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/

If the 'legitimate alternatives' include disregarding centering the needs of a child? Isn't that problematic rather than legitimate? There's a lot of articulate explanation of the issues here, that are perfectly rational reasons for not agreeing with you.

Babies have rights and a need for
security.

The only thing they know at birth is the heart rate and smell of their mother, not the ego of their purchaser.

poor babies. It’s inhumane

Is objecting to the commodification of women's bodies, the sale of infants, and the addition of "ongoing consent" to the statute, things one pins one's "perception of self-worth" to? Let's break them down:

• commodification of women's bodies. Yes, I think humans are priceless and not something like a pint of milk you stick in the shopping. Being a woman, I do link that to my own self-worth and I think that's a sane and reasonable position.

• sale of infants. Again, babies are not a ready meal or a car to be bought and sold, and picked over, bargained for. Another sane and reasonable viewpoint.

• objecting to ongoing consent as a legal concept. I fear we would be back to rape in marriage being legal, as one nasty example of where that would go. I do link that to my own self-worth and again, I think it's sane to view myself as my own person who doesn't give the ongoing nod for an act being down to me whenever. I also think this is reasonable. I am worth more than this.

So if we can “gift” children, and surrogacy is altruistic, why are people being paid for it? Surely they’d be doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, expecting no recompense? Why is it costing someone $75000 to buy a baby when as a poster said, the baby is a gift? At what age does selling a human become illegal? 5? 7? 50? Why is it ok to sell a baby but not a 3 year old?

@ResisterRex I love the way you phrase things. I think all your bullet points are sane and reasonable too!

Some great points.

I think we just don’t know enough about the outcomes for children. Please show it if you have it.

Where are any studies that follow up children born through surrogacy into their late teens, 20s and 30s and older? The only evidence I’ve seen people point to, relates to much younger children. Nothing from young adults who might have had more time to reflect on their birth origins. Nothing from when they are at an age when they would perhaps consider becoming a parent themselves. Nothing from the usual reflection at middle age as maybe their parent/s become frail. And so on. What about the differences that could be felt between women and men born of surrogacy? What differences if they have kids themselves or don’t? What if their relationship with the parents who brought them up is good or bad?

These days young adoptees are in general considered likely to need specific post-adoption emotional support from childhood, openness about it is routine. And links with the birth family are maintained where appropriate.

But children born through surrogacy are not offered any support at all to help them come to terms with their birth origins despite what must be a fundamental experience of loss. No social links are maintained by right. And as the children gain in understanding they will learn that the experiences and motives of the adults involved will have been very different to an adoption situation- whether the adoption was in the UK or not.

We have just had a parliamentary investigation into historical forced adoption in the UK and they have heard women speak of the permanent emotional damage done right into the 1970s and 1980s when unmarried women were forced by moral blackmail to give up their baby.

Here we are in 2023 with lobbyists and even a government body seriously suggesting that in future in the UK we should be able to legally force women to give up their babies under legal contract. Women who have been paid several thousand pounds to become pregnant and then give birth to a baby either using their own egg, or someone else’s. Women who can’t enforce any ongoing relationship with their own child they gave birth to in future. No rights to know anything about that child’s life. Because legally we will have deliberately cut all that off.

Very good points on this thread

The consultation seems to have taken as a starting point ‘we must have surrogacy’ and worked out from there

I believe surrogacy is fundamentally morally wrong

by definition it treats a human being (the child) as a commodity

by definition it treats women as exploitable resources

And the points above about support for adopted people versus support for people conceived by surrogacy are very compelling

@Slothtoes There was an article in the Times just yesterday about a research study from The University of Cambridge which followed surrogacy and sperm / egg donor children from birth until the age of 20. The findings were that surrogacy and donor babies grow up as happy as other children. Copying the full thing here for anyone who doesn't have an account.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/surrogacy-babies-grow-up-as-happy-as-other-children-v8ccjjnfc

"Surrogacy and donor babies grow up as happy as other children"

Families who have children via egg or sperm donors are just as happy as those who conceive naturally, a landmark study has shown.
Researchers at the University of Cambridge followed 65 children born by assisted reproduction — surrogacy or egg or sperm donation — from birth until the age of 20.

They found “no difference” in the quality of family relationships or the child’s overall happiness compared with a control group of 52 children who were conceived naturally.

The study is the first to examine the long-term effects of assisted reproduction and concluded that “wanting children is what really matters” rather than how they were conceived.

