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.

So couldn't the same be said about any man then? When I had children with my DP was he putting me through potential emotional trauma to fulfill his desires to have children?

Presumably you and your DP made a decision to have a baby together, that you would both be raising. I also assume your DP cares about your welfare. Not really comparable to using women as a conveyor belt of wombs and risking their health until you get what you want, and completely erasing them from the narrative too.

When I had children with my DP was he putting me through potential emotional trauma to fulfill his desires to have children?

I'm guessing he didn't interview you or provide financial support based on a working relationship with you that was entirely and solely about your use in providing him with children? And ended with your handing the children to him at birth and walking away? Since you refer to him as DP I'll guess there's a rather different context involved.

Would you say to someone's husband whose wife has had a miscarriage that its not about him, its not allowed to be about him as its the woman that suffers?

To an extent, yes. A partner of a woman who miscarries has the disappointment of the pregnancy loss and planned for child, and the emotional fall out of supporting a loved one who has experienced the trauma and loss of a child dying inside her and the physical ordeal that follows. And the hormones. And the psychological effects. I had guilt for years about the children who'd died inside me, in one case continuing for a week carrying a dead child inside me, and if I'd done anything to cause that, and my disability is directly related to a medical disaster caused by one of those miscarriages.

Please don't belittle, appropriate or negate the reality of the experience of pregnant women to try and bolster the importance of males.

I feel the same way about surrogacy as I do about prostitution - ultimately it's all commodifying women in a way which disproportionately affects the economically disadvantaged and has a high likelihood of leaving them physically and mentally damaged.

I am genuinely sorry for anyone who desperately wants a child and can't have one - I've supported friends through the grief of infertility - but that does not give anyone the right to buy a child from someone else. That's not what is meant by "the right to family life".

In India, the women pressured by family members into free surrogacy were already doing that anyway even when commercial international surrogacy was legal

Maybe so but if you create legislation that bans commercial surrogacy apart from if through a sister (as quoted in my post) or a close family member, that legislation, in turn, creates a situation that puts undue pressure on those women. That is the effect of such short sighted legislation. That's my point. Not whether it used to happen or not.

Surrogate babies show no difference in temperament or behaviour compared to non-surrogate babies.

DId I claim that they did? What I said was there will be implications based on knowing that you were a surrogate - emotional impact of knowing you were paid for, were treated as a commodity etc.

Surrogacy being illegal only exacerbates the risk of exploitation.

Making something illegal doesn't make it disappear (making drugs illegal hasn't exactly worked).^
All it does is make it easier for individuals to be exploited as the legal framework to protect them isn't clear and they themselves risk being prosecuted.

Will you quietly talk me through the process of becoming legal guardians in any Western European country where surrogacy is banned.

Or through how you legally adopt a child from abroad in any of these countries?

The idea that the law can not be used for this subject is in no way comparible to banning alcohol or drugs.

I find the idea that someone sees it on a par with that, very bizarre.

^ surrogate baby

Surrogacy should be banned where the mother is using her own eggs. If another woman's eggs are used then the babies really are not hers and she has no right to them.

No. We cannot elevate the right to genetic material, donated eggs and sperm, over the rights of the mother who literally creates an entire human FROM and OF her body. We cannot assign superior rights to one person over the contents of another person's body.

We cannot reduce a woman to a vessel - first because this is inhumane and unconscionable, and second because this is not what she actually is.
Babies aren't fruit trees. You don't merely plant a pip and presto the sunshine and earth magically do the rest.
A human, a woman, creates every cell of that human from her blood, her bones, her organs, her body, after that embryo implants. The genetic material is a blueprint. But the child is entirely OF her body, OF HER.

The enormity of a pregnant woman's creation of another human is so great that it dwarfs any competing 'claim' made by anyone else over her own to that baby.
A claim either of the person who provided the sperm, or the person who provided the egg.

We must never diminish that physical reality in order to contrive to elevate the genetic contribution over it. To do that is to reduce women's rights over the children they make with their bodies beneath the rights of any man or woman who used her body.

Surrogacy should be banned, full stop.

Regardless of whether a mother creates a baby with her own eggs or with donated eggs.
Creating every cell of an entire baby with your body from the microscopic embryo, and giving life and birth to that baby, is of far more importance and gravitas than donating an egg or a sperm, which is meaningless on its own.

I would rather rewrite as this:
If another woman's eggs are body is used then the babies really are not hers and she has no the absolute right to them.

If you don't want your genetic material to be used by another person who will create, with her body and at risk to her own life and health, an entire human with it, then give birth to that human and have rights to the baby she made with her own body, then don't donate your genetic material for the purpose of it going into another person's body

You can't reclaim a donated kidney once it's been transplanted into another human, because once it's inside their body it is theirs. It ceases to be yours, the donor's.

