Gay dads take surrogate to court after she bans them from seeing twin baby girls

[Cwenthryth]

www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/gay-dads-take-surrogate-court-21231692

This popped up on my Twitter this morning, I thought it might be an interesting case to discuss here. The details are very hazy, and there are two sides to every story, but on the face of it, reading this has challenged my thoughts around surrogacy a bit - poor dads fighting for their daughters sob story, ‘the surrogate’ is painted as manipulative and dishonest. However, I really dislike how the woman is referred to as the men’s surrogate throughout the article, rather than the baby’s mother, or anything in her own right, and there is no regard for the trauma she has been through with a twin pregnancy, premature labour and very very poorly babies. She risked her life to make those girls, we are all very aware how women’s mental health can be severely affected during and after pregnancy. The article doesn’t even reference the children’s point of view/relationship with their mother, ot is all about the gay couple, their wants and their experience.

I don’t really have any conclusions at the moment but wanted to open up a discussion with other FWRers. I think perhaps the current laws are not working as well as they could, reform is probably inevitable and surrogacy isn’t going to be banned entirely any time soon, so needs to be regulated somehow.

Soup no one has the right to a child or to a family, no one, I don't care who you fancy, it's simply not a human right (like how sport is not a human right.)

I agree with Charlie and it is worth noting this this is currently the law but the Surrogacy consultation and the style of questions indicates a clear attempt and wish to change the law.

I'd like to thank this couple and the OP for giving us a reminder of why there are laws in place and for providing a strong argument as to why those laws should in fact be made stricter.

Shall we all write to the Law Commission? Posters here may not have completed the consultation will not be able to submit responses now but you can still email them.

There was never any option to ban surrogacy entirely on the form so I wrote it in the free text.

The mother may well have been prepared to hand the babies over at the beginning of the process but the truth is that she had no way of knowing how/if she would bond with the babies she was carrying and I suspect the early labour, the babies’ vulnerability and their health complications only increased that bond I feel sorry for any woman who has entered into this sort of agreement and bonds with the baby/babies and wants to keep them, real judgement of Solomon time. In this case it reads like she wanted more money or she was keeping them, sounds more like kidnapping than bonding with the babies. Who'd say I love these babies so much I can't give them up unless you give me another £3,000?

I think if it were a scenario where a woman had a baby and then the father said, "I'll pay you £17k to let me parent the child alone and you never have anything more to do with it," we would be appalled. The fact this agreement happens before conception seems to make it more acceptable to people.

'Two tiny newborns here who have been fucked over for life. How horrible."

Have they? Or is there the chance that they're going to be brought up by two loving parents who wanted them and love them?

I am very conflicted about this issue.
One of the men is the biological father of these babies, he has surely the same rights to see them, be involved in medical decisions, and have shared custody of them ?
If this was a straight couple who had separated prior to the babies being born would people be supportive of the mother attempting to 'ban' the father from sharing parental responsibilities for the babies ?
I feel some sympathy for the men, who expected to become parents, why are we less sympathetic that they also are parents of very sick babies than we are to the mother ?
they were then faced with the emotional/grief fallout of their dreams of a family being potentially taken away.

I am another poster who thinks surrogacy should be banned , it can i am sure be marvellous when it works for all but it has potential to be devastating for all as well.

MN surprises me somewhat in the view that women who act as surrogates are all vulnerable, taking advantage of, not wombs for hire etc.
While a lot of women are vulnerable, especially in second and third world countries, we should also remain aware that women are adults, with autonomy over their bodies and choices, no one is forced to be a surrogate. If as a woman i want to use my body ( womb) to make money by being a surrogate, that does not necessarily make me the vulnerable, taken advantage party if the agreement goes wrong.

the chance that they're going to be brought up by two loving parents who wanted them and love them?

Irrespective of that they have been removed from the mother, which as far as I know has been shown to be to the ongoing detriment of the child?

Another one calling for surrogacy to be banned, as it is in most of Europe. Buying and selling babies is abhorrent

Surrogacy is not just buying and selling babies though - what about a situation in which a woman's fertilised egg is placed in a surrogate's womb to incubate (and yes when it comes to basic clinical facts when we are pregnant we are baby incubators) or, as in this case, one of the men being the child's biological father?

People rightly get upset about surrogacy when it goes wrong but all forms of clinical labour (inc. individuals donating bodily tissue or organ donation or patients who take part in clinical trials in exchange for medication for example) are complex and individuals involved are at risk of exploitation. I would call for more regulation not for these practices just to be banned.

MN surprises me somewhat in the view that women who act as surrogates are all vulnerable, taking advantage of, not wombs for hire etc.

