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

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csz570 My Very Extended Family. A group of biologically related children, some born of just sperm donation and some egg as well as sperm. Listen to their language over who their parents are, how they feel.

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

They don't receive "fees". Do you mean reimbursement of the surrogate's expenses, such as loss of earnings, childcare, travel etc. as discussed earlier?

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

In this unlikely event, the surrogate would be legally able to decide.

For those so selfless, there's a lot of I in there.

Anon was answering questions asked about her, wasn't she?

We come together to voice our shared concern for women and children who are exploited through surrogacy contract pregnancy arrangements - Stop Surrogacy Now

It's disappointing to see that SSN takes a dogmatic, blanket approach, and wants all surrogacy, everywhere, to be banned. It would be far more sensible to focus on genuinely exploitative incidences, rather than assigning the "exploitation label" indiscriminately and trying to bring down non-profit, friendship-based surrogacy in the UK.

Surrogacy in the UK is not about "exploiting" or contracts. Those who are experienced in altruistic surrogacy in the UK know what the pitfalls are in the various types of surrogacy, and how exploitation must be avoided, and this informs their recommendations.

In this unlikely event, the surrogate would be legally able to decide.

This is the bit of the law that prosurrogacy activists are currently trying to change. They want commissioners to be recognised as legal parents from conception, rather than from when the surrogate mother signs the paperwork post birth.

It's disappointing to see that SSN takes a dogmatic, blanket approach, and wants all surrogacy, everywhere, to be banned. It would be far more sensible to focus on genuinely exploitative incidences, rather than assigning the "exploitation label" indiscriminately and trying to bring down non-profit, friendship-based surrogacy in the UK.

Banning all surrogacy would only bring the UK into line with most of Europe. It’s hardly a radical take.

They don't receive "fees"

Of course they do.

Commercial surrogacy, although at first blush prohibited in the UK, does take place regularly here. The Courts repeatedly accept or overtly authorise such payments in order to make parental orders and secure the legal status of the families involved, on the basis that this is in the child’s best interests. Purely altruistic surrogacy also exists; but very often arrangements are a combination of the two.

Source www.porterdodson.co.uk/blog/commercial-surrogacy-vs-altruistic-surrogacy-what-is-the-difference

I didn't do any particularly deep searching to find a law firm explicitly saying commercial surrogacy exists either. It came up as the third option in a google search "altruistic surrogacy" and I clicked that one as it was the first with a .uk web address.

MopsRUs, Babysitting is an awful way of describing surrogacy whoever uses it. Of course it is worse when the purchaser uses it.
What are your thoughts about the recent UK surrogacy case of two gay men and the surrogate who didn’t want to give up the twins? The men did a mirror article on how despicable she was? I’ll try and find the link.

MopsRUs you can talk about friendship and altruism all you like but deliberately creating a baby to be taken from it's mother is wrong, spin it any way you like, it's still wrong.

The men did a mirror article on how despicable she was?

Breaking news: Mother decides not to give away her babies.

No one seems to give much of a fuck about the babies that get made this way. Adults who wouldn’t pass vetting for adoption/fostering (the other situations in which a baby is taken from it’s mother, avoided as much as possible) are able to access newborns through surrogacy.

There are Facebook groups for UK purchasers to connect with potential surrogates, it’s a complete myth that UK surrogacy is all bezzy mates and big sisters.

What are your thoughts about the recent UK surrogacy case of two gay men and the surrogate who didn’t want to give up the twins?

That couple already have a son - via surrogate mother obviously - but that wasn't enough for them. Now they've started a Go Fund Me to help with their legal fees. I certainly won't be reaching into my pockets.

Barrie Drewitt-Barlow (age 50) has 5 children via surrogacy and now wants numbers 6 and 7, twin girls, 1 with his sperm and 1 using his new partner’s sperm.

The couple plan to use gender selection technology “in the hope that we could try for daughters – princesses to spoil”

How the ever loving fuck is this about anything except the designer wants of a couple of privileged men?

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.pinknews.co.uk/2019/11/25/first-gay-dads-daughters-boyfriend-barrie-drewitt-barlow-scott-hutchinson/amp/

New partner being his daughter's ex.
That needs some unpacking...

Also thanks to @Clymene for the link up thread - will watch whilst I draft another letter to my MP...

To be fair I think the new partner was more of a faux boyfriend/mate than an actual boyfriend (not a sexual relationship). Still, makes you wonder if this daughter has been raised to believe that what dad wants, dad gets. That said, she’s also on record saying she wants any children of her own to be via surrogate because, ‘I just can’t face 9 months of carrying them, ideally I want twins, a boy and a girl’. I’m suppressing my instinct for judgement purely because in her family, surrogacy, including sex selected embryos, is ‘normal’.

As a middle-aged woman I wouldn’t see my 19 year old son’s mates as a potential dating pool, nor do I think it fair/responsible to be planning your 6th and 7th kid at the age of 50, especially when the co-parent of children 1-5 has terminal cancer.

But I digress - the point of bringing up the Drewitt-Barlow’s is simply to illustrate that surrogacy is often not a single-desperately-wanted-child-for-a-tragically-infertile-woman situation.

I think I said it before on the thread but the unthinking pick and mix consumerism of choosing twins - one each is beyond sickening in its ignorance and lack of care for the the woman bearing those twins.
True, I don't know why any woman would agree to be a surrogate mother, but to agree to carry twins in this way is beyond my comprehension.

Screenshot of some Drs comments from something IVF related.