What becomes part of another person's body becomes part of their bodily autonomy.

So don't give up your eggs and sperm, ever, or any other body parts thinking you can retain some sort of prior ownership over them once they have entered another person's body.

Inside my body? Mine.

The more I think about the issues around surrogacy and egg donation, the more I find myself thinking that egg donation is also fundamentally morally wrong.

The one constant that remains is that we are each sovereign of ourselves and all "within our skin". And that includes the babies that we create with our bodies.

What does it matter if you have siblings you known nothing of, a medical history with gaps, no sense of roots or belonging

There is actually more legislation to protect children born via egg, sperm, & embryo donation, and through surrogacy, in terms of their rights to know their genetic parentage than there is, for example, to protect children born to mothers who don't know who the father is or to fathers who clear off and can't be found. Scenarios that are actually far more common than surrogacy.

Children have the right to be created without baggage already being in place. No one should have the right to set up any child to fail. No child should start their life with the prospect that they will never know if the stranger they pass in the street is their father/mother/sibling. No child should start their life being deliberately deprived of either one of their biological parents

But this happens all the time regardless of surrogacy - especially now with so much divorce or so many children born into step-families or brought up by step-parents. Many children have step-siblings they don't know about and many children are born to biological parents who have 'baggage'? We don't seek to legislate against that.

I feel that if surrogacy is made illegal then so egg donation and sperm donation should be too.
But the reality is that the two latter are seen as ethically ok when, IMO, they carry very similar issues FOR THE CHILD
With surrogate mother, there is the added risk of being left with a baby that is unwell and suddenly not wanted anymore. Or fur her the deal with giving away a child she has formed and attachments too.

I dint quite buy into the physical issues associated with pg bs donor egg because there are many issues associated with being egg donor toi (which is basically IVF with all the issues it entails incl overstimulation). And if we consider egg donation ok (on a physical
Risk POV or ‘using women’s body) then why it surrogate?

@Michelleoftheresistance
Please don't belittle, appropriate or negate the reality of the experience of pregnant women to try and bolster the importance of males

I would NEVER do the above! I have suffered numerous miscarriages myself, at varying times during pregnancy, i know the heartache this carries. Same could be said for my partner, and i believe he has as much right as me to be heartbroken for the loss of our child. I don't need to bolster his importance, he is important!

I think of the person whose egg was used as the 'real' mother. I know that others disagree and feel the mother is the one who grows the baby. Which is why I don't like the whole idea of egg donation and host surrogacy, since it leaves children with no clear idea of who their mother really is.
The woman donating the egg doesn't consider herself to be the parent, yet often neither does the woman carrying the baby since there is no genetic link. It means the resulting children have no mother.

The system of receiving free or reduced cost IVF in exchange for egg donation is equally problematic for me since it is treating women's body parts as something to trade and implying it's not a problem to have your own genetic child out in the world being raised by someone who is a stranger to you. But somehow this is allowed.

But so is the use if a sperm donor
Same issue if some genetic material being left and a generic child somewhere in the world

onemorecupofcoffeefortheroad

Historically, when commercial surrogacy was legal in India, all women concerned had far more control over the situation an could make choices that worked for them.

You might want to get some better information about that. Such as talking to the women who were exploited as birth mothers in non-familial surrogacies. You have no idea how much I wish what you said was true, but it simply isn't even close.

Maybe talk to some of the women in India exploited in this way. The relatives of those who died. The ones who...

Sorry I don't even want to remember all the details. Horrific abuses of women ocurred at industrial scale in India, rent-a-womb scenarios feminists have been warning of for years played out there countless times. Which is why it was made illegal. Which was an enormously progressive step taken by a country which has a lot of hurdles still to overcome in securing equal rights for women. But they took action because it was too horrific a human rights abuse to tolerate in the name of fulfilling the desire of rich, almost exclusively Western couples to have children.

So before you condemn the Indian government for seeking to protect women and children, I urge you to make sure you have all the facts.

Maybe talk to some of the women in India exploited in this way

CharlieParley how do you know I haven't? I've been involved in assisting in research on Indian surrogacy for a number of years and have read and transcribed many interviews conducted with Indian surrogate women. The situation is a complex one and there are a variety of views - not just the 'it's all exploitation' one.

I did not condemn the Indian government - I said there was an unexpected impact to legislation that banned commercial surrogacy but made it okay for close family members. I was referring to some-one else's post that said it should be banned except in the case of sisters.

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.

IMO there can never be enough money to qualify as 'reasonable expenses' for bringing a child into the world to make surrogacy a justifiable project.

Agree re sperm donation too. I think children have a right to know who their biological parents are. I would hate for my DH or brothers or sons to have biological children 'out there' that aren't part of our lives.
I guess also, egg donation (especially that a woman doesn't really want to make but feels she has to in order to get IVF) is a big deal because egg retrieval is difficult compared to sperm donation.

