Surrogacy on the NHS

[Viewfromtheisland]

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

California

So you're happy to penalise both surrogate and child because they brought it on themselves. Yup. Thought so.

0bv, what do you think should happen if the surrogate mother changes her mind?

Maybe she has bonded with the baby despite trying not to? Or maybe her relationship with the commissioning parents has broken down?

What do you think should happen if the commissioning parents want to transfer more embryos than the SM is comfortable with? Or if the SM is asked to undergo a termination or fetal reduction and feels unable to go through with it?

The law is easy when everyone has a good experience, like your friends. But it’s really tested when things go wrong, and when it does, it ought to protect the most vulnerable.

I use the term “surrogate mother” not to annoy you, but because if we change the legal definition of “mother” , it could have many unintended consequences. Besides, “surrogate” just means “substitute” or “in place of”. In place of what? The mother.

Sorry for getting your name wrong, 0v9.

So Elsie sperm is a few hundred quid, an egg can be a few thousand and you need more than one usually. Obviously the process as Fanny points out, and that we all know, to get sperm is entirely different and you get more for your money. A quick wank in a cup usually gets a few thousand sperm so I do think the payment for sperm should be lower than an egg due to the pain processes involved for retrieval.

A lesbian couple already have two of the three things you need to make a baby, two men in a couple have lots of one thing, and are lacking the other two.

If the men in the article become a landmark case and the gay men are to have eggs and Surrogate Mothers paid for on the NHS in equal numbers to say the lesbians who get sperm donors then the costs will go up and the funding will need to come from somewhere.

I'm not sure that just because someone wants a super flashy wheelchair on the NHS they should have one, not if a cheaper one is available and fits their needs. I'm sure a cancer patient might want a brand new, symptom free chemo that costs x3 as much but has to make do with the bargain basement variety that makes you feel like you want to die from the symptoms but could save your life anyway. That's the NHS for you, otherwise go private bu all means.

NHS trusts up and down the country can do boob and nose jobs on request, because it makes someone feel better. The NHS is meant to be life saving not life affirming. Or it was when it started.

Where do we draw the line? Boob jobs for AA cups and breast reduction for HH cups to eradicate back pain and improve quality of life? Babies for whoever wants one for free?

It's an important discussion and one I hope they are having at a senior, governmental level, particularly after this C-19 disaster is over when they check the bank balance and see funds rather depleted.

Ov9 to your point on language. I'll call a spade a spade thanks, anything less would be compelled speech and I think we've been here before. As Curious says, a mother is a mother is a mother and California has a point. It's all nurturing loveliness until CMs can't get to the hospital because of travel distance, delays or restrictions and you actually have to look after the baby you gave birth to. Not very maternal and not even very kind to a newborn baby.

So you're happy to penalise both surrogate and child because they brought it on themselves. Yup. Thought so.

No, I want surrogacy banned so no child has to end up in a position where they are bought and sold, or where their buyer might change their mind and the child ends up with no-one wanting them.

Think about this from a child's point of view. Not only were you bought and sold. Your mother, the woman who grew you for 9 months, wouldn't even look after for you for 24 hours after you were born. It's fucked up. Surrogacy is fucked up. As others have said, they changed the language to make it seem normal. Let's talk about it as it is. Buying and selling babies. Taking babies from their mothers against their wishes and sometimes the mothers wish. In any other scenario that would be looked at as horrific.

sperm is a few hundred quid

Actually it's free alot of the time. There are websites who you pay membership to who will match you to a sperm donor who does it for free. A lesbian couple can have a baby without ever involving the nhs.

A gay couple could too, but to make surrogacy more palatable they use a donor egg, even though it has serious health implications to two women. That is pure selfishness right there.

Why don't gay men just get a woman pregnant with a turkey baster like lesbians do? Because less women are willing to give away their own baby. But you are that babies mother and that is your child, regardless of what genetic blueprint was used. It's twisting of reality to get what they want when they are actually endangering women.

I didn't know that California thanks.

I hear that the law hasn't kept up with scientific development when it comes to surrogacy. Maybe the science has overtaken what is natural and maybe science and law has got a bit above its station?

Until science is able to grow babies in bags, everyone has a mother and a father, every human life (and most animal life let's face it) on this planet came from two others. Whilst there can be questions around who the father is there can never be a question around who the mother is because nature made it pretty fucking obvious.

attack the legal system
Will do.

But what you're talking about wouldn't ban it, would it? It would simply penalise those already involved. What a misdirection of your energies.

Once a child is born, however it's born, you have to put that child first, not quibble because you don't like the way the child arrived. I can assure you that children born through surrogacy are loved (not that I'm saying this justifies surrogacy if you don't agree with it) BUT they are not loved by the surrogate. It's in a child's best interests to have the people there who love them, as logistically difficult as that is. You also need to remember that the commissioning father is often the child's biological parent and if the surrogate wants him to be present, it is no different to any other biological father in terms of whether the hospital allows him to be present. As you've pointed out, it's common for fathers to be present through the night if women wish.