Three year old article on the Drewitt-Barlow’s surrogacy BUSINESS:

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4436130/amp/The-gay-dads-getting-rich-rent-wombs.html

Here is the company website: www.britishsurrogacycentre.com/

Quote from the website: ‘Some of our clients choose to do their journey in stages, finding an egg donor first from the VIP list can cost several thousands of dollars. So some IPs decide to find the donor they really want, fertilize the eggs and create their embryos, freeze them and use them months or years later when they are ready.‘

Doesn’t sound like a choice that a woman, who, having tried and failed to get pregnant naturally for years, who has been through several rounds of unsuccessful IVF, who has perhaps even suffered a couple of miscarriages along the way, would have TIME to make.
Yet that is the hypothetical woman who is used to justify surrogacy.

It’s bollocks isn’t it? Surrogacy is catalogue shopping for babies. Time to ban it.

That website is obscene. They are selling - yes, literally selling - the creation of a human life as though it were a 'build your own pizza', complete with optional extras. At an additional cost, obviously.

There is even a handy guide to getting round UK law (not a problem if you use this expensive service and choose a surrogate from a US state where she has few rights! Wooo! Bonus - an international surrogate means you need not worry about the awkwardness of bumping into her later, as you push your pretty pink princess double stroller around town!)

www.britishsurrogacycentre.com/surrogacy-laws/

If your child was born in the USA, taking the correct path will safeguard your parental status. When your surrogate is around six to seven months pregnant, you will be advised to ensure that a parental order is in place, giving you absolute power or right of parenthood over your new baby. There has never been a case in the UK over the past ten years where the Immigration or Home Office has refused right of abode or entry into the UK for a child born by surrogacy in the USA.
A parental order reassigns parenthood fully and permanently to both intended parents, and extinguishes the legal status and responsibilities of the surrogate mother (and her husband, if applicable). It also leads to the reissue of the child’s birth certificate (or the issue of a first British birth certificate if the child is born abroad) naming the intended parents as mother and father. Married couples have been able to apply for a parental order since 1994 and unmarried couples from 6 April 2010. For more information about parental orders, including the application process and the criteria, please get in contact. You are not legally obliged to take this step, but it is available to you should you wish. Again, your assigned social worker can go through all the paperwork for you and help with the submission.

Please note that when receiving donor eggs or sperm in the USA, the donor remains anonymous and can not be contacted at any time during your child’s lifetime unlike in the UK where the donor does not have anonymity and therefore can be contacted by the resulting child when they have reached a certain age, usually 18. The donor however does not have the right to contact their biological child. They have the right to know how many children have been born from their donated eggs and the year of birth only. Further information on going through this abroad can be found at www.hfea.gov.uk
It should also be noted that once your baby is born in the USA, we can also petition the US courts to have both the intended parent names put on the birth certificate. There will be no mention of the pregnancy being a surrogate pregnancy whatsoever. This is not a step intended as deception, it is merely an effort to make the transition of the child from surrogate to intended parents as natural as possible.

Fucking hell. The entire business model seems to be surrogacy for British citizens, using American law.

It should also be noted that once your baby is born in the USA, we can also petition the US courts to have both the intended parent names put on the birth certificate. There will be no mention of the pregnancy being a surrogate pregnancy whatsoever. This is not a step intended as deception

Really?

it is merely an effort to make the transition of the child from surrogate to intended parents as natural as possible.

Natural?

Erasing the very existence of the woman who gestated and birthed the child is 'natural'?

Not just erasing the woman who birthed the child, but also the woman who donated eggs!

A cheek swab and a

MopsRUs

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.

Jeez Mops how often does it need to be said? Any laws or legislation around surrogacy needs to protect the atypical, not just the typical. You need to accept experiences like that will happen and need to be considered. You can’t just dismiss them as “well, that doesn’t usually happen” and not factor those cases in the overall consideration of surrogacy.

Jeez Mops how often does it need to be said? Any laws or legislation around surrogacy needs to protect the atypical, not just the typical.

Yes of course, I agree. I did say agreements should consider potential pitfalls and problems, not just the positives. The "not typical" comment wasn't meant to mean "doesn''t matter", absoloutely not. It was more about the fact that things can be done differently, and that people who agree with ethical surrogacy don't want to see that kind of situation either. That seems a good focus for legal reform.

I'm all for openness, and the public have a right to be informed about surrogacy and other fertility topics. I really wish there would be more interest in the positives though, as they are the vast majority within the reputable organisations. The overall picture is skewed by the media seeking sensationalism too often.

As for the Drewitt-Barlows and the so-called "British Surrogacy Centre", I'm not in favour. They've had a lot of publicity as "Britain's first gay dads", which I fear makes them a "go to" for interview or opinions in some cases, just because their names are known. This is a shame because there are now numerous gay dads through altruistic surrogacy setting a much better example IMHO.

As we know, it's illegal for any organisation or person in this country to profit from surrogacy. The "British Surrogacy Centre" is a misnomer, as the company is based in the USA. They offer commercial surrogacy for international clients (and yes, as we know, some people from the UK do pick international commercial surrogacy).

www.bioedge.org/bioethics/uk-gay-dads-go-into-international-surrogacy-business/12296

I have no doubt that the most experienced and knowledgeable people from the altruistic organisations would be able to give much better answers than I can. I'm just one person on a slightly far-flung corner of here!

science is going to force everyone to tell their children the truth about their origins.

Force? It's quite usual for intended parents to tell their child(ren) about their origins through surrogacy, these days. Perhaps people used to feel there was a stigma and it was "something to hide". But these days, it's often the case that the surrogate and intended parents do often maintain contact and a lifelong friendship. The children know from the start that Auntie XYZ offered to help their parents, because their mum had a "broken tummy" and they were in her tummy until they were born (i.e. in terms they can understand).