Another potential celebrity baby purchase 🙄.

[AnAlpacaForChristmasPleaseSanta]

Today I've been hanging around waiting for an appointment with a dwindling phone battery and the only reading materials on offer being last weekends newspapers. I was having a flick through the Mail on Sunday 😳 and saw this story by someone called Louise Thompson, who casually mentions that she and her partner would like to have another child "but would have to use a surrogate'.

I have to admit I'd never heard of her but a bit of nosy googling revealed that she's from Made in Chelsea and during the birth of her first child she suffered a major hemorrhage and months of PTSD afterwards. Something she seemingly has no qualms about potentially putting another woman through. I just despair.

The link to the article is behind a paywall but hopefully this will work.

Also, though UK laws are fairly strict - expenses only etc - there is a move to change this

And there's the difference between what's allowed when the whole arrangement is in the UK, and what's allowed when commissiong surrogacy abroad then importing the baby.

There were some very enlightening articles shortly after the invasion of Ukraine, in which purchasers talked about how very difficult and distressing it was for them trying to get 'their' baby out of a war zone because of all the paperwork holdups. No thought for the actual mother who was also stuck there, trying to cope with pregnancy and birth in a country where hospitals and homes were being shelled daily.

The surrogate isn't being put through anything. She is a willing donor

Could you miss the point any more spectacularly than that?

@Hoppinggreen Her reasoning is that she loves being pregnant, but feels like her family is complete as she has three children.

I hated being pregnant, so personally it seems strange to me, but I don't think she has issues?

That is a private family arrangement.

It's a totally different scenario from a well-off couple from a rich country paying a less well-off stranger from a poorer country to have a baby for them. That's a completely different power dynamic.

I think it might be - but the theme seemed to be altruistic love for cousin or sister (a while since I saw it). The child turned out to have Down's Syndrome and was rejected by the cousin/sister but lovingly received back by the birth mother and her DH and DDs. I suspect an overlying theme was the acceptance of Downs children.

@Greyskybluesky I completely agree! And I feel like surrogacy in terms of private family arrangements is a

I was just responding to someone upthread who said they'd never heard of someone wealthy being a surrogate for someone poor. Not that BIL is poor exactly, but she has much, much more money than him.

OK, I see what you mean. How do you feel about surrogacy in family arrangements (i'm just interested, the end of your sentence is missing)

Personally I think it's problematic in other ways, but I'm not meaning to have a go at your family for that.

Briefly read about what she went through, it was pretty horrific and a very devastating account of dreadful NHS treatment (her husband is a very large man and the baby was too large for a natural birth but the NHS insisted, and as such the birth literally ripped her apart).

This thread is reading as "just a rich spoilt person who lives a wonderful life and wants surrogacy".

Surrogacy between family members has potential to be genuinely altruistic, say between sisters. However, it can never be clear that a decision between sisters is genuinely altruistic, and not due to any deep-seated trauma or guilt ingrained in the family.

And if things go wrong between intended parents and a relative stranger and that relationship breaks down, that’s a hard thing to happen, but it pales in comparison to the damage that would be done to the bond between two sisters. What might start out as a loving decision could lead to irrevocable damage to a sibling relationship.

Of course people are sure things won’t go wrong and it won’t happen to them. Until it does. So how does a legal framework protect the three parties in such circumstances? Altruistic surrogacy still needs to be bound by appropriate legislation and it isn’t possible to put in place legislation that protects the three parties, even if there’s genuine love between them at the start.

@Greyskybluesky Hah, I was typing in a hurry. I think it's very different to paid surrogacy.

She has three children whom she likes did she feel she only started to love them minutes, hours, days after giving birth?
And is happy to give her 4th child into home which can provide less by way of material support?
She believes she will be able to detached from any instinct for the rest of its childhood?

Right. So you have an issue with me calling her a spoilt rich girl but none with her buying a child AND risking an innocent woman's life 🤔. I'd check my perspective if I were you.

And also that she is taking the same large baby risk factors and passing them on to another woman.

I'm very willing to donate one of my kidneys for the right price . Damn that pesky law that won't allow it.

EXACTLY.

Should I be able to sell altruistically donate a 1 year old to a family member who's really sad they don't have one? Or a wealthy stranger, who really wants one? If I need money, or feel sorry for them, or like babies but not toddlers? After all, all the adults involved agree, and the child won't remember, children just need to be fed and loved by someone so what the issue, right?

It’s a moral question of how far you can go to get what you want. I would argue the impact on the surrogate and child is too high a price. Surprised the commissioning parents don’t feel more guilty about it,

She is having a baby, which is life-threatening and life-changing. And she may not be a willing donor - there is a surrogacy industry that uses women as incubators for other people's babies.

They do not care so long as they get what they want. I suspect if they do feel any guilt pangs (and it's unlikely) then throwing a bit more ££ around will alleviate them.

@AnSolas I've got no idea. I haven't asked her any of those questions. I'm not the one she offered to be a surrogate for, so it's not my business.

Have you not asked yourself these type of questions?
When you heard about the proposed arrangement did you not think about it and how it involved an female egg hers or some other womans, her spending the time growing a baby only to hand it over at birth to a father who always intended to remove it from its mother?

You say its not your business but it is in so far as you live in a social group and set the social rules along side others in that group.

What can we do to stop commercial surrogacy? I feel desperate to do something.

my cousin is in the process of buying a baby from another country and I feel so distressed for that baby every time they talk about it

On the contrary. I'm completely opposed to surrogacy. I also think it's wrong to make spiteful, misogynistic remarks about another woman, particularly when based on hearsay.

Sorry if that's difficult to understand. Shall I try again in words of one syllable?

This is my feeling tbh in terms of the child – I am not against donor gametes, however I think DNA matters to people, and AIUI children conceived by donor often feel a profound need or wish to connect with their biological parents. And many countries have made anonymous donation illegal for this reason. (This is not to undermine the legitimacy of families created with donor gametes.) Legally the mother is the gestational carrier, but this isn’t necessarily a ‘truth‘, a decision has been made somewhere about definitions as a consistent system is needed. The father doesn’t carry a child either, doesn’t make him any less the child’s parent.

I am not expressing a stance on surrogacy, I do just think that DNA is important and relevant to people.