Surrogate dies in childbirth, leaves behind two of her own kids

[ConfessionsOfTeenageDramaQueen]

"According to the post, Michelle and Chris decided to help another family who wasn't able to have children after they were done having kids of their own.

Michelle was on her second surrogacy for the same family when she lost her life.

Like any other pregnancy, surrogate pregnancies involve the same medical risks of carrying a child and giving birth."

This makes me really angry. Link below.

www.foxla.com/news/california-mother-of-two-dies-giving-another-family-the-gift-of-life?fbclid=IwAR2RgBrXZnWZa1DES4PQWDYMifkY7YCpLy6WVEOoHj6cD145L9Xof1Iy4mI

What it is to be a woman is being attacked on all fronts now. Surrogacy law changes(women's bodies and motherhood as a commodity) part of a wider pattern.

"It is very different to a free country where a woman (surrogacy is obviously female-dominated) may freely choose to become pregnant"

"A free country"?!
This is a ridiculous excuse for an argument. It's already been addressed in excellent posts about "choice". A patriarchal, capitalist country in which economic and sexual inequality and oppression exist is not a truly free country.

"Female-dominated"
What an absolute joke!

Female-dominated
What an absolute joke!

What forms of surrogacy are you referring to, when and in which countries? Which men do you feel would be oppressive if a woman freely offers to help a couple in the UK?

Don't you think an organisation originally founded by a group of surrogates who wished to help others, would be female-influenced at all? Obviously there are many valued male intended fathers and male partners of surrogates. But no, they don't get to give orders to, or assume priority over, women due to their sex.

Perhaps "female-dominated" wasn't the right word, but a "joke"? Good surrogacy arrangements are absolutely not about coercion, misogyny or control, they are about friendship, consideration and respect.

they are about friendship, consideration and respect.

Which can all change rapidly given certain stressors. Relationships can break down, friendships can turn on decisions, and respect can be lost.

Which is why any surrogacy arrangement needs to be based on everything that can go wrong, not based on a collective 9-12 month breath hold hoping everything stays hunky dory.

In other words, it’s not possible.

if I want to find how many women in the uk have gone through genuinely "out of the goodness of my heart" surrogacy I actually can't find the data.

That's frustrating and I hope a lot more research takes place. Legally every surrogacy in this country should be "out of the goodness of (her) heart" but no, this may not currently be so.

At the moment, from what I can see, research often seems to include international and commercial arrangements, and UK arrangements from a long time ago, mashed together with current practice and experience. I assume the best stats on altruistic arrangements would come from the organisations and their members, although I'm not sure how you'd find out the number of independent arrangements. Maybe a freedom of information request to clinics? Even the granting of Parental Orders might not just be the UK "goodness of their heart" ones as it could include overseas arrangements. I don't claim to have all this info either.

con people into believing that there are loads of women who just love being surrogates so much we need to make it easier for them

I don't think anyone has said there are "loads of women" coming forward as surrogates in the UK. Not all intended parents are offered help by any means, as it depends on friendship and free will. Naturally that's consistent with not "buying" a surrogate's help as a "service" or "job".

If it was all fine and dandy, why try to deny the fact that every mammal on the planet has a mother?

If a surrogate has a baby for a couple, why do you want them to call themselves the mother when they have no wish to?

Why pretend that having no contracts is the same thing as a selfless act?

They're not the "same thing", but can occur at the same time.

Which is why any surrogacy arrangement needs to be based on everything that can go wrong

I totally agree the agreement must include this, as well as deciding on all the postive aspects. The government guidance does indicate that unlikely scenarios, including "relationship breakdown", should be included.

Government guidance from the Department of Health, Oct 2019

What to include in the agreement
Each surrogacy arrangement is different and it is important to explore each part of your plan carefully. Key parts of a surrogacy agreement may include:
• IP(s)’ details;
• surrogate’s (and partner or spouse’s) details;
• marital status of all parties at conception;
• pre-conception arrangements;
• conception arrangements (embryo creation, clinic or home insemination details, number of cycles, number of embryos to be transferred etc.);
• pregnancy arrangements (health and well-being, emotional support, tests and clinic/ante natal appointment arrangements, for example, how much information the IP(s) will be provided with and how much involvement they will have with appointments and decisions);
• birth arrangements;
• post-birth arrangements;
• things that could go wrong (miscarriage, still birth, multiple pregnancy where a decision may be needed on foetal reduction, decisions to terminate, breakdown of relationship) and how you would intend to handle these scenarios;
• communication and future relationship, including how open you will be with any children about their origins;
• legal implications and parental order application arrangements; and
• expenses and costs (how much will be paid, when it will be paid and how it will be paid – it is also important to consider if payments will be staggered, and under what circumstances payments to the surrogate might be stopped, increased or decreased) including:

• surrogate’s expenses;
• surrogate’s partner’s expenses;
• treatment costs;
• legal costs; and
• other costs.

things that could go wrong (miscarriage, still birth, multiple pregnancy where a decision may be needed on foetal reduction, decisions to terminate, breakdown of relationship) and how you would intend to handle these scenarios;

And as I’ve said before, there are so, so many things in this category that

a) you can’t make an arrangement that doesn’t mean someone sacrifices decision-making rights and
b) you can’t predict that someone won’t change their mind half way through and you’re then asking them to be beholden to decisions made months before.

To take the example of termination: it may be decided to terminate beforehand but there can be no way of knowing someone won’t change their minds when it comes down to it, and what are you going to do, force her to do it?

