Just when I was feeling things were starting to move in the right direction!

[HeavenHotel]

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/15127834/20-babies-year-surrogates-16-nannies-100-kids/amp/

My apologies for the Sun link but I can't find any other recent stories covering this. I also can't see a thread on here about it.

• JUST over a year ago, Kristina Ozturk was a mum-of-one. But now she's raising 20 babies, all of whom are her biological kids. The 23-year-oldd_, from Batumi, Georgia, and millionaire businessman husband Galip, 57, have paid £138,000 to surrogates for babies over the past year and two months.*

It genuinely makes me feel sick. Sick to the stomach. For those who can't see anything wrong with surrogacy maybe we should point them here.

So so so upset, those poor poor babies and those mothers. What is wrong with people?? It's like something out of a nightmare.

'However, do people on here object to the whole idea of surrogacy in general ? Is there an ethical surrogacy in peoples minds or is this something that you would always view as exploitative ?'.

I used to think surrogacy was just a nice way of helping an infertile or gay couple have a family, harmless, but like my views on porn, I have radically changed my mind in the last few years

There are too many loop holes and ways for it to be exploited. Too many things that can go wrong, especially if it is finacially incentivised or commodified. Pregnancy takes a massive toll on a woman's body and there will always be arseholes, nutters and sociopaths who will take advantage or renage on arrangements if circumstances change.

It seems a shame to limit entirely altruistic arrangements, but if it came down to a vote, I would nevertheless vote to ban surrogacy altogether. Having children is not a human right and children aren't possessions or accessories. Neither is surrogacy 'work'.

@AdHominemNonSequitur

'However, do people on here object to the whole idea of surrogacy in general ? Is there an ethical surrogacy in peoples minds or is this something that you would always view as exploitative ?'.

I used to think surrogacy was just a nice way of helping an infertile or gay couple have a family, harmless, but like my views on porn, I have radically changed my mind in the last few years

There are too many loop holes and ways for it to be exploited. Too many things that can go wrong, especially if it is finacially incentivised or commodified. Pregnancy takes a massive toll on a woman's body and there will always be arseholes, nutters and sociopaths who will take advantage or renage on arrangements if circumstances change.

It seems a shame to limit entirely altruistic arrangements, but if it came down to a vote, I would nevertheless vote to ban surrogacy altogether. Having children is not a human right and children aren't possessions or accessories. Neither is surrogacy 'work'.

Me too. While I concede that there are sisters or mothers who have carried a child for their sister/daughter (perhaps had uterine cancer) and everything works out well (baby is breastfed by aunt/grandma, baby isn't traumatized as there is no birth separation, pregnant mom isn't abused nor scrutinized or bullied, dad isn't controlling, etc.), I think these are few and far between, (perhaps a compromise can make legal provisions for what should be rare circumstances), but the concept of altruistic surrogacy is just too rife for abuse.

@OhHolyJesus exactly, but expenses of up to £18k are entirely possible and very rarely will the courts challenge them.

The couple are not same sex. She will absolutely be taking the full maternity leave but very rarely works anyway.

I read earlier today that a UK celebrity would like a 6th child to give her latest partner a child but would have to use a surrogate as she's unable to carry anymore.
Ugh.
It disgusts me.

[quote Actuallyabitgreynow]@OhHolyJesus exactly, but expenses of up to £18k are entirely possible and very rarely will the courts challenge them.

The couple are not same sex. She will absolutely be taking the full maternity leave but very rarely works anyway.[/quote]
Yes, my understanding is that judges rarely question 'expenses' and wouldn't refuse a parental order anyway as they consider it in the best interests of the child to remain in the custody of the commissions parents who would have had custody from birth.

(A parental order has to be applied for within 6 months from birth and the U.K. Law Commission want to change it from the mother relinquishing her parental rights to her not having any at birth and having to ask for them within 6 weeks from birth in England and 5 weeks in Scotland.)

@IHaveBrilloHair

I read earlier today that a UK celebrity would like a 6th child to give her latest partner a child but would have to use a surrogate as she's unable to carry anymore. Ugh. It disgusts me.

That's foul. If surrogacy should be used at all, it definitely should not be for something like this.

@IHaveBrilloHair

I read earlier today that a UK celebrity would like a 6th child to give her latest partner a child but would have to use a surrogate as she's unable to carry anymore. Ugh. It disgusts me.

So thoroughly dehumanizing...you can just 'use another woman's body' to give your husband a gift.

If that isn't straight out Gilead, "Sarah gave her handmaiden to Abraham" bit.

There's a great blog here, looking at the recent BBC 3 series "The Surrogates" and examining the motivations of the surrogate mothers featured.

stopsurrogacynowuk.org/2021/05/31/surrogacy-in-the-media-a-review-of-bbc-threes-the-surrogates-long-read/

Obviously things are very different in the UK unlike Russia, we have excellent free healthcare and the SM's still have certain rights and protections. Surrogacy is meant to be altruistic but the approach to expenses is much like the MPs expenses scandal and in reality most arrangements involve a "going rate" fee, average (or it might be mean, sorry, not checking my statistics!) around £15k.

