Surrogate mother wins access to her biological son in landmark case - after gay couple said it was 'homophobic' for her to be involved in their 'motherless family' with 'no vacancy' for a woman

[lechiffre55]

Surrogate mother wins access to her biological son in landmark case - after gay couple said it was 'homophobic' for her to be involved in their 'motherless family' with 'no vacancy' for a woman
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13828699/Surrogate-mother-landmark-case-gay-couple.html

This is an awful case and although some have said there might be a push to change the law, I think it highly unlikely there would be success. If it were successful those surrogate parents would then have to undergo the same rigours as parents who adopt. This, I assume would all be done before conception and then I assume, informal arrangements such as this wouldn't be allowed. I would have thought any move to totally remove the mothers rights in surrogacy would result in mothers getting more rights, not fewer.

Additionally, the couple may have been awful but apparently the child is thriving as do children adopted into same sex relationships.

I cant read the article due to ad blocker, I thought surrogacy is illegal here? Bit confused.

Additionally, the couple may have been awful but apparently the child is thriving as do children adopted into same sex relationships.

the evidence shows the contrary. The best outcomes across all measures are children raised with a mother and father

if the trans debate has taught us anything, it’s that men and woman are not the same

Im sick of pretending it’s all ‘fine’
Almost every male gay couple I’ve ever encountered adopting or buying has had more than a hint of narcissism

<awaits deletion>

“LGBTQ+” environment? What- all of the letters???
Selfish, entitled pair. 1 day a fortnight for mother though? That’s mean.
An abusive father might get more
(anecdotal, no evidence to present to you. Though there might be)

Yep,all the letters and whatever '+' means.

All of the letters except the inconvenient L one where women are mothers.

Loving the concept of a woman that, if a woman wants a relationship with her child, it must be an inappropriate one unless she is prepared to say she's "only" a surrogate and not a mother.

Surrogacy has been legalized in Ireland this year. Only 1 elected representative (Senator Sharon Keoghan - like a person in the House of Lords, but elected ) tried to get the legislation brought down. Like with the GRA in 2015, Ireland is now the most liberal country in Europe in which to traffic a child.

Two of the happiest, most stable families I know have same sex couples as parents - one male, one female. Their children are growing up to be lovely, grounded and successful young people. I don't think you can generalise like this - after all, we all know some appalling heterosexual relationships.

That said, in this case I fully support the rights of the mother, particularly given the highly patronising attitude of the adoptive parents towards her. That child is going to need a truly maternal influence in his life.

I will never feel OK about a baby being taken away from it's mother. I'm glad the right decision was made.

I worry about this idea if children being raised in ‘LGBTQ households/environments’ or whatever. I know of a child locally who has same sex adopted parents. The child is trans. You can’t help but think that being in such an ‘ environment’ has been a factor in the child’s gender confusion.
We’ve moved far away from what is real. At the end of the day this is a child born from this woman’s egg and fed, grown and birthed from her body. She is his biological mother and he will not thank anyone for keeping her away. Look at long lost families, the vast majority of those people you see on there are not looking their dads. They’re looking for their mothers. The mother/ child relationship is the most important and impactful relationship people can experience.

You can’t generalise - that way lies madness. And men’s rights activists 😀

I feel a bit sorry for the Dads. They thought they had their own child at last and that they could do a perfectly decent job bringing him up on their own. They are.

It went wrong when reality rolled up in the form of an adult human female. Curse of men everywhere, innit 😀

Dads turned nasty. Possessive to the point of damaging everyone, inc their son. I think they were terrified.

This is my experience also.

Most of the long term research shows good outcomes into adulthood from same-sex couples however most of the really long term research is from lesbian mums who had a baby in a straight relationship and then got together with their new female partner. Gay couples have been allowed to adopt for much less time and surrogacy is also relatively new en masse (we are adopters with a 12 year old and when we were struggling to have children - 15 years ago - it was mentioned but not as a serious option).

Part and parcel of the same pretence as the trans movement: the lie that male and female are simply interchangeable. Here, the insistence on bringing up a child as if he was created without a woman's involvement - as if two fathers were biologically equivalent to a heterosexual couple.

was that the child was being raised in an ‘LGBTQ environment’

Ummmm...what does that mean exactly?

For those of us who think that sexuality of ANY sort should not be something a child is exposed to until at least adolescence?

If they'd gone the adoption route than any expressed sentiment along these lines would have seen them booted off the waiting list.

I hope that was a very light paraphrasing you used because....hmmm.

@yourhairiswinterfire "The parents had difficulty accepting..."

May I suggest that any adult who has difficulties accepting the facts of human reproduction is not particularly suited to being a parent at all.