It doesn’t matter how well all that huge list is discussed and agreed upon beforehand because anything could change at any time and there’s no way the agreement could be enforced without a major infringement on someone’s rights.

How do you reconcile changes to any agreement half way through a pregnancy?

Yuk.

Buying babies is never OK, no matter how many lists you make.

Female-dominated

Uhh that's just female. Only females could carry a baby. So it's not dominated, its solely.

and under what circumstances payments to the surrogate might be stopped, increased or decrease

But it's not about the money so people keep saying.

If I was desperate for money and could in fact do this (aside I thought long and hard about doing this at one point) I could see ways that multiple hundreds of pounds could be siphoned off, possibly a few grand. Without exerting myself, if I really wanted to I could cream way more off with a bit of thought.
If i who can no longer have children and am not a criminal can think of easy ways to get cash from this, then anyone slightly unscrupulous could do the same or coerce a woman into it.
You cannot legislate for that.

My point, mops, was that there is a serious lack of honesty. That leads to mistrust and makes me (as a relative lay person) question their motives.

They're not the "same thing", but can occur at the same time.

Obviously. That doesn't answer the question though. (To be fair, my question was rhetoric and I wasn't expecting an answer.)

If a surrogate has a baby for a couple, why do you want them to call themselves the mother when they have no wish to?

Because words have meanings and facts are real.

All naturally conceived mammals have one mother. Mammals born through surrogacy / IVF can have two - one genetic (provides gamete) and one birth (gestates). Or possibly three or more - adoptive (raises offspring). What no mammal on the planet can have though, is zero mothers.

Tbh, this is fairly basic biology and is easily understood by the vast majority of the population. Again, this makes me question the motives of those who are trying to deny basic facts.

What if the commissioning parents are both male? Who is the baby's mother then? Someone must be.

Whoever's egg was used.

So a woman who uses a donor egg to conceive and gestate a baby isn't that baby's mother @ClumzyOwlz? Even though she's legally that baby's mother and gave birth to that child?

Ridiculous. The woman who donates the egg is the egg donor. The woman who gestates and births the child is the mother - and she will be on the birth certificate as the mother, won't she?

If the child is later adopted she would be relegated to "birth mother" but the word mother is still in there!

Whoever's egg was used

The law disagrees.

I strongly recommend 'Broken Bonds: Surrogate Mothers Speak Out', by Renate Klein, Jennifer Lahl and Melinda Tankard Reist. It's mainly chapters written by women who have been surrogate mothers and their experiences. It was an eye-opener and very shocking.

Model Caprice describes her surrogate as ‘babysitting’ for nine months. This is a common opinion in America. There is no respect for the risks and sacrifices a surrogate makes or the bond they might form over the nine months. We really don’t want that attitude over here, sadly surrogacy is becoming less controversial now and the rights of surrogates will be watered down for the ones with the money.

Model Caprice describes her surrogate as ‘babysitting’ for nine months. This is a common opinion in America.

Not only in America, sadly. Go back a few pages and you'll find posters making the exact same analogy here.

Babysitting? The abuse of language by the elite to justify their actions is obscene and needs to be called out every time.

How long before anti-abortion campaigners say that all pregnant women are just babysitters?

I used to babysit as a student to make a few extra quid.

I don't recall it ever involving morning sickness, swollen ankles or pushing a baby out of my body. If it did, I might have demanded a wee bit more than 5 quid an hour.

5 quid a hour for a pregnancy would be above 30k which seems quite high compared to the fees 'atruistic' surrogate mothers in uk can receive...

I reckon if you babysat an actual born-baby, 24/7 for 9 months, all by yourself, you’d be pretty bloody bonded with it and not at all keen to hand it over to the person who asked you to look after it in the first place.

Babysitting? The abuse of language by the elite to justify their actions is obscene

Which "elite" do you mean? Situations where celebs decide on surrogacy just because they don't want to be pregnant themselves? Commercial oveersaThese don't apply in the UK, yet still "babysitting" and "giving the baby back to its parents" are terms which some surrogates in the UK choose to use.

Infertility strikes at random, and the desire to help willingly is not based on money. Infertile women, and the women who offer to help them, are from all backgrounds. Some surrogates are well-off, some aren't, and the same goes for intended parents.

I strongly recommend 'Broken Bonds: Surrogate Mothers Speak Out

I don't doubt the women are giving their honest personal accounts. However, the book was compiled by anti-surrogacy campaigners, with the publisher "Spinifex Press" being sponsored by "Stop Surrogacy Now". It isn't comprehensive or unbiased by any account, and only one woman in the whole book, Marie Anne, is from the UK.

I'd like to know more of Marie Anne's account. When did her experience occur? Did she and her intended parents access advice and support from those experienced in friendship-based surrogacy? Did they join an organisation, meet and talk with experienced surrogates, form a detailed agreement or work with a clinic? Obviously she had a very negative experience and I'm sorry to hear it. However, to me, it doesn't sound at all typical of altruistic surrogacy in the UK.

Commercial oveersa should say Commercial overseas arrangements

Stop Surrogacy Now is an excellent resource (and clearly doesn’t pretend to be impartial 😂):

hal.stopsurrogacynow.com/the-statement/#sthash.P5xRima7.dpbs

Julie Bindel writes well on the topic:

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.truthdig.com/articles/a-surrogate-mothers-cautionary-tale/%3famp

Proposed law changes in the UK would make it more problematic, not less, so it makes sense to look at how it’s handled elsewhere.

Many European countries have banned it completely. That’s what I want for the UK.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrogacy_laws_by_country