Voices we don't hear from - a child of surrogacy

[OhHolyJesus]

I've found MN to be a source of voices we don't hear from, like trans widows and children of transitoners, children born from are not voices we often hear.

Surrogacy is often portrayed as positive, focusing on an infertile woman having her wishes come true by the kind and generous surrogate mother, bestowing the biggest give one can give...and all that BS.

This is Kylee, a 36 year old woman who was "Donor Conceived". Even if this short video you can see how she is struggling to express herself but she does so clearly and intelligently. I'm going to check out her blog too, there are clearly more like her.

twitter.com/StopSurrogacy/status/1246122272093540353?s=20

What if the surrogate mother changes her mind Elsie? If it is simply handing over a baby you have had for a family member what happens if there are complications and health issues? Anything can go wrong.

The laws here need to be tighter, not more relaxed in my view. You should read more about the Law Commission's proposals and consider the impacts.

Whilst this relates to a US, commercial surrogacy, I recommend reading Susan Ring's The Unexpected Mother. She offered and was not approached but if you listen to her story you might reconsider...and you might not.

Goose

Many children are purposely created naturally to be born into terrible circumstances and with terrible parents. Not all bad parents have children accidentally, many have child after child despite them being unable to parent well for whatever reasons. There are children who are purposely created by parents who have had their previous children removed from their care due to such poor parenting and/or environments, this forum is full of such people seeking advice. It seems odd to me to be so concerned about children who may be born into loving stable homes, with two great parents, where all the evidence suggest will not suffer or be harmed because of how they were created, because how they were created doesn’t fit into your idea of what is “good” or “right” for children (despite having no evidence to back this up), when there are thousands if not millions of children around the world who are created naturally in much worse circumstances whose whole lives will be blighted because of it and nothing is done to try to prevent this from happening, because it’s their parents’ “right” to procreate.

I can somewhat see your point in that creating a child knowing they will never know or have a relationship with their father/mother may lead to issues further down the line, however, I’m yet to see any evidence that this is a large scale problem amongst such children and harms them, in fact all the evidence suggests the contrary. A few isolated cases such as the ones posted on this thread isn’t enough justification imo to ban egg/sperm donation and surrogacy.

That's a big handwave to those 'few isolated cases' of the created child being unhappy and harmed - I'm sure it's fairly important to them - when numbers aren't known and can't be known, nor the statistical proportion. How many are ok collateral damage?

Likewise there's a whole raft of dodgy aspects to surrogacy, not just the lack of consent and lack of consideration for the impact on the child as a person as opposed to a desired product.

Oh

Anything can go wrong in any pregnancy, if everyone involved is a consenting adult entering the situation of their own free will I fail to see the argument to stop them. Plenty of women who have health problems choose to get pregnant despite being told they’re very high risk, I work with numerous women who have serious heart conditions who have pregnancy after pregnancy despite being told they have a high risk of death and complications. Should we ban them from getting pregnant because of the risks? I don’t think we should start policing women’s bodies for “their own good”. If a woman wants to offer her womb as an “incubator” for altruistic reasons then who am I to stop her?

I think proper counselling, screening and legal contracts before any surrogacy occurs would help to prevent or swiftly resolve situations where women change their mind and refuse to hand over the baby, especially when they are not the biological mother of that baby. I’ve heard of some cases go to court and become lengthy legal battles, which should be prevented imo as it will be extremely traumatic for all involved, especially the child. I’m not sure morally what the right answer is if they are biological mother though, however, that’s more adoption than surrogacy in my eyes.

How about something about child marriage Goose, linked to religion, maybe something in Sharia law? I can't quite put my finger on it either but I know what you're saying.

I am thinking marriage might be the best example too, as in a lot of ways it's a legal formalisation of a natural relationship that's intended to obligations and such that belong to each person or family. Much like the legal element of being a parent is very much a description of a natural phenomena. If we made an inherent element of marriage mean giving up the natural rights of one party, that would obvious problem. Maybe the idea of implied consent to sex, but even that wasn't so legally one sided and the person had at least the opportunity to choose not to marry.

Its not just a harms issue - its a rights issue.

As this is a global issue, any cases of trauma felt by the children need to be voiced. Rather than continuing blindly as it serves our purpose, we might then have a chance to see what the size of this very real issue is that effects a large number of these children. While I doubt it would be as easy as being able to contact the biological donors or the surrogate, maybe that is the first step?

Sadly, you also have the recent issue of the woman with the aim of having the NHS pay for multiple surrogate children from the USA (not highlighting why she has asked the NHS, the point here is that she wants to get them via the US system). How many people bypass the UK system in favour of a less regulated country?

I lived in Australia during the Baby Gammy case unfolded. It is illegal there and the wealthy couple simply went abroad.