Did you miss all the other arguments?

Bodies and babies should not be for sale
Impact on children of removal from mother etc

@Whatsitthingy

Exactly...the two dads clearly wanted these babies very badly .

"Exactly...the two dads clearly wanted these babies very badly."

That's no a good enough reason though, is it?

@ItsallGoingToBeFine

no i did not miss the arguments, I am putting the other side of the 'argument'
that is what a discussion is about...both sides have valid points and are entitled to them.

I did say i thought that surrogacy should be banned...but the argument that bodies are not for sale does not hold with me.
As an autonomous individual i am entitled to choose how i use my body. If i want to rent out my womb that is currently my right/choice.

If bodies are not for sale, do we extrapolate that sperm is not for sale/eggs are not for sale/blood is not for sale/stem cells are not for sale /bone marrow etc etc...

For what it is worth i think the bigger problem is we have a society that now believes being a parent is a 'right'. It isn't and years ago infertile couples adopted if they could or they had to accept they weren't going to be parents.
That was the end of it.

@didl

that was me agreeing with a poster who had replied to a previous poster who said the two babies had had their lives f*ked over...

when some of us see it that they likely are being brought up by two loving caring parents who really wanted them.

not a comment that wanting a baby makes surrogacy right

Another here who believes surrogacy should be banned outright.

Class analysis is your friend here. Not every 'choice' a woman makes is feminist, and even if a woman freely chooses an action which is detrimental to other women and children, it is not a justification for that choice to be endorsed, just as really, really, really wanting something doesn't = a right to have it.

Legal surrogacy is fraught with nightmare situations that cannot possibly be mitigated. It leaves women at a terrible disadvantage, even if it appears benefit a small few. The same arguments against prostitution apply.

And I presume we are due some astroturfing about now.

What we struggle with in society is the idea that what is considered sacred and intimate (child bearing) can be reduced to an economic transaction. Often it's thought that intimate labour and economic activity should occupy distinct and separate domains (think of prostitution for example).

The commercialisation of reproductive labour strikes fear into our hearts because it corrupts what we consider to be the sacredness of of child bearing. But sometimes child bearing IS a commercial exercise - think of the expectation on Royal women to produce an heir for example, or .... the most obvious one .... paying for IVF.

To misquote Plath, "Women are not machines that you put kindness coins in and babies fall out".

At most they planned to pay this woman under £20k. Given the damage a pregnancy can do to your body and mental health, this is sweet fuck all. They then cracked the shits and would rather spend more than the original amount in court fighting her. They are not people who I'd want to hand children over to.

The whole article is them with their begging bowl out grubbing for cash. There is an unspoken thing that surrogacy must be a charitable thing. I mean little girls are taught to be nice and share and always giving and forgiving, and this apparently carries on to when your an adult and its your womb.

I'd like to see surrogacy banned too, or at least regs tightened up.

This doesn't even touch on what impact this will have on these babies as they grow up. '"Daddy, who is my mummy?"

I'd love to know this woman's side of the story. I wonder if she lied about the who the father was because she bonded with them and/ or couldn't bear to hand them over to these two.

And if an egg doner was used, I wonder what she would think of this.

FWIW I think a surrogate mother should retain rights to the child unless she chooses to relinquish them after birth. No one can predict how a mother will bond with a baby in or out of utero. As for the people paying the surrogate, you pay your money you take your chances. This is a possible outcome. If one of the men is the biological father then he has rights to equal custody, sure.

Women are not vessels. Children are not commodities.

This.
Nor are children a right.
If you are unfortunately unable to have children they you need to make yourself a different life (I have people in my family who took this route, one after harrowing repeated miscarriage).
The “they should adopt” response upsets me as whilst I’m sure kindly meant it ignores the reality of adoption - which usually requires parents who are willing & able to deal with traumatised children often with additional challenges.

I think surrogacy being legal is a horrible indicator of our society.

There is an unspoken thing that surrogacy must be a charitable thing

It's not unspoken - it's the law. In the Uk you cannot pay a surrogate except for their reasonable expenses.

Bodies and babies should not be for sale

they aren't for sale - see above

My assumption is that the £17k included the fees to the ivf clinic (which is otherwise glaringly omitted in their list of costs) and this has been attributed to the mother in an attempt to make her look greedy and garner them sympathy. This is misogyny.

The couple also lost my support when they said they did not get to enjoy the first 6 weeks of the twins lives. It implies that having 28 week old twins in NICU is an enjoyable experience. They have a right to be angry they didn’t get a full-term newborn handed to them the way they did with their first child but no one enjoys having their children being kept alive by life support .