It overturns assumptions that not being genetically related may damage relationships due to differences in physical appearance or parents not viewing a child as their own.

The research suggests that parents should be honest with children about how they were conceived from an early age. Parents who told children how they were conceived by the age of four had better relationships with their children and less anxiety.

Susan Golombok, former director of the university’s Centre for Family Research and the study’s lead author, said: “Despite people’s concerns families with children born through third-party assisted reproduction — whether that be an egg donor, sperm donor or a surrogate — are doing well right up to adulthood.
“What this research means is that having children in different or new ways doesn’t actually interfere with how families function. Really wanting children seems to trump everything — that’s what really matters.”

The research was published in the journal Developmental Psychology.

About 4,200 children are born each year in the UK with the help of egg or sperm donation, while more than 500 a year are born through surrogacy.

That article conflates surrogacy with sperm / egg donation - and there's a world of a difference.

This lack of evidence seems to be very well documented about how children, surrogate mothers and the mothers and fathers bringing up the children (known as surrogacy parents in this article) get on emotionally longer term. They talk about there being no studies beyond early adolescence.

A quick google finds a 2020 article in a international journal from a UK psychologist at Cambridge University discussing exactly this. The whole article is well worth reading and is free, with links to other published evidence. I’ve pasted the final conclusion section in full.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fertnstert.2020.03.010

Conclusion

Most of the research examining family relationships and the psychological adjustment of children born through surrogacy have found that families function well and the children do not experience problems in psychological adjustment. Far fewer studies have been conducted on children born through surrogacy than on children created through other forms of third-party reproduction such as egg and sperm donation.

Importantly, no studies have examined the psychological adjustment and experiences of those born through surrogacy beyond early adolescence.

Another limitation in our current understanding of the postdelivery adjustment of individuals involved in surrogacy is that most of the existing studies have been performed in Western cultures among mainly white populations (42).

Furthermore, there is huge variability between countries in who can access treatment, the type of surrogacy available, social acceptance of surrogacy, and the way in which surrogacy is practiced, factors that are likely to affect the experiences of those involved.

There is, therefore, a pressing need to examine psychological adjustment and family relationships in different cultural contexts to help fully understand the consequences for surrogates, surrogacy parents, and their children.

@MrsOvertonsWindow The study included both surrogacy and donor children. I’ve found another article which gives more detail
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-04-reproduction-kids-fine-early-biological.amp

Of the 65 families studied 22 were born through surrogacy, 17 from egg donation and 26 from sperm donation.

That article also links to another paper published in March on the experiences of young adults conceived through surrogacy, egg/ sperm donation.

https://academic.oup.com/humrep/advance-article/doi/10.1093/humrep/dead048/7078526?login=false

I think the point for me is that regardless of how good on average outcomes are for children conceived via surrogacy it’s still morally wrong. And there is still a massive possibility of things going horribly wrong for individual children which is built in when people are treated like things. The ‘what if the foetus is diagnosed with Down’s syndrome?’ question for example

A PP used slavery in Ancient Rome as an example and I think it’s a good one. Slaves in a liberal, rich household would have had a much more comfortable life than many free people at the time

that does not make slavery the right thing to do

@Slothtoes I can’t open that article you linked to but if it is from Cambridge I assume it is from the same researchers who have just published the results of the children up to the age of 20. It’s all part of the same longitudinal study. So in 2020 there may not have been studies beyond adolescence but there is now.

x post- just seen your link and will have a look at that when I can. Same university, different researcher to what I found. I think maybe in general going to the published paper exposes more of the limits of the actual evidence, newspapers asking for a personal comment seem to be able to be quite selective in what they ask and quote on?

Also issues such as if an adoption breaks down, there are social workers supervising and supporting. Just because you planned to take a baby home with you does not mean you will instantly bond with it and everything will be great - the chemicals and hormones created by birth aren't there. And even with that support some disasters happen.

But then many adults will shrug and say well what if the kid hates me and resents me when they're thirty - I got my baby snuggles and instagrams and got to do the parenting experience I felt I deserved.

Not sure why link is not working- the article title is ‘Postdelivery adjustment of gestational carriers, intended parents, and their children’ by Vasanti Jadva PhD. Published: April 17, 2020.
It’s talking about important evidence gaps of all kinds, not just age so I’d say worth a look.
A big point is that surrogacy is an umbrella term covering a lot of different ways of having a baby for someone else, and that different cultural contexts for surrogacy also are likely to have impact, and that all need study.