anyone see that as a reasonable request let alone sue for it!

she's already been awarded compensation. suing separately for more money is inappropriate regardless of the morality of surrogacy. the compensation she had already had is plenty to allow her to buy her way into having children by one means or another. that is what compensation is - a monetary contribution to allow you to buy whatever mitigation might be available for the damage done.

separately, expecting the amount to cover 4 children is unreasonable. if this tragedy had not happened and she had conceived without difficulty first time, there is no knowing whether she might then have had done kind of birth complication which wasn't anyone's fault, or experienced secondary infertility, etc. she needs to accept that lots of people don't get the family size they want and it's not about blame.

I think four is fair enough actually. If the damage she’d suffered was such that conventional IVF would be an option, and she would previously have wanted four children (subject to the uncertainties of life) then an award for enough private cycles to give her a decent shot at four children, (twelve cycles? Twenty?) would be entirely reasonable. Awards do get discounted a bit for the “it might have all gone wrong anyway” factor but only a bit.

Yes, she can do whatever she likes with the money she has already received. (Although many women don’t agree with exploiting poorer women for their bodies) but why should the NHS pay for more?

My brain goes numb at her determination that the state should pay for her to have four children, out of other women’s bodies.

Why can’t she pay for the surrogacy from her compensation? What if she’s successful but after one child she changes her mind. Does the NHS get the rest of their back money back?
It seems an incredible leap to make from being properly compensated for medical negligence to money from the NHS being paid direct to American commercial surrogates. I wish the poor woman well but I hope she’s not successful.

I have sympathy for her medical negligence claim but I have no sympathy at all for this. Surrogacy is nothing more than exploiting less privileged women.

Wow just wow. As someone who is infertile I know it is not my right to have one child let alone four!

I don't even know what to say here.

She already had a massive pay out. A relative of mine had an unnecessary hysterectomy following a mix up with cervical smears at our local hospital back in the 90s, she was told she had cancer when she didn't. She had one child at the time and would have liked more which obviously she couldn't have due to the mistake. She and her fellow complainants got twelve grand each, which even allowing for inflation is a way lower figure than half a million.

And now this woman is seeking more to pay for a process that isn't even legal here?

Gobsmacked.

I hope this gets thrown out. The NHS should not be buying babies

She shouldn't get money for renting other women's bodies, doing something illegal here, and buying babies.

In the theoretical case that this money was awarded - what happens if one of the surrogates is rendered infertile by that pregnancy - would the NHS then be liable for giving her money to complete her family through surrogacy?

If she’s already had compensation, surely that reflects the impact on her life and she could us this money if she wants. If you had fertility issues through no fault of the NHS, they would not pay for anyone to have four pregnancies through IVF as far as I’m aware.

I hope this woman loses, and she has to pay the NHS's legal costs as well. There's no reason why the NHS/public should be funding anyone to have a 4th child.

Who can even say for sure they want 4 children until they already have three?

It was a shitty situation that caused her infertility, but her behaviour since is hard to sympathise with. What if one of her hypothetical US surrogates were to experience a pregnancy induced health crisis that resulted in her infertility (or inability to care for current children)? Where would the litigation end?