Surrogacy laws to be overhauled under new reforms – benefitting the child, surrogate and intended parents - Law Commission proposals

[IwantToRetire]

The Law Commissions’ report and draft legislation, the culmination of a detailed review, outlines a new regulatory regime that offers more clarity, safeguards and support – for the child, surrogate and parents who will raise the child (“the intended parents”).

Under the reforms, a new system governing surrogacy agreements, “the new pathway”, would come into force – the first time that the law has introduced a route for surrogacy where scrutiny of arrangements starts pre-conception.
Overseen by non-profit organisations operating under a regulatory body, the Commissions’ new pathway would ensure rigorous pre-conception screening and safeguarding. If the right conditions are met, it would allow intended parents to become the legal parents of the child from birth, subject to the surrogate’s right to withdraw her consent.

The new system would improve the current process, which involves a sometimes complex and lengthy journey through the courts after the child has been born, resulting in some couples waiting up to a year after birth before they become legal parents of the child.

https://www.lawcom.gov.uk/surrogacy-laws-to-be-overhauled-under-new-reforms-benefitting-the-child-surrogate-and-intended-parents/

Really only posting to make others aware of this report (I couldn't find a thread about it so hope its not a duplicate).

Article (from a man's perspective!) https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/women-are-being-ignored-again-in-the-surrogacy-debate/

Response from Nordic Model Now https://nordicmodelnow.org/2023/04/01/ask-your-mp-to-say-no-to-commercial-style-surrogacy-in-the-uk/

Don’t twist my words

I didn't mean to twist your words and I don't think I did. You don't like the principle even of a woman carrying a pregnancy for her sister. You have expanded on that to say that these women and anyone who helps them is immoral and "betraying" a baby irrespective of what statistics might say about the physical and psychological wellbeing of such babies.

Again, I am not attempting to twist your words. I think you are being straight up about simply not liking the principle. If I've got the wrong end of the stick, then I'm open to listening. I have not and will not be involved in either altruistic or commercial surrogacy - I don't "have an agenda".

I suppose that is what the report signifies.

That not just because it is now possible for women to act as surrogates, but because we now have a growing culture (western consumerism) that if you have money you can buy what you want.

And once people start seeing others do it, through tv programmes, celebrities proudly announcing a surrogate baby, they assume it is a right we should all have.

But like everything else, growth based on who has the most amount of money, the rules that are set are termed more as those for a commercial transaction.

Slightly off topic but I always thought it odd that Shulamith Firestone's vision for the future was that all babies were created via test tube and gestated in incubators. I think her rationale that only by women being free of being the sex that became pregnant, would women be equal. But also (there was a strand of this in 70s feminism) that children should belong to or be owned by anyone, whether birth parents or nurturers.

There's a huge divide between children who are, as described above, born because of a relationship, as opposed to children who are as much a signifier of you being a high achiever on the social scale.

Is it wrong to pay for a baby through ivf? Because I’m doing that now. In the USA you also pay for any birth. It’s really not that bad to say.

You think babies purchased abroad should BE REMOVED AND PUT IN THE ADOPTION SERVICE? In what way is that best for the child?

This thread is depressing. Surrogacy can be an incredible thing and yes it can also benefit the child, helping infertile and same sex couples the chance of a family.

One minute a baby is not a baby until it’s born and a woman should be able to abort it right up until birth. But if it’s surrogacy the baby is actually a baby and will be deeply traumatised as has apparently now been a baby since conception.

Yes a newborn baby will automatically want the women who birthed it, but it will very quickly bond with whichever human becomes it’s primary caregiver. A newborn baby will also wanr to breastfeed. A newborn baby will also want to cosleep. Apparently we’re not allowed to enforce that.

How does surrogacy benefit the child?

I remember reading in Firestone’s obituary, that she was pretty misogynistic. She wouldn’t clean up after herself, saying “I am an intellectual” - so someone else, probably a woman, would have to do it.

I dont think it was misogyny but more a rejection of any "traditional" female roles. And this was also at the time that (some) women were arguing for wages for housework, so so long as you were paying them, yes dont do your own housework.

I’m not sure that it is for the benefit of the ‘the State’, just for a few privileged individuals, often operating outside the boundaries of belonging to one Sate, and with no loyalty to anything other than themselves.

Monsters.

Also (this thread is making me think - phew) it is only relatively recently (in the west at least) that women being pregnant could be a choice.

Prior to that women became pregnant more often than they wanted, or could cope with.

And with that choice, a whole different approach and language is being used about having children. Not that this might not have happened pre contraception, but it is like two parallel developments. ie children being born through positive choice, rather than just being one of many, and at the same time a growth in an attitude that if you cant give birth someone else can / should do it for you, and those who dont want to give birth but want a baby.

And the report is more a response to that second development.

The problem is if you object to the principle then you don't want to know that the study is showing no adverse effects for the children. You can't say 'you're not thinking about the child' and then ignore what the study is saying about the child.

The benefit for the child is that they exist after a lot of planning and care and are very much loved and - when the everyone involved maintains ongoing contact - is very well aware of how much they were actively wanted and planned for and welcomed into the world. Not 'sold' but a 'gift', yes, and that is also what children from these families report. I know that people don't think the children should have a say in whether surrogacy should be continued in the UK but EndlessTea obviously doesn't think that given that she has quoted what her DC think.

Again, I have no - and will never have - personal or commercial involvement in surrogacy.

Why did you share what your DC thought on this thread?

With regard to surrogacy, what specific rights of the child are you talking about?

Excellent posts from EndlessTea

It is also worth reading what adult adoptees have to say about their experience. A significant number have raised the difficulty and emotional burden/impact on relationship with their adoptive parents through things like knowing: they were wanted to fill a hole in the parents' life: they were brought into the family to serve an adult's purpose. That their adoptive parents don't want to know or think or talk about the feelings that the adult child grew up with regarding their birth parent and the loss of them. That they are under unspoken pressure to be grateful. That the adoptive parents celebrate the day of their being united as something joyful, when to the child it was a day of loss.

And these adults were not intentionally created, and their loss of their birth parent and identity intentionally caused to serve that adult's emotional need. That's going to potentially add a whole lot of extra challenges. And those kids who were adopted went to very carefully vetted parents, with supervised hand over and settling times, where the parents had been trained and helped to understand that the child is not simply a blank slate on which to project the adult's wishes as if they were a birth child; that they have a history which cannot be a dirty secret dressed up in 'she was just a walking incubator, she wasn't your mother'.

Yes, some kids will be fine and happy. Others won't be. Others may seriously suffer. How many kids are collateral damage to this being seen as ok for rich adults to do for themselves?

It’s really weird that you are unable to imagine a baby has rights which need to be considered.

Ok. You are not interested in even trying to engage in rational conversation. You are not interested in actually truly considering any possibility that there might be legitimate alternatives to the worldview which you are desperately clinging to and trying to protect because you've pinned your perception of self-worth onto it. You will get support on this particular board of course, so I can see why you stick with it.