Surrogacy in Ukraine - Times article

[Soontobe60]

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/surrogate-mothers-fear-pressure-to-flee-ukraine-gsntx9z7f?shareToken=39849d90d0863ecb43166b4738993526
So it would seem that in Ukraine, they admit that surrogacy is big business that will suffer economically if Russia invades. And the poor foreign clients will want the surrogates to move out of the country if it happens - despite them having their own families! Talk about exploitation!!

I found it very hard to read the article a few days ago where the coule from London had worried about getting the baby they had bought in Ukraine back to the UK. There was absolutely no mention of the birth mother, or any concern for her safety in any of this. Gross.

I read the article earlier. I thought the suggestion that the surrogate leave her own children in Ukraine and travel to neighbouring Georgia to safeguard the pregnancy and allay the commissioning couple’s anxieties was horrible. What mother would leave her own children untended in a looming conflict zone? Her children’s ages weren’t mentioned but there could be numerous reasons for staying, the safety of teens (especially girls 😞) being as much of a worry in those circumstances as toddlers.

Just to add that the Sunday Times consistently reports feminist issues like this, and I'm so thankful for it.

@MondayYogurt

Just to add that the Sunday Times consistently reports feminist issues like this, and I'm so thankful for it.

Same. Why I subscribed.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60461780
The Irish Government are making it easier to bring Ukranian babies bought by citizens into the country with emergency documentation that usually takes a month to finalise. There are at least 68 Irish citizens registered with the embassy in Kyiv and they know of 12 babies due in May.
Reminds me of the Israeli airlift of babies and Jewish (mainly gay male couples) after the Nepal earthquake in 2015. Mothers left behind. It's a vile trade.

Canadians are worrying about collecting their babies too. This article suggests there are contingency plans to move women to a range of neighbouring countries.

I just can't imagine how they may be feeling, worrying about existing children, not knowing where they will deliver, what sort of medical care they can expect, there may be language problems, how will they get home, who will care for them if they are I'll or have an LSCS, will there be legal problems as surrogacy laws differ from one country to another and there may be problems signing off the deal, will commissioning parents just drop out?

And all this stress is not good for the health of either mother or baby, there are lots of studies about stress affecting the unborn baby, increasing the chances of a premature birth, low birthweight and raised blood pressure in the mother.

It's just people trafficking and I am disgusted that people think this is OK. Women being shunted around like cattle.

Surrogacy tourism should be banned and prosecuted imo.

www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-crisis-in-ukraine-creates-fears-for-canadian-parents-using-ukrainian/

The Times has also has published pro-surrogacy pieces. Not only was there a regular column in the Style magazine sharing the surrogacy 'journey' of commissioning parents Sophie Beresiner and her husband and the piece on Paul Morgan-Bentley and his husband but also a non-critical piece of a woman having her 7th surrogate baby.

I'd share the tokens but I unsubscribed over this issue, complaints on this proved fruitless.

I'm really pleased to see there is at least some critical thinking around international commercial surrogacy, it would be great if the same could apply to domestic so-called 'altruistic' surrogacy and we could have more than just the fluffy stuff from their own staff members.

Let's see - how does it look in the comments from those who can see?

I have been able to read the article and some of the comments and this article from the weekend says more. I like this bit:

"But those individual stories should not stop us asking why France, Spain, Germany, Poland and China have refused to assist their citizens with diplomatic requests to travel to Ukraine to collect babies born to surrogates. And they should not stifle concern around Ukraine being the commercial baby factory of the world."

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-dark-side-of-surrogacy-in-ukraine-mtd558333

So now there is war. And if these babies are lifted out of Ukraine, their adoptive parents will have to explain to them that the woman that gave them life was left to her fate in a war zone/left stateless in a third country and separated from her own family. And it wouldn't surprise me in the least if these women don't get paid.

I'd love one of the surrogacy apologists to come and tell us how the this is all going to be ok, no harm done.

I'd love one of the surrogacy apologists to come and tell us how the this is all going to be ok, no harm done

Exactly.

14 babies for Irish couples by end May, 15 due to Australian couples by September. The U.K. number hasn't been publicised I don't think.

This article at least mentions the 'surrogates' (you know, the women who are pregnant, also called mothers).

"Ukraine has strict rules governing eligibility for surrogacy. The intended parents must be heterosexual, and have undergone at least four unsuccessful rounds of IVF. Surrogacy costs around $90,000, compared with more than $200,000 in the US.
Julia Osiyevska, the director of Ukrainian surrogacy clinic New Hope, which has Australian clients with babies due in April and May, said the women acting as surrogates were anxious, too. “There are many concerns how they are going to be paid, what other issues might arise,” she said.

... Some surrogate mothers have moved to neighbouring countries or to Greece, which is also a popular destination for fertility treatment and has clinics run by the same companies as operate in Ukraine. “I know of one case where the surrogate won’t leave the country because of her own family, but then what of course happens in two months time when the baby is born and the intended parents can’t come?” said Ms Bevan."

What indeed. How much coercion and near to impossible circumstances can one woman take?