Just popping up my hand to say I don’t have children, I couldn’t as I’m infertile, and surrogacy was never on the table because of exactly the considerations that michelle and ohholyjesus so eloquently outline. So it is entirely possible to have skin in the game without hypocrisy - my moral convictions aren’t that flexible.

I don’t believe in the “right” to be a parent, and even if I did, I would still want that to be weighed against the rights of children not to be commodities.

Re. US surrogacy law.

While I sympathise with what Sophie Beresinger has been through, I strongly disagree with her campaign.

graziadaily.co.uk/life/real-life/uk-surrogacy-law/

How many people bypass the UK system in favour of a less regulated country?

Well quite, what are those numbers? The surrogacy board here and surrogacy forums elsewhere would suggest that this is a well-known and well-applied loophole.

Once a child is born how can a government refuse entry to the returning CPs with a newborn in arms? Which is what happened with Baby Pipah. Initially refused and then allowed in. She didn't ask for any of it but here she is and in Australia she will stay, receiving her weekly lessons of why she can't be alone with her biological father.

Frankly anyone who doesn't see the dangers of an unregulated system of the global exploitation of women and children, that allows baby girls like Pipah to end up in the arms of a convicted paedophile is beyond me.

Maybe she is simply collateral damage for some. Maybe adults like Jesica Kerns and the numerous others noted on the Donor Conceived link posted above are also collateral damage. The vast majority of surrogate babies might well be fine and dandy, in which case, that's great for them, but why can't we listen to a minority for once? It's because it destroys the grand plan and the narrative for the happy families.

I see that surrogacy in the Uk is a two way street, in that, CPs are bringing babies from their birth countries back into the UK in addition to others coming to the UK to benefit from the NHS free pregnancy healthcare and IVF clinics and the laws that allow it.

So if the UK becomes surrogacy grand central what are the costs? Who benefits and who doesn't?

Wow Cattenberg that article. 4 surrogates! God knows how many egg donors. Horrific entitlement pouring from every word.

Whilst I have sympathy from her cancer treatment and subsequent infertility I cannot understand why she wouldn't simultaneously pursue adoption?

This stood out in the context of my OP.

"I’ll have a child who will be proud of what their mum did to get them her"

And what happens if he or she is not proud?

So many things wrong with that article Cattenberg I hardly know where to begin.
Anyway,I'm just going to mention her complaint re egg freezing : "Mind-bogglingly, the hospital I was treated at did not offer me the chance to freeze my own eggs before treatment – a conversation that should take place with any young woman receiving cancer care."

Of course I don't know the specifics of her case and I'm talking in more general terms than just her. But aren't most breast cancers in women of her age are hormone related? I find it extraordinary that anyone would want to delay their cancer treatment, and add a further insult to their body in the form of hormone treatments for egg collection. Or indeed for IVF at the end of her treatment.

This isn't a criticism, but I personally wouldn't dream of adding further risk to my health problems. I wonder if there is any research around this in terms of long term health?

As an aside, I have had personal dealings with a young woman who did choose egg preservation before undergoing treatment for breast cancer. She developed OHSS and needed treatment in ICU. In her own words "I nearly died", which might be a real reflection of the seriousness of her condition, or her own interpretation based on the fact of needing treatment in ICU.

Well said @OhHolyJesus

I am really not fucking interested in the "skin the game" bollocks. I have never struggled with infertility, indeed my first child was conceived totally by accident when I was a teenager.

I have never been infertile but I have been poor. Poor to the point of desperation. Poor to the point I was worried I would have to give my child up. Poor to the point that if I had had the internet I may have been desperate enough to rent my womb out to a rich couple who wanted it.

Are we suggesting that surrogacy is just for the wealthy? Or are we saying that the NHS should be in the business of risking a third parties health and life to enable people to have a child? Either position is morally reprehensible.

I'm sorry people are infertile. It must be awful, but I can't remember ever hearing somebody suffering kidney failure earnestly arguing that those without failing organs shouldn't have an opinion on paid organ donation.

Anyway,I'm just going to mention her complaint re egg freezing : "Mind-bogglingly, the hospital I was treated at did not offer me the chance to freeze my own eggs before treatment – a conversation that should take place with any young woman receiving cancer care."

This is true. Sadly NICE fertility protocol application are a postcode lottery.
There is usually time during cancer diagnosis for younger people to have the opportunity to discuss the possibility of fertility preservation.options.

Just on the foreign surrogacy thing, a case here where the commissioning parents are separating which perhaps is not surprising and they headed to Ukraine for surrogacy reason within weeks of getting married. The urgency, I suspect related to the commissioning mother's age which was 50, I'm guessing 48 at the time.

The CM had to leave the baby in the Ukraine because she had to return to the UK. It's long but worth a read.

www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/HCJ/2018/86.html

The lawyer for this case appears here, talking about how to get your babies when you can't travel due to a global pandemic!

www.facebook.com/twodads.u.k/videos/s1e3-twodadsuk-covid-19-support-international-surrogacy-ft-andrew-spearman-from-/2605604436393891/

His name might be familiar from a news story today.