I'm disgusted the NHS would even consider this when there are women being denied fertility treatments (for their own medical condition!) because their partner has children. If there's going to be a rule about not having the right working reproductive organs, it should apply across the board. Even if we're taking into account costs, that would surely place single women just wanting donor insemination above surrogacy for two males?

I have to say, forcing names upon women doesn't endear you to other women or further your cause. And that definition of mother (as person who carried the child) was only showed shored up to reflect that babies were being born to women who weren't genetically related to them. It's a fluid concept that is now set to change to reflect that women are now giving birth to babies who aren't genetically related to them that they don't go on to 'mother' in any significant way.

Ov9. Did you just say that motherhood is a fluid concept - do you mean 'mother' or 'motherhood'?

Also would having the biological father being present at the birth mean the birth partner for the mother giving birth should step out? There are limits on who should be in the room for safety reasons. How many extra, non urgent, non-medical provider people would you have in there when another person, albeit a tiny one, is about to be arrive too?

I'm not in the habit of being endeared to anyone, least if women who are pro surrogacy as I am anti-surrogacy. I don't change my views or language to suit others and not should you.

I'm not inciting violence here, calling a woman giving birth a mother.

Once a child is born, however it's born, you have to put that child first, not quibble because you don't like the way the child arrived. I can assure you that children born through surrogacy are loved (not that I'm saying this justifies surrogacy if you don't agree with it) BUT they are not loved by the surrogate. It's in a child's best interests to have the people there who love them, as logistically difficult as that is. You also need to remember that the commissioning father is often the child's biological parent and if the surrogate wants him to be present, it is no different to any other biological father in terms of whether the hospital allows him to be present. As you've pointed out, it's common for fathers to be present through the night if women wish.

How can being born to a mother that doesn't love you be in the best interest of the child. Surrogacy is not in the best interest of the child, it's in the best interest of the buyers.

Yes a father can be present at the birth. In some hospitals he can even spend the night. But on a chair, in a small cubical, next to his partner and child, and only there in a supporting role to his partner. The father is never, ever given a private room and untimatly treated better than the women who have just given birth.

And that definition of mother (as person who carried the child) was only showed shored up to reflect that babies were being born to women who weren't genetically related to them. It's a fluid concept that is now set to change to reflect that women are now giving birth to babies who aren't genetically related to them that they don't go on to 'mother' in any significant way.

What a load of nonsense.

The woman who gestates the child is the mother, both biologically and legally. Again we see people trying to change biological reality to suit their own agenda. If they really loved and carer for that baby they wouldn't take it away from its mother. And what kind of woman can grow a baby for 9 months and not grow attached and love it. She either has to be very detached from reality or very desperate for the money. Or maybe mentally unwell. In any instance I don't think she should be entering a contract to sell her child.

3 questions, is a woman who has her own child via a doner egg not really the mother because its not genetically related to her?

Why do the buyers have to use a different egg? Why endanger two women, why not just use the surrogates egg. It would only involved one person and would be a safer pregnancy?

If its OK for a surrogate to give a baby away because it's not genetically hers, is it unethical for the egg doner to give away her genetic child?

@OhHolyJesus so I presume you also object to straight couples receiving IVF as well then?

0v9, you haven’t said what you think should happen if the SM changes her mind, or if a dispute arises between her and the commissioning parents.

Some SMs don’t want or need the protections given to them by current UK law. I accept that. But removing these protections from all women is not the solution. Some women really need them; in fact I believe they should be tightened up to prevent appalling examples of exploitation such as the one I linked earlier.

I also believe that tighter regulation of surrogacy would better protect children.

@OhHolyJesus re-read your post, so to clarify you have no issue with lesbians receiving help on the nhs or heterosexual couples, it’s gay men you have an issue with? Due to costs an issues with surrogacy etc?

California Well, no. That just isn't true. A woman who carries a child may not be biologically related to the child. How far this precludes her from being the biological mother is a thorny question for ethics committees and you won't help anyone pretending that it's simple.

The law reflects our society, it doesn't hold some definitive version of reality. Science has challenged concepts that once were simple but are now complex and nuanced- the biological motherhood question in relation to donor babies being a great example. When IVF began, the law set out to construct definitions that would protect the interests of everyone involved, given what science was capable of and how society was using it. It didn't do it in an impartial, objective manner so let's not pretend it did. The law is set to do exactly the same thing soon but in another direction and that is probably necessary because the present legislation is creaky and a poor fit for babies born through surrogacy.