Love your username by the way. Ben & Bev 4eva!

I'm beginning to think that a lot of the evils of surrogacy, as we see in this case, and trauma from adoption as well, could be avoided if we made a law that recoginsed the importance of the mother / baby dyad. That relationship should only ever be severed after all support to the mother possible has failed or if the baby is in imminent harm from the mother (which is highly unusual).

And to recognise that the mother is the person the baby is born from, and not necessarily the genetic egg donor. Because it is the process of gestation that develops the bond between mother and baby, not genetics.

We are all born from a mother, and it is the first and most important relationship for our thriving. And before the WABTM I'm saying it's not the only important relationship, but it is the first and most important one.

A law to recognise the dyad and uphold it as a legal and highly important relationship.

Such a law could also possibly go some way to stopping abusive men holding the threat of taking children away from their mother via the court system as a way to stop her from leaving a DV situation.

Just a thought.

I'd like to share a thought on this.
In the legal ruling that others have linked to, I'm still reading through, but point 9 really jumped out at me.
www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/HCJ/2024/20.html

"X and Y were introduced to G in 2018 via her sister, who was X and Y's friend. G, age 36, understood X and Y wished to have a child, that they had been unsuccessful in finding a surrogate and she offered to carry a child for them. G has an older child, B, age 15 years, who G has an equal shared care arrangement with B's father that has worked well for 13 years. It is an informal arrangement agreed between G and B's father and they have never needed to apply to court regarding this arrangement."

G is the surrogate mother. X and Y are the same sex couple. Can't escape the chromosomes :)

The surrogate mother already has a 15 year old child. It doesn't seem anyone cares about the impact on them. Your first brother/sister, and apparently no rights to have that sibling relationship. Having seen your mother go through pregnancy, but knowing you'll not get to have any relationship with your first sibling. How must that feel? This quite upset me when I read it.

The surrogate mother and her child's father being able to share custody of their 15 year old without involving the courts. This shows prior reasonableness in a similar situation.

I've got most of the judgment to read, and I'm sure I'll have more to say, but the one thing that strikes me so far is that everyone is not being treated equally. Apart from the judgement ( thank god judges seem not to be captured ), everything seems geared towards making X and Y happy irrespective of how G and her child feels. It feels like the sacred caste lense and treatment gets applied whever possible. G, her child, and X and Y are all equal in terms of their rights and in the eyes of the law, but they don't seem to be treated the same by SS or the council.

Big difference between adopting and buying, I don’t think it’s right to suggest that these are equally “narcissistic” things to do.

In my mind adoption is about putting the needs of the child first when compared to surrogacy. Adoption is offering and taking permanent responsibility for an existing child that is in need. Surrogacy seems to be about ordering a child of your own. I think the word "ordering" really fits here, it sounds inappropriate when talking about a child's life, but the more I think abour the word "ordering" sums up the element of 'to meet the demands and needs of the prospective parents'. There does very much seem to be a difference in who's needs come first when comparing adoption to surrogacy.

That child deserves to know his mother. That is the primary matter. What on earth do same sex couples say to these children when they realise their father / mother is absent from their lives? Do we know what effect that has on the children? Surely it's devastating for some. Surrogacy should be banned. I also don't think sperms donation should be allowed without an on-going intention of a presence in the child's live.

I see that the baby was born in September 2020 so the mum went through the pregnancy at the height of covid 🙁 meanwhile in the judgement the dads complain that at times they felt excluded during the pregnancy...

They said they were 'made to feel that the baby we had always dreamed of would never be ours' describing an occasion when they had sat on the nursery floor and cried.

Unfortunately that's not at all what the law reforms do. This is from Nordic model now:

the commissioning parents will automatically become the legal parents at the moment of birth. If the birth mother has second thoughts, her only recourse is to voice her objection within 6 weeks of the birth and then apply to the courts for a parental order. Even if the child was conceived from her own genetic material, the commissioning parents – as the legal parents – will take custody of it. This means she is unlikely to be granted a parental order even if she has the wherewithal to pursue one.

The birth mother would have to apply for a parental order from the courts for the baby she carries and births, the purchasers are the legal parents from birth. The reforms are intended to make buying a baby easier and safer for the purchasers, not for the women involved.

https://nordicmodelnow.org/2023/03/29/most-respondents-to-the-law-commissions-surrogacy-consultation-want-a-total-ban-on-surrogacy-in-the-uk/

How much of an arsehole do you have to be to repay a woman who has been through pregnancy and childbirth for you, so that you could have a biological child, by treating her like this?

I bet this particular local council is also the type to withdraw funding from rape crisis organisations which want to provide single sex services to female survivors.