I read in an article about the banning of commercial surrogacy in India onemore of a woman who said it was her body and she could do with it what she wants. She was complaining that her rights to give away a baby she had made in her body had been infringed....but her argument was based on her ability to make that baby to sell for her to have more money. So she was deciding this based on coercion, as has been made clear, if you are rich you don't become a surrogate.

Also, this woman's argument doesn't centre the child, very little of what I read anywhere on surrogacy centres the child.

In the interviews you transcribed from Surrogates in India did you come across anything where the women were thinking about the baby, born or not yet born?

(I'm not asking for detailed accounts, or for you to breach confidentiality, more general feeling, as you have had that experience and can provide insight.)

Children have the right to be created without baggage already being in place. No one should have the right to set up any child to fail. No child should start their life with the prospect that they will never know if the stranger they pass in the street is their father/mother/sibling. No child should start their life being deliberately deprived of either one of their biological parents.

Do you propose banning people from having one night stands then, because a child conceived as a result will be in the same position.

this happens all the time regardless of surrogacy - especially now with so much divorce or so many children born into step-families or brought up by step-parents. Many children have step-siblings they don't know about and many children are born to biological parents who have 'baggage'? We don't seek to legislate against that.

Likewise adoption involves a great deal of baggage and loss and unideal circumstances. No one would argue that this is the ideal anyone dreamed of, it's people making the best of the situation that has gone wrong. No one says when I grow up I'm going to be a step parent. No one gets married and says at the wedding they can't wait to get divorced and raise kids with someone else's ex in a blended family. Very, very few people have a baby planning that the child will be co parented and will move between two homes on a time share basis for the rest of their childhood. The challenges and distress these situations cause for parents and children is all over MN: they're life dominating, life changing issues and some of those children will spend decades of their adulthood overcoming them.

It's the difference between families doing the best they can when things go wrong, and intentionally creating a child to live in those circumstances.

Same could be said for my partner, and i believe he has as much right as me to be heartbroken for the loss of our child.

Yes, he has that right. However he has not has a miscarriage, you sadly have and that is a different experience to the one that your partner has had.

The woman donating the egg doesn't consider herself to be the parent, yet often neither does the woman carrying the baby since there is no genetic link. It means the resulting children have no mother.

Of course they have a mother. The issue is which woman is the mother and not whether or not they have a mother. There is no person on this planet who does not have or has had a genetic, biological mother. They might not have known her but they have all had one. That will be the case until, heaven forbid, eggs can be manufactured in a laboratory.

I guess also, egg donation (especially that a woman doesn't really want to make but feels she has to in order to get IVF) is a big deal because egg retrieval is difficult compared to sperm donation.

Egg retrieval is a 'big deal' yes, presumably the eggs would be retrieved at the same time rather than separately? I don't know but if it's having to be done separately with another round of medical treatment then that's very different to if it is done at the time of the egg retrieval for the woman's own intended pregnancy.

In the interviews you transcribed from Surrogates in India did you come across anything where the women were thinking about the baby, born or not yet born?

Thank you for asking. In many ways no - the surrogate child was less of a consideration than what they might be able to give their own children through surrogacy.

For most, although not exclusively, surrogacy was an opportunity to escape far more exploitative and dangerous work. Women are often employed in sectors of the service economy that involves other forms of bodily labour such as domestic service, or in employment where they are subjected to sexual exploitation, or work in garment factories, where they endure physical and psychological harm, respiratory difficulties, urinary tract infections, and extreme stress from long shifts and bad living conditions.

Some women work in tanneries where they are exposed to toxic chemicals that result in respiratory diseases and increased risk of cancer.
So being able to earn enough money through surrogacy to put your own biological child through school or to buy your own house for many is a preferable option.

I wouldn't go through another pregnancy for anyone , except maybe my DD in very rare circumstances. I'm amazed people do it.

Do you propose banning people from having one night stands then, because a child conceived as a result will be in the same position.

You're confusing the right of any woman to create, not create, terminate or proceed with a pregnancy - which noone here is proposing 'banning' and which right relates to her own bodily autonomy

With the 'right' of a third party (NOT that woman) to take superior 'ownership' of a baby from such a pregnancy - this 'right' should not exist
And also conflating it with the 'right' of a woman to sell her child, which is also a 'right' that should not exist.

Women can make as many or as few babies with their bodies as they wish, and they will have immediate parental rights over any child. The principle of bodily autonomy.

She has the right to surrender that child freely after it is born, by terminating her own maternal rights without coercion, following due process.

What should not be allowable is third party interference in either of those two rights.
Either with contracts, offers of money, gentlemen's agreements, threats, or legal sanctions.