Again, it doesn't matter if you don't like it or think it shouldn't be happening at all. If it's happening, the legislation should be flexible and do what it needs to do (at the moment I believe the child's legal father is the surrogate's husband, which must be terrifying and in no way appropriate).

But as I say, you are doomed to failure because you're at least a decade too late to force this genie back in the bottle so you're complaining on Mumsnet while British children are born through surrogacy every day.

Yes Elsie I have a problem with anyone getting eggs, sperm or surrogate mothers on the NHS. I would prefer for it to be offered only by private clinics for couples who will co-parent so the child knows the people who they are related to. No I don't have a problem with anyone of any sexual orientation (I have a massive problem with gender ideology) but there is no getting passed simple biological reproduction and what it involves. If you have something to suggest please go ahead.

My apologies if I haven't been clear but to clarify here, as I have done so on other threads of the same topic:

I do not support surrogacy of any kind, here or abroad, altruistic or commercial. I am not without sympathy for infertile people and I can become emotional watching stories of women who have had cancer or any other medical condition that prevents them from getting pregnant themselves. I do feel sorry for them but I do not think that having a baby is a human right and I am very pro-adoption as, through no fault of their own, children are left without the mother and father who made them. I would like us to return to a time when we looked after children who already existed, rather than trying to make new ones in an overpopulated society which is about money and making children, women's bodies and reproductive systems a commodity.

I do not think that the NHS should be paying for this, for any single person or couple of any sexual orientation. For me it's not what the NHS is for. As California helpfully pointed out, lesbians can get sperm for free so there's no need for the NHS to allocate essential, potentially life-saving funding to people who want a baby to look like them.

I do struggle with this opinion sometimes as I personally have friends who have used egg and sperm donors but I find very very few scenarios way where the baby is centred and in a time of global pandemic I have seen some of the most self-centred views and attitudes around surrogacy that I haven't encountered before, which is why I enter into threads like this to hear other people views.

I never said I had all the answers, I wish it was different, but a child born to a mother who doesn't love it and taken from the only home it has ever known at birth, at their most vulnerable makes me feel physically sick and truly it doesn't matter who the person is who takes the baby away, it's still vile.

I do love it Ov9 that you keep saying it's too late and you can't do anything as the law is what it is.

Maybe we shouldn't have bothered with Section 28 or getting votes for women for that matter.

The law can be changed. You don't have to throw your hands up and say ah well, nothing I can do. Good lord, imagine if we all actually did that?

The Law Commission say the law is outdated, for who? Who is it outdated for? Who is driving this reform. Judging by the FOI, the recent update I've just seen, suggests that it's not the DHSC but stakeholders who pressured the Law Commission to undertake this work.

Who are they? The lawyers who make a mint out of surrogacy? The commissioning parents who want rights to the baby before it takes its first breath? I'm pretty sure it's not the surrogate mothers who mostly give up the babies, how many cases were there where their were issues over parental rights? How many babies were kept their babies.

From Natalie Gamble (hi Natalie)

www.ngalaw.co.uk/knowledge-centre/surrogacy-disputes

0v9, meanwhile, in most western European countries, the tide seems to be flowing the other way. Sweden started the process of banning surrogacy in 2016. France, Italy, Germany, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Switzerland had already banned it.

Ideally I wouldn’t want to see a complete ban in the UK, but I sometimes wonder if it’s the only sensible way forward.

But as I say, you are doomed to failure because you're at least a decade too late to force this genie back in the bottle so you're complaining on Mumsnet while British children are born through surrogacy every day.

Funny because they don't think that in other countries where surrogacy is being banned.

I'm still not understanding why they have to use a donor egg and put two women in danger? And why is it not unethical to give away your eggs when the children that are genetically yours are your "real" children, not the ones you gestate.

Going back to the point of language I made yesterday: of course we should refer to the person who is pregnant with a baby and gives birth to it as the surrogate mother and not the surrogate. If any individual in this position prefers to term herself 'the surrogate' only, because it protects her from involving her emotions, then of course her language cannot be policed and it may well be protective of her mental health to persist in this.

But the rest of us should continue to call it as it is.

I'd add that this distancing use of language is at odds with the loaded narrative given to children (and the world) that 'a lovely kind lady carried you and gave birth to you wasn't that lovely and kind?'

Are you aware of the direction the law is moving? It didn't matter what was happening in other countries when they were moving to allow single people to apply for parental orders. Where were you during the consultations? Yes, you're too late unless you can turn the tanker around in some way I haven't thought of? Otherwise things will take their course as they have been doing up until now.

tik
Very disingenuous. Unless you're a surrogate, you don't get to choose what women belonging to that group wish to call themselves without causing offense and stress, as I think you know.

I submitted my response to the consultation. I dare say the powerful vested interests will get their own way, as they usually do, but it’s not too late for the government to do the right thing.