Thanks for the extra information about Gammy and Pipah OhHolyJesus. I did not know anything about the father’s conviction .

Another thing I did not realise until I read this thread was the extent of variation in surrogacy arrangements internationally. I knew about India and Thailand (until the Pipah case) but it is more widespread than that, especially when people from countries where commercial surrogacy is illegal such as Sweden and Canada go to countries like Ukraine and the US. Incidentally, Ukraine also has a very liberal international adoption policy.

I understand why people who have not been able to get fertility treatment in their own country go to a third country but this makes it harder to regulate in ways that protect the surrogate and the child. On her video Kaylee said she had not realised it was illegal to pay for surrogacy in Canada. She also did not seem to realise that her own fertility might be compromised by the multiple implantations and ovarian stimulation.

Do we think celebrity parents have encouraged this trend - eg Cristiano Ronaldo, Kim Kardashian?

Are we suggesting that surrogacy is just for the wealthy? Or are we saying that the NHS should be in the business of risking a third parties health and life to enable people to have a child? Either position is morally reprehensible.

I think its always worth reflecting on how the celebrity advocates of surrogacy. They are all either beneficiaries of surrogacy or have friends who have benefited from having surrogant children.

You don't on the other hand have celebrities who use their own bodies to host a surrogate child and give them to a poor infertile family in a altristristic manner (paying for their medical costs in the process).

Why is that?

Why aren't celebrities putting themselves forward for the extra publicity and to show how generous and selfless they are. Why aren't they risking their bodies to help others who also have this supposed 'right' to have children?

Until we see as many celebrity volunteering to be surrogates as there are recieving surrogate children, I am completely unable to see surrogancy as anything but treating babies and less well off women as commodity for rich couples to have children without the inconvience of a career break or the messy body wrecking business of giving birth.

If its so altruristic and generous and all about the 'right to a family' why is the pattern so tilted towards rich receiving / poor giving?

Do we think celebrity parents have encouraged this trend - eg Cristiano Ronaldo, Kim Kardashian?

Of course they bloody have.

I knew about India and Thailand (until the Pipah case) but it is more widespread than that, especially when people from countries where commercial surrogacy is illegal such as Sweden and Canada go to countries like Ukraine and the US.

Nettie This case, that I posted on another thread, highlighted the extent to which the UK has provided surrogacy services to other EU countries, some of which have banned surrogacy. I'm not sure about all those countries cited, certainly it is allowed in Greece as that appears to be becoming a "destination" no doubt as a result of the prolonged economic downturn, meaning impoverished women will seek to earn money through renting out their wombs.

https://www.familylawweek.co.uk/site.aspx?i=ed984

"ii) A COTS worker (who is a different person from the worker who assisted the court in M's case – 'Ms Y') wrote in November 2004 stating that COTS has 'helped many couples from Europe, and currently have couples from France, Greece, Norway, Belgium and Germany going through surrogacy'."

Excellent post RedToothBrush

I am completely unable to see surrogancy as anything but treating babies and less well off women as commodity for rich couples to have children without the inconvience of a career break or the messy body wrecking business of giving birth.

And I can easily understand when the process of conception and birth is so transactional, why there will be children who as they understand that they were created to be commoditised, feel disassociated from these parents. The pressure I felt growing up was that I was never good enough, I have so much empathy for any person growing up with that feeling knowing that they have been ‘purchased‘ this way.

It would take a whole lot of love, openness and patience from the parents to calm those thoughts.

You don't on the other hand have celebrities who use their own bodies to host a surrogate child and give them to a poor infertile family in a altristristic manner (paying for their medical costs in the process).

That is so very true, RedToothBrush.

Thanks for the link to that case FannyCann. I had not realised that could happen at all here. I thought that international surrogacy only went one way with UK parents going to another country.

nettie I'm totally against surrogacy anyway, and appalled by some of the proposals from the law commissioners for new laws around surrogacy.
But a massive concern I have is that should their proposals be passed into law, then the UK will become an international surrogacy destination, funded by the NHS providing free healthcare for the surrogate mothers.
In Canada about 50% of surrogacy is international. I believe babies born there get automatic citizenship plus they have a good healthcare system. I'm not sure if babies born in the UK get citizenship but we certainly have free healthcare. Most EU countries ban surrogacy so to be able to pop over to the UK would be very attractive.

I'm not sure if babies born in the UK get citizenship but we certainly have free healthcare

Fannycann What I can’t understand is why this would be ok when there is otherwise such opposition in government and among the public to people coming from abroad to use the NHS. I am still in favour of surrogacy with strict controls but I realise now that it is not as simple as I thought. I also can’t help wondering if there has been some regulatory capture at the Law Commission.