Surrogacy on the NHS

[Viewfromtheisland]

Didn’t know it was allowed in Scotland but I’ve been educated by the Daily Record today....

Ultimately it is the child who would suffer if commissioning parents were singled out as not deserving of standard treatment. Going by our friends experience, surrogates are generally delighted to hand over baby on arrival and the suggestion they should look after baby while in hospital would be greeted with horror and a flat refusal. As nursing staff are not nannies and early bonding with future caregivers is important, it is not difficult to see why hospitals might also want the commissioning parents on scene, especially for medical checks etc. Otherwise you have confusion over who is actually responsible for the child's needs.

I confused at the funding also Lord, at a time like this?

Surely the NHS will be on its knees after C19 is all but gone.

I see this couple considered adoption but decided against it. I wonder why?

The NHS surely needs its £ to save lives not make them, or is it to be held together with glue and stick backed plastic?

The birth mother is legally responsible for the child’s needs until a parental order is granted. And that’s how it ought to be. The child was part of her body until the birth, and the baby has already bonded with her.

Hers was the first voice the baby will have heard, because of the way the sound travels through her body. Later in pregnancy, the baby will be able to hear other voices, but not as well as the mother’s. Tests using cotton wool pads have shown that newborn babies recognise their birth mother’s smell and prefer it. Newborn babies have a very strong urge to snuggle up to their mothers and try to feed.

A surrogate from Cambridge was hired

If it were up to me, only altruistic surrogacy would be allowed, in certain circumstances. And altruistic would mean - no payments to the surrogate mother at all. No “expenses”. If that means only wealthy women act as surrogates for family and friends, so much the better.

As you have friends who did this Ov9 would they not be happy to stay in the same room as the SM and baby and simply go home to sleep when the midwives say? My husband couldn't stay in a delegate room to me whilst I was in a private room, he was told to go home at 10pm after I gave birth at 7.30pm. He came back the next morning. The midwives cared for me and the baby overnight but we mostly slept.

A hospital is not a hotel, surely you do not expect for a number of rooms to be found to accommodates CMs or birthing partners for that matter.

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'commissioning parents' that's right up there with 'friendly fire' and 'enhanced interrogation techniques'. Babies as product.

“Surrogacy IVF will only be provided where no other fertility treatment options are available” and only for “medical reasons”.

Which means gay men and transgender people who have lost their previous fertility can now expect to be provided with a baby on the NHS via the reproductive farming of women who are expected to provide the babies.

The NHS is not a baby factory. Surrogacy doesn’t save your life.

Besides adoption and surrogacy, gay men do have another option if they want to become parents - co-parenting. That’s becoming a parent with someone you are not in a romantic relationship with.

I know of a straight single woman and a gay single man who did this together. It’s not without its pitfalls, and it relies on the intended parents developing a strong friendship and mutual respect beforehand. But it could be much better for the child than surrogacy.

I think that's lovely Cat as the child will be raised with both parents and know and understand their origins.

I read about a co-parenting gay couple with a single woman in Australia too and it sounded like an all-round great solution, both for the child to be raised in (two) loving homes and for the parents to maintain a balance in life. With three people there would also be a deciding vote on big decisions like education, although I don't know how that works in practice!

I wonder if this sort of thing will turn IVF full circle eventually, and if it becomes too expensive as too much in demand, all IVF services on the NHS will be withdrawn? The post code lottery makes it automatically discriminatory in a way so I wonder if it's really not fit for purpose and needs an overhaul, along with surrogacy?

Honestly I'm not sure that would be so awful if it consequently saw an increase in adoption, or co-parenting...

I don’t know enough about it, I’ve only recently thought about it more and I think it is the CP bit which doesn’t sit right, you commission a painting, not a person?

Please lets try to talk about the 'surrogate mother' at all times....the omission of the word 'mother' from the phrase is a conscious and intentioned move to call women whose bodies are used in this way 'surrogates', to remove the sex-based, and human-based, aspects at the heart of this whole issue.

To create a child, in order to knowingly remove it from its mother, in order to fulfil the wishes of someone else, is always wrong. I used to think that altruistic surrogacy (friends or sisters having a baby) was ok. I now don't think so. It's always a commodification of the woman's body. There are cases where relationships have gone horribly wrong, and the person who is hurt the most is the child.

It's horrible to long for a baby and not be able to have one.

