A shocking surrogacy case

[Justme56]

https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Re-Z-Unlawful-Foreign-Surrogacy-.pdf

Unbelievable!

I'm not against surrogacy at all, provided it's done following a set of strict rules, in the UK and thought is given to the child first and foremost. However this case is a bloody disgrace. What on earth were two people thinking wanting to bring babies into the world at their age? If they had such a desire to fulfil a mothering role then surely they could have applied to do some fostering or volunteered for a childrens charity working with kids or something.

But how can thought be given to the child first and foremost when the very first thing the child will experience is a planned removal from its mother?

Which mother? The biological/genetic mother or the woman who carries the baby?

The mother is the person who carries the baby. Always.

And straight away you’ve found a problem with your own solution. How can “strict laws” protect all three parties equally?

The woman who created the baby with her body during gestation.

This is a dreadful and uniquely cruel story. There really are no ethical defences for purchasing babies in this way

@FannyCann yes we see the girls from time to time. One of them is more stable than the other. Irony is the "mother" has cats who appear to be her priority and prevent them going away as a family. Just awful.

Well, as an adoptive parent of daughters neglected and abandoned by the mother who carried them, I think that's simplistic.

However, I agree that the pair who paid for these children did not have their best interests at heart, and it was very selfish.

Shame on those women. I can only describe what they did as sinful.

Judges will always do what is best for the children, which is how adults in international surrogacy end up getting what they wanted all along, despite the ethical,practical and legal issues.

These children have no genetic link to the OAPs who purchased them. Usually for surrogacy there is a link, and then the Gov usually allows it because of the genetic connection.

So these OAPS had to adopt instead. And like others have said, they normally wouldn't be allowed - rule of thumb in the UK is a 45 year age gap between the child and the younger parent (though exceptions are made).

This is demonic, there's no other way for me to put it.

Agree - what a difficult case…

I am wide eyed at the abysmally stupid and selfish behaviour from “ms W” and “ms X”… even down to the fact they decided to “buy one each”

reprehensible pair and I pity those poor children.

totally amoral behaviour

Wow, this is really appalling.
Glad everything is as good as it can be - for now.

Buying babies really should have some sort of deterrent.

Not at all. The pp was referring to the process in respect to genetics. Throughout a pregnancy and at the time of birth the baby’s mother is the woman who carried the baby. There is no “genetic/egg” mother, otherwise any woman who has a baby with an egg donor for medical/fertility reasons would have to go through a legal process after birth.

At a subsequent time, babies can have another legal mother, through (what should be) a well organised legal process, but of course they will always have a birth mother - the woman who carried them, not the egg donor - and a legal mother.

This is not to in anyway diminish the emotional connection a legal mother might have, or elevate the connection a birth mother who was otherwise disinterested. It is merely to point out the legal basics of a surrogacy arrangement to highlight that a genetic mother doesn’t have rights. This is important for discussions around the legal mess that any surrogacy arrangement causes. It’s not personal.

Thank you for clarifying.

My daughters have been profoundly affected by chronic neglect from their birth mother. My younger daughter is also probably living with the brain damage caused by their birth mum's alcoholism, but there are no diagnostic test for FAE.

So the suggestion that carrying a baby confers some special status, compared to being the person who is there caring day in, day out, was a bit hurtful.

That is not in any way to say their birth mother didn't love them. She was dealing with a chronic lack of care herself.

The suggestion was that carrying the baby confers a particular status, that of mother in the biological if not nurturing sense, as opposed to providing the egg, which does not.

What a horrifying case of human trafficking, this should be front page news and govts should be meeting internationally to discuss how to prevent such incidents. Anyone pro surrogacy should consider how any surrogacy arrangement is as vulgar and selfish as this; their age is not the only factor of concern.

I'm an adopter too and I do think that carrying a baby confers a particular status. In the UK "mother" is whoever gives birth (in the US it can be the egg donor or commissioning mother but not here). Imo it is one that should only be severed in exceptional circumstances, and not straight after birth as part of a commercial transaction.

It is because of the difficulties I believe are caused by the " primal wound" of being removed from a perfectly able mother at birth that I think surrogacy is wrong. We don't even do that to puppies.

Some children will always have to be removed due to safety concerns, but we should keep babies with their birth mother if at all possible and not set them up for removal.

So the suggestion that carrying a baby confers some special status, compared to being the person who is there caring day in, day out, was a bit hurtful.

It does confer special status, at the time of birth, in most countries’ laws. That is regardless of the woman’s health, wellbeing, intentions, or qualities as a person. But it has nothing to do with comparison with people who subsequently care for (legally or otherwise) and love the children. In fact it’s absolutely vital that the woman who gives birth has “special status” as the mother of the child; can you imagine what could happen if that wasn’t the case?

That's so bloody awful. Those poor girls.

We are adopters and our children were born when I was in my 40s and DH was in his 50s. There wasn't much of an issue with our ages, but for a variety of reasons we adopted from overseas and the lawyers were really quite slapdash and over optimistic with some of the nationality issues. They made suggestions that would have left us overseas with a baby that couldn't come to the UK, which is where both our jobs were (though in fact we could both live in the country they were born in, as I'm a citizen).

I didn't read the whole thing but did the two women live in Cyprus with the babies all those four years?

Can we not dignify those buying babies with the term “commissioning mother”? It’s a horrific turn of phrase.

I used that phrase because it is widely used to differentiate from the birth mother. The other description is "intended mother". I didn't make it up, it is how the industry describes these people.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrogacy#:~:text=The%20person%20giving%20birth%20is,the%20intended%20parent%20or%20neither.

I'm just boggled by the absolute selfishness.

@Arran2024 i’m not for a minute suggesting you’re not using commonly established terms, it’s just that I hate them. Deliberately obfuscating languages designed to minimise the horrors.