In a way extreme cases like these do the cause a favour as it makes people sit up and think about the lack of ethics and opens a few eyes.

Feel terribly sorry for those little babies and their mothers, being farmed like that. I can't see this will end well. It's utterly abhorrent and shocking.

But posters asking why is it allowed? That's the thing about commercial surrogacy. You just go and buy a baby.

And although I think it would be more difficult to do in the UK for various reasons, there's nothing to stop someone doing this here too, if they could find enough SMs, use different fertility clinics and keep it secret. I imagine it would all fall apart at the point where they applied for a parental order, as the courts do look at family circumstances before signing off the parental order and I assume at this stage the facts would come out.

@Delphinium20
It's funny you say that, I was sterilised many years ago, and was asked what I'd do if I met someone who wanted a baby and wouldn't I give them one.
I was utterly horrified answered that I don't have babies as gifts for men, and refused to see him ever again.
(I actually went further than that, but Im not sure it's appropriate for here and will possibly offend people)
I got sterilised!

@IHaveBrilloHair Good for you for giving him the heave ho!

Ugh...that idea of 'giving a man the gift of a baby' is quite pervasive.

Sorry, not strictly relevant to the thread but I was thinking about ways laws can be abused and worked around, and if a case similar to the OP could ever happen in the UK. I feel confident in our child protection services that as soon as they became aware they would step in. However if the numbers were smaller, say half a dozen, and the commissioning parents stayed under the radar then I think it would be possible.

The main (?only) way we are able to know how many surrogate babies are in the UK is through court records of parental orders. Most hospitals don't keep records of surrogacy - I've sent FOIs to a few and they either cite privacy or state that it is just another pregnancy and no need to keep records. This means it is difficult for researchers to track them down. We cannot know, for instance, basic facts like pregnancy and birth complications and monitor the risks of gestational surrogacy.

The other thing about using parental orders is that doesn't reveal how many of the babies were born here in the U.K. and how many trafficked imported from abroad i think it would be revealed in the individual court records for each case, but that involves a lot of detective work and research.

Anyway what I am longwindedly getting around to is that I had remembered seeing somewhere that there is no obligation to seek an order. So there is no way of knowing if some people (perhaps believing the court process would not approve them?) simply live under the radar without formalising the parental responsibility. I think it would mean they couldn't get passports for the children and travel abroad but probably for the rest no questions would be asked and lies would not be queried.

Though having a batch of same age babies might raise questions.

I also saw somewhere that there had been one case where the courts refused a parental order but I don't know any more details about it, whether the commissioning parents had been found to be unsuitable?

"In the UK alone, the number of parental orders made following a surrogate birth has tripled from 121 in 2011 to 368 in 2018. The true number of surrogacy arrangements may be even higher, as there is no obligation to seek such an order."

Surrogacy: Why the world needs rules for 'selling' babies www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-47826356

Ugh...that idea of 'giving a man the gift of a baby' is quite pervasive.

It is @Delphinium20

I've noticed in a few cases of surrogacy that have been in the news for whatever reason that the woman has been older than the man and already has children of her own. I'd be really interested to know how common that scenario is. I imagine there are a few issues going on to do with wanting her man to have his own biological child (it probably wouldn't be her egg due to age), hanging on to the man so he doesn't move into someone younger and fertile, denying age moving on and inevitable loss of fertility etc.

Then there is David Watkins, current poster boy for single men everywhere to obtain babies through surrogacy because, as he so delightfully put it in the BBC series "I don't have access to a womb".

Fact is we have already moved on from "the gift of a baby" to "my right to have a baby" with demands from gay and single men for "fertility equality" which is surely extreme biology denial coupled with exploitation of women to be available as breeders.

How very Gilead.

I was utterly shocked I was even asked that.
I'm not particularly on board with women doing it, but their body, their business, just don't start involving other women in it.
(Tbf I'm never on board with surrogacy)

This is a dumb question, I know, but why is she doing this? Pps have referred to it being a "baby zoo" or "baby supermarket" - did you mean she might sell the babies on somehow?
Clearly it's not to make a "normal" family.

Cardinal that's the million dollar question! Why are people doing it??

Because they can?

Why do supermodels buy babies when they are too old/can't be assed to do it themselves?

Or as a PP mentioned when an older woman wants to "give" a baby to a younger man.

I never thought much about surrogacy, thought prob a nice thing to do if your sister or whoever couldn't have kids. But now? I am SO against it.

I suspect it will only get worse too. :(

But 20? That's not in the same league as 1 or 2!

@IHaveBrilloHair

I read earlier today that a UK celebrity would like a 6th child to give her latest partner a child but would have to use a surrogate as she's unable to carry anymore. Ugh. It disgusts me.

It’s repellent. A baby is not a “gift” to be given.