But resolving that longing in this way can never be right. It's no surprise all surrogacy is outlawed in other countries.

I note that the word 'surrogate' and not 'surrogate mother' is used in that twodads site in the OP.

Resist :)

I'm with you in that Tiktok

I'm also using commissioning parents rather than intended parents more now, intended parents to me sounds more like adoption and commissioning does draw attention to the payment or buying element of surrogacy.

SMs (just for fast typing sake) are often referred to in such an offhand way, like there was just this conveniently available womb lying around, with nothing better to do.

I've often seen the argument on this board about reducing women to their genitals or reproductive systems (or being accused of being obsessed with them, in order to define what a woman is) and I have to say that if surrogacy doesn't do exactly that then I don't know what else does.

US surrogacy websites often refer to the surrogate mother as “the gestational carrier” and sometimes, in certain contexts, as “the uterus”. I swear I once read the following on a US surrogacy website: “The intended parents, together with the attending physician, will decide how many embryos to transfer to the uterus”. I haven’t been able to find that quote again, but Jennifer Lahl wrote a great article on this subject, which has been posted here before.

www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2017/11/20390/

That changed more than two years ago when the Scottish government voted in favour of allowing anybody — regardless of sexuality or gender — to access fertility treatment.

Fertility treatment on the NHS should be for people who are proven to be medically INfertile, yet here we are told that Ross' sperm was used.

As I say on many of these threads, NHS funding is for investigation and treatment of disease or injury. Not lifestyle choices.

To your point TikTok

www.insider.com/joyce-carol-oates-facing-twitter-backlash-for-surrogacy-comments-2020-5

This article uses surrogate or gestational carrier - the last paragraph is a bit disturbing for me, it alludes to counselling for the SM to prevent attachment, something that would otherwise be natural and encouraged. It seems to say "Don't get too attached to your babies, women, know your place and be ready to give up that baby, it may be inside your body but it doesn't belong to you!"

I am horrified that our NHS is being used to harm healthy women.

In Israel this article notes that four of the five lawmakers are gay male couples who have had babies born through surrogacy. Al1Lang has a point about the men at the centre of laws around surrogacy...

"Shmuli is not the only gay father in the Knesset. Four of the five openly gay lawmakers have gone through costly surrogacy procedures abroad. In 2015, Ohana and his partner became parents of twins. Knesset member Eitan Ginzburg of Blue and White and his partner are also parents of twins conceived and born abroad. Knesset member Idan Roll of Yesh Atid also fathered a son with his partner, singer Harel Skaat, via a surrogate in August 2018. The four brought their children to the Knesset’s swearing-in ceremonies in April 2019 and again in September 2019."

and "Explaining the need for this arrangement, Shmuli told the press, “The right to a family is a basic right. Everyone should have the right to realize it. I know the long, tortuous and expensive road to surrogacy abroad, and also the happiness that lies at its end.”

Read more: www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/05/israel-netanyahu-amir-ohana-unity-gay-lgbt-surrogacy.html#ixzz6LaFYRMgA

www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/05/israel-netanyahu-amir-ohana-unity-gay-lgbt-surrogacy.html

The right to a family? No that’s not a right to procreate - surely it’s the right for a child to have people to care for them - not the ‘right’ to create a child for their own satisfaction.

Oh

I don't know, is the short answer. I agree with you that a hospital isn't a hotel and there are issues with how resources should be allocated. The fact remains that if the baby is going home with the commissioning parents and surrogate (not calling her mother because from what I've read they do not appreciate this) doesn't want to have baby care, then it's in the child's interests to have the new parents there. It's certainly not going to be appreciated by midwives if there is no one taking responsibility at night time and midwives don't tend to do baby care while mum sleeps anymore, surrogate or not.

So while you may not like it and I see the difficulties, it's not desirable to be 'fair' with funding in a way that causes the child to suffer, especially given that this situation is unfolding all over the UK all the time. You can't force a surrogate to care for the child she has given birth to. It may be important for her own sense of closure that she retains control over how much involvement she has.

The legal implications if something were to happen to a child without parents present are not pleasant to think about either in terms of cost for the hospital.

Another documentary I saw had the SM lose her uterus but as she already had a son, and basically just wanted to put it behind her she didn't take it up in any way. Plus she was in the Georgia so she has no rights there anyway.

