The Times article on surrogacy and concerns about single fathers

[Sixorhalfdozen]

Hi all, I haven’t seen a post yet about the article in today’s Times on surrogacy with the title, ‘What it is like to be a single dad (with a child via surrogacy)’. It is an entirely uncritical puff piece on single men who purchase babies and there is no attempt in the article to highlight the risks and harms caused by this barbaric practice. I have written to complain and encourage others to do the same.

the risks of a grown man sexually abusing a defenceless baby are just too high to take. We know men rape womens corpses, men sexually assault toddlers in day care facilities. Men have a strange sexual attraction to minors. There are so many pedophiles we don't have enough prison space to lock them up....safeguarding babies and children should be more important than a mans wishes...

It reminds me a bit of that Matthew Syed Sideways Radio 4 episode on broody men, with a lot of discussion of surrogate fathers, a few months back. I usually like MS but this was just uncritical acceptance of the joys children may provide for single men.

I'm coming to the conclusion that a lot of men roughly my age, whom I've always regarded as being sympathetic and empatheric, simply have no idea of how the biological lives of women and babies are interwined and how this means our physical and emotional lives are also bound together.

The UK has lots of tight laws on surrogacy. There were plans to relax these but they were shelved.

Trouble is that people are going abroad to jurisdictions where there are next to no laws.

And then they bring the babies back to the UK - these single dads are the biological fathers, and courts won't put babies into the care system when they are being adequately cared for by their dads.

There have been several cases of older couples using surrogacy and the judge's being extremely cross with them when it comes to court to finalise the paperwork.

But still, given the option of removing the child or keeping it where it is, they reluctantly grant the paperwork.

If you use donor eggs or sperm in the UK, the child has a right to know who they are when they turn 18. This is one of the reasons surrogacy mostly happens abroad where this doesn't apply.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14756779/amp/Elderly-couple-70s-parents-surrogate-baby.html

No mention of whether any of these children will have relationships with grandparents or other family members; or have any 'mother' influence in their life at all. A motherless child is really quite a profound matter.

I'm also imagining that the 50 year old single father did not take much in terms of paternity leave in which to bond with the child; he also missed the child's birth. It really is all about what these men personally want or desire. No thought about the child's need for family.

I note that yesterday's piece was closed for comment. I got the feeling they did this as the previous day there had been widespread negative comment and this was a way of 'sticking it' to the reader.

Also, a lot of these gay men seem to, miraculously, have only boys. I do wonder whether this is consciously planned, and female embryos are destroyed or terminated?

Yes, it is all just about 'equality' and with a focus on self satisfaction and individual 'freedom of choice'. No wider ethical consideration at all.

There are a lot of prominent, powerful and/or privileged gay men for whom their imagined rights are paramount, it seems. I imagine these same men are the ones very much identifying themselves as. 'trans allies'...with no real regard or respect for women at all.

And when his child will naturally want to know where/who its mummy is this what they will be told.....

I think the article was placed as Katie Faust has been in the UK.
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If you haven’t already, I recommend listening to Dr Suzanne Vierling on how many ways men have to make money from a woman’s body. I have never looked at the world the same since.

You might have more luck complaining to IPSO

Some people men are ingedibly selfish.

I wish there was a human right to knowing your parents & your cultural background as an anex to a right of family. We really need to think about the overall health of these babies that will grow into adults with a lot of questions.

We could easily tighten up on babies born abroad and returning to the UK without a biological mother under trafficking laws.

We could easily tighten up on babies born abroad and returning to the UK without a biological mother under trafficking laws.

Unless there is something in place to ensure the baby isn't allowed to board the flight to the UK the issue would still be what to do with the baby that arrives in the UK with their father.

Easily solved. They need a passport before they get a flight ticket.

But a baby does need a passport to fly already.

Yes you can tighten up issuing passports for children being sold.

That's absolutely horrifying. Really chilling

Agreed! Not to even have a 'mother' story for the child is verging on abuse. In fact potentially very damaging to instil in the child that it has no mother at all.

If we made it illegal to buy babies abroad the father wouldn't be able to look after the baby, as he would be in prison, so the baby could be adopted.
There is no shortage of potentially excellent mothers wanting to adopt babies.
A few cases of this and people would stop buying babies.

It is adoption without any safeguarding. All international surrogacy cases need to be regulated in exactly the same way as intercountry adoption. Otherwise people who would rightly be screened out by adoption agencies here will use this as a safeguarding loophole.

Is there any research yet on the outcomes for these children born of surrogacy when they become teenagers/young adults and how their beginning in life has affected them in terms of their relationships with the people who brought them up, their mental health etc?

This is what I'd like to know, too.

I know twins brought up by gay fathers (I don’t know their paternity). I once heard them talking with their friends about families. The twins know that they were born through surrogacy. One twin maintained that they did not have a mother, as they were not related to the woman who gave birth to them. The other twin maintained that she was their mother, despite the lack of an ongoing relationship.

Their friends were bewildered, some even a little uncomfortable with this idea. I intervened and suggested a game outdoors.

I would have loved to know how the twins had come to these opposite conclusions, but did not feel I had the right to ask.

That would be some research!
I do believe that genetics are underestimated when it comes to understanding yourself and who you truly are.