For those arguing, they paid for the pregnancy, therefore they should get immediate assess to babies and be able to take them home, it sounds like these were two babies whose futures may have been uncertain for a while. It also raises questions about what clauses need to be in a surrogacy arrangement should things go wrong. Would a surrogate be entitled to agreed payment in the case of a still birth or neonatal death? Should the surrogate offer a discount for pre-mature births because the pregnancy only lasted 6 months rather than 9?

I agree surrogacy should be banned-for the simple reason it is not in the childs best interest to be removed from their Mother.
If people for a myriad of reasons can't give birth-adoption is the kinder route. Get children out of the care system and into loving families.

What is a reasonable expense onemorecup?

Could a surrogate have her pregnancy massages paid for, a tummy tuck post c section? Kim K paid for some post birth Botox (US), it's possible that the surrogate in the daily record article is willing and maybe even keen to give the babies to the couple and just be paid what she is owed, to the full amount they agreed to, that's why we really need to hear from her, but as a concept it raises questions which we are discussing here.

The law allows for 'expenses' and this is essentially a payment which blows the altruism argument.

Lots of countries around the world have banned surrogacy - let’s join them.

Surrogacy should be banned.

So called "contracts" giving men enforceable rights over women's bodies, their uteruses, purporting to terminate women's own rights over their own babies - are not worth the paper they are written on, and they never should be.

You can't enforce a contract demanding someone honour a promise to give you their
future blood, or kidney. We don't force people who have changed their mind to the final conclusion of a proposed, altruistic gift because we must never give one person an ownership or legal right over the body of another.
This would be slavery.
"Your body is mine now, you signed it away, you can't exit the contract."
No.

We do not allow such contracts.
No person can own another person's body.
And no person can terminate another person's fundamental human rights.
They can't be bought.

Agreements, and commercial 'contracts' to terminate a mother's legal and moral right to her son or daughter created by her own body, do not exist, in the UK. They are a pretence. A woman in this country has the enduring right to her child during pregnancy and after birth, right up to the moment she finally signs away - without pressure or coercion - that child after it is born, and when she has recovered from the birth.

I noticed a pp reference a contract as if this is something the law recognised. It doesn't.
Another pp wrote that a mother, once she's promised to give up her future child, can't change her mind, it isn't eBay.

She absolutely can.
THAT IS EXACTLY what the law allows, because the law recognised that women have absolute maternal rights over their own babies that cannot be signed away in advance, any more than you can promise to give up your kidney next year and be prevented from changing your mind.

"Oh but you made a promise, and now you will be forced to keep it" is the stuff of dystopian nightmares.
Rumplestiltkin evil fairytales.

The question we should be asking is how civilised society isn't universally horrified by the very idea that one person can demand a child from the body of its mother, assert a claim, discuss the baby she is growing inside her body, HER baby as if it were pre-ordered and paid for goods that SHE should have no rights over.

We've progressed so far into this nightmare that it hasn't occurred to us to turn around and look back at how far we've strayed from fundamental humanity.

Babies are people.
Women are people.
People cannot be bought or bartered.
Women should not be forced, paid, or coerced to conceive, or terminate, or endure a pregnancy, or give birth, or give up their baby against their will.
Regardless of anyone else's wishes.

Mothers have ultimate parental rights to a child they created and gave birth to. Regardless of who donated an egg or a sperm.
Her body, her womb, her pregnancy, her birth, her baby.
Children have rights to their mothers.
No money, contract, coercion or threat should ever be contemplated that interferes with that default humanitarian principle.

This doesn't even touch on what impact this will have on these babies as they grow up. '"Daddy, who is my mummy?"

I believe that that the person who gives birth remains legally the child's mother in the UK anyway and since 1991 all information about people who donated sperm or eggs has been retained and children of donors can access it.

The impacts on children raised by surrogates is no different to the impacts to children raised by their biological parents. Plenty of biological parents raise damaged children, plenty of children raised by their biological parents are neglected and abused, plenty of biological parents divorce and one or the other abandon their children to the other parent.

A relative of mine used a surrogate in S Korea many years ago and had a daughter who she raised as a single parent (the child is now in her thirties) - my relative tried for many years to persuade her (perfectly happy and well adjusted) daughter that maybe she would like to go and see her biological mother, access her heritage, visit the mother-land - the daughter was completely ambivalent - happier to spend her summers going up the coast with her friends.

Eventually my relative persuaded her daughter to go to Korea and they did, they met the biological mother (who showed little interest in her biological daughter) - they did the sights of S Korea and came home never to return again. Her daughter is one of the most well adjusted kids I've ever met - and she never had any idea who her father was and still doesn't.