As the judgement allowed the woman who had a cancer misdiagnosis to go to America to have her children via surrogacy, maybe a woman who enters into a surrogacy agreement in the UK as a young woman and loses her ability to carry her own children, she could in turn go get a SM to have her children? And round and round we go...

Removing a child from its birth mother hours after it is born means that something bad has already happened to the baby.

Cattenberg The intended parents, together with the attending physician, will decide how many embryos to transfer to the uterus”.

Indeed they do, without a moment's thought what it means for the woman who is to carry the twins and a total, reckless and ignorant disregard for the fact this means the babies are much more likely to be born prematurely and suffer a range of health issues.

Otto Lenghi describes how he phoned his partner saying "Fuck it, we're putting in two"

The fathers in the BBC series The Baby has landed decided to have two so they could have one each.

The woman who described the traumatic experience of surrogacy that she had to Nordic Model Now said how the commissioning parents put pressure on he to agree to have twins with the commissioning father saying "twins would be the icing on the cake".

nordicmodelnow.org/2020/01/29/i-was-an-altruistic-surrogate-and-am-now-against-all-surrogacy/

Incidentally for those who think altruistic surrogacy is OK, this woman was an altruistic surrogate mother for great friends. It went horribly wrong and she is traumatised by the experience. Having offered to do it for friends put her in a particularly difficult position. When she started having misgivings and seeing red flags, she felt she couldn't back out as they were not only emotionally invested, they had also spent a substantial amount of money on finding an egg donor and having medical checks and commencing fertility treatment on her. At least if these had been random strangers she may have felt less guilt and been able to get off the roller coaster she found herself on. Also, how hurtful to be treated badly by good friends. Again, if total strangers abused ones trust, well one may be shocked but at least not so personally hurt.

tiktok Please lets try to talk about the 'surrogate mother' at all times.

I agree. Language is so important and women must not allow themselves to be demeaned in this way. I am infuriated by the surrogacy guidelines for East Lancashire Hospitals and will be writing to make a complaint as they consistently refer to surrogate mothers as "the surrogate". How dehumanising: no one in the NHS refers to "the appendix" in bed 9 any more. They should not be referring to "the surrogate" either. I have been looking at quite a few hospital policies and most consistently refer to "the surrogate mother", as they should, recognising this is a woman giving birth to a baby.

The recent court case with Freddy McConnell confirmed that in law, a person who gives birth is a mother. The woman giving birth is the mother whether she likes it or not Ov9c.

As others have mentioned women, especially in the USA and other parts of the world where commercial surrogacy is big business are coached to refer to themselves using demeaning, dehumanising words such as "the surrogate" or "the carrier" to help them psychologically switch off from what they are doing - carrying a baby to give birth and give it away. That they need to coach themselves not to think of themselves as a mother tells us a lot about this exploitative industry.

 

This case involving the breakdown of a surrogacy arrangement raises many questions.

Family Law Week: H (A Child - Surrogacy Breakdown) [2017] EWCA Civ 1798

https://www.familylawweek.co.uk/site.aspx?i=ed183038

In this case, due to the breakdown of relationship, the surrogate mother gave birth (I calculate at least one maybe two months early) without notifying the Commissioning Parents, and were home, with the baby, registered in their name, before the CPs found out or were notified of the birth.

If the Law Commissioners' proposals to make commissioning parents the legal parents from birth go ahead where will this leave the NHS in such a case? A legal duty to notify the CPs - who will be the legal parents - of the birth? (Assuming the hospital had prior knowledge that this was a surrogacy arrangement). Forced to let the CPs attend the baby in NICU and keep the surrogate mother from the baby she has just given birth to? Taking the baby from the surrogate mother and handing it over to the CPs against her will?

What about the surrogate mother's right to confidentiality and privacy if she insists she does not want them to be notified? Yet this was a sick baby - if the CPs were the legal parents they would need to be notified in order to agree to medical treatment for the baby.

Whichever way the hospital acted I suspect a complaint and a legal case would be likely to follow.

Seriously, midwives and women interested in acting as surrogate mothers who think surrogacy is a lovely fluffy thing are in for a nasty shock when they find themselves in the midst of a case like this. And hospitals will have to spend huge amounts on solicitors sorting things out.

It’s just not what the NHS was/is set up for. I think there are potentially massive problems to come.