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/a-nightmare-parents-fear-for-australian-surrogate-babies-in-ukraine-20220223-p59z3w.html

200 babies due in the next three months from one clinic alone for clients from around the world. Although I believe Biotex is the biggest there are about 50 IVF clinics so there will be many more than 200 overall.

I have seen reports of calls for blood donors for emergency treatment.

What is going g to happen to these women and their babies, giving birth in a bomb shelter? No blood transfusions or NICU for poorly babies presumably.

Last screenshot from the article.

What is going g to happen to these women and their babies, giving birth in a bomb shelter? No blood transfusions or NICU for poorly babies presumably.

Just awful to contemplate. The article I shared has the story of a prematurely born baby and also noted the embryos that are 'stuck'.

The focus on the wealthy couples (you have to be a heterosexual couple for Surrogacy in Ukraine) who live safely outside of what is now country in a state of national emergency, and their infertility and embryos rather than the women who are not only living there now but who are pregnant and unable to get treatment let alone leave...it just amazes me.

The entitlement seeps through with every word. Someone needs to 'check their privilege'.

Posting without comment.

The pro-surrogacy lobby will definitely use this to argue for commercial surrogacy to be legalised here, and the insane price rises in the cost of living will mean there will be enough impoverished women desperate enough to contemplate doing it. These women will be left with life-long physical and psychological changes, and that's if the pregnancy and labour go well. It's horrific.

There's something really wrong about fast retrieval of your commissioned baby while its birth mother is left behind in a country under siege.

I thought the same @Delphinium20.

What will the commissioning parents do to protect the welfare of the 'local surrogates' once they have the baby they paid for and are running for safety themselves? Luckily for them they have a safe country to return to. Will they take her with them? Will they take her other kids too?

I agree @EsmaCannonball it will be weaponised as an argument to keep surrogacy on U.K. soil and as you say the cost of living is going up so we can anticipate women being more drawn to surrogacy.

(That would work for the surrogacy agencies, like the one TwoDads run, as they need 'breeding stock' to be 'matched'.)

@OhHolyJesus What will the commissioning parents do to protect the welfare of the 'local surrogates' once they have the baby they paid for and are running for safety themselves? Luckily for them they have a safe country to return to. Will they take her with them? Will they take her other kids too?

Fast forward 20 years and a savvy young person is studying history and sees their birth coincided with the Russian invasion. How will parents answer these questions to their adult children?

That Instagram post is sickening @OhHolyJesus

It would make me laugh if it didn't make me cry - people who wouldn't dream of eating a battery farmed egg, who agonise over factory workers paid slave wages for companies like Nike no Adidas, but they think nothing of renting a womb without a care for the woman going through pregnancy and childbirth before giving up the baby she has carried.

I feel so frightened for everyone in Ukraine, what an absolutely terrifying situation. And the impossible situation for women and couples involved in surrogacy there.

In Covid ‘stranded’ babies were left to cry alone in rows of cots in Ukraine hotel rooms, with one supervising adult to feed them, awaiting collection by international parents who weren’t allowed to into the country. This is a video report about it which should come with a trigger warning.
BBC News Coronavirus: Surrogate babies stranded in Ukraine
www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-52673225

I read an article about this yesterday (I'm currently in Oz)
There was absolutely zero mention of the women carrying these babies.
Or what was proposed for the babies after birth (or where the ones already born are?)
I am sure the Australian purchasers parents are worried sick about the babies as stated in The Age.
But those poor women and babies. Normally I research these things further as I'm hugely concerned about all aspects of surrogacy.
But this time I feel too helpless and scared to look into it any further.

Now Russia has actually invaded, there must be UK people who will never be able to get to Ukraine to collect a surrogate-born baby that’s already born, or which a Ukrainian woman is currently pregnant with. Or it could be a few years until they can get there to collect the baby, which by then is not surrogacy, it’s presumably a whole other process? Someone will have to be the baby’s parent in Ukraine. What happens to the woman while all this is worked out? How can she have a safe birth, in hospital if needed? What happens to bringing up the baby afterwards? What happens if she wants an abortion or if the UK parents want her to because they can’t collect the baby? What if the woman doesn’t want to do that, because she can’t leave her home safely or doesn’t want to leave her kids, or you know, she just doesn’t want to?

Abortion and safe aftercare will be one of the first services to stop in a war- hospital staff and other people are either fleeing to any safety they can find, or are too terrified to leave their homes and the hospitals will be focusing on casualties and the mortuary.

Will the Ukrainian women still get paid whatever happens? Absolutely crucial to them. Moving countries till the baby is born and then trying to come back to Ukraine isn't going to be safe or realistic. It’s unbelievably awful whichever way you look at it. All that’s obviously just in one small subset of Ukrainian society at the moment.

I'm not sure if this link will work as it's a paid for subscription.
Update interview with Canadian baby buyers commissioning parents.

https://ukrainesurrogacydispatches.substack.com/p/two-days-after-the-invasion-intended-fbb?r=3qvki&utmcampaign=post&utmm_medium=email