‘We need to talk about how difficult it is’: why one couple are pinning surrogacy hopes on Mexico

[GingerBeverage]

If you don't want to read the whole commiserating article the tl;dr is: Wealthy white men determined to buy baby purchase eggs and womb rental in developing country.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/jul/20/couple-pinning-surrogacy-hopes-mexico

That has not been the case with my friend. Their kids live with their mums and see their dads on weekends and holidays. Very normal stuff.

That does sound better than surrogacy.

That sounds very positive @MyrtleLion

Yes. Nobody came to collect the babies. Absolutely repulsive to treat a baby like an item.

You can’t conceive naturally/ you’re gay/ you’re single and desperate for a baby/whatever: tough shit. Adopt. Foster. Plenty of unwanted children in the world.

Whatever the age or sex of the people doing it, ‘commissioned children’ is a phrase which simply shouldn’t exist.

The key seems to be men who actually view women as fellow human beings instead of support animals.

Yes, it was so pitiful and dreadful to see rows of tiny babies in baskets, all unclaimed.

On another thread, ClimbEveryStair wrote:
Today 11:34
I was idling wondering why commercial surrogacy is allowed in so many countries whereas commercial selling of organs such as kidney/piece of liver is not but of course the answer is it’s only women’s health that is negatively impacted by surrogacy.

It expresses what I was never able to clarify in my head. Altruistic surrogacy might be considered and regulated like altruistic organ donation (even stricter in my opinion, as the best interest of the baby is central, while we don't need to consider the best interest of a liver or kidney).

I remember during covid when couples were unable to get flights or enter countries to collect their purchase baby. The babies were all lined up in cots being cared for in "dormitory" style nurseries. Of course the emphasis was on how distressing it was for the commissioning parents, with not a mention that the babies were being cared for in the most basic way possible with no primary sole carer to hug/love/nurture them.

I can't even get my head around that as being acceptable.

Can you imagine, your sister agrees to carry a baby for you and then dies in childbirth or suffers a serious birth injury? You'd never forgive yourself, your family would likely never forgive you.

Or you divorce or have some other relationship issue / your partner turns out to be an awful human being, and your sister feels like your child - who may be hers biologically - would have been better off with her? It would just cause so much resentment and destroy your family relationships. There's so much that could go wrong.

Boo hoo can’t use women’s bodies, boo hoo.

I know someone who was a surrogate twice and she definitely had some form of mental illness. One was someone she knew but the second (and unsuccessful third time) was with strangers on Facebook against her husbands wishes. Broke up her marriage, I can’t imagine the effect on her daughters.

It was unbearable to see these babies not being held and loved by their mothers. I wonder what happened to them?

Apparently most got collected.

Some did not.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyp4kp687go

Wei, who is now five years old, suffered severe brain damage after he was born prematurely in 2021. His surrogacy was arranged through BioTexCom.
He now lives in a state-run home for disabled children in Kyiv.
When the BBC visited, Wei was having mashed banana with his friends at the home. They sit together for every meal.
Wei cannot sit unaided, hold his head or see properly, and will require round-the-clock care for the rest of his life.
After learning about his condition, his intended parents from a country in South East Asia chose not to collect him. They effectively disappeared, and repeated attempts by authorities and BioTexCom to contact them failed.
Wei's surrogate mother did not want him either, and under Ukrainian law she had no legal obligations to him.

Did I miss the bit where they discussed how difficult it was for the baby, taken from the mother way earlier than we do for puppies, even?

Or has that not registered with the human traffickers we see in front of us? Just difficult for memememe?

Sister might feel obliged to offer - that's the trouble with families, there can be subtle, unseen pressures.

I adopted and i think that adults completely underestimate the needs of the child in any form of assisted reproduction. What if the baby really, really wants the surrogate after birth, not the (to him/her) stranger calling herself "mummy"?

I reckon there is a huge chance for sibling jealousy to be unleashed. And baby doesn't get a say.

Ha, I was about to post exactly this, but you got there first.

Recently I seem to have read about so many cases that have gone wrong. A few headlines

Same-Sex Couple Sues Surrogate After She Refused Request to Abort Baby With Cleft Lip

St. Augustine surrogate fights for parental rights as intended parent leaves children unclaimed for 20 months

Men using foreign surrogates ‘buy babies’ from women in poverty

Fertility clinic faces lawsuit after surrogate baby dies 10 days after birth

I really don't think people have a right to have children.

That’s a key issue isn’t it? If the baby is seen as imperfect in some way then he or she is rejected. Absolutely tragic.

Another day, another pro baby-selling article from the Guardian, demanding the UK change laws around it to make it easier. I can only assume Owen Jones’ child-ownership quest has driven this editorial priority.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jul/21/uk-surrogacy-law-creaking-at-seams-as-demand-rises-sharply

“We really do have a huge surrogate shortage in the UK, because of the restrictions.”

-Rachel Westbury, owner of Nappy Endings Ltd.

Now read this story of her surrogacies and tell me why anyone would want more women to put themselves through this.

https://graziadaily.co.uk/life/parenting/why-i-decided-to-become-a-surrogate/

The rise has been driven by a rise in the number of gay couples seeking to be parents

All gay couples or is there something specific about these gay couples?

At present, the surrogate must be listed on the baby’s birth certificate as its mother

Because it is a record of birth and she is the mother.

Experts said this can be distressing for the new family, and deters many prospective surrogates

It's still a record of birth.

and deters many prospective surrogates who do not wish to be a child’s legal mother.

The law just reflects the reality of what they are doing. Everyone else can just walk away from a pregnancy. The law makes sure that the baby has a legal relationship with the mother at the point of birth.

The review’s author, Prof Nicholas Hopkins, said the best way to prevent intended parents going abroad, where arrangements with surrogates can be riskier and less well regulated, was to ensure there was a properly regulated scheme in the UK.

Or in other words, worse regulation in the UK.

and had unnecessary barriers that led to transnational surrogacy increasingly taking place in jurisdictions where neither surrogates nor parents had legal protections.

There will always be a limited number of women who wish to have a baby for somebody else for altruistic reasons and it will always be unethical to pay somebody to be pregnant. You are never going to change that. A woman who wants to give birth for altruistic reasons and truly appreciates what she is doing is not going to risk her life and health going through 9 months of pregnancy but balk at the fact that the paperwork reflects the reality of what she has done.

So who are these proposed changes aimed at?

We really do have a huge surrogate shortage in the UK, because of the restrictions.

We also prevent people from selling kidneys.

From the Guardian article,
At present, the surrogate must be listed on the baby’s birth certificate as its mother, while the intended parents must apply for a parental order after birth, which can take months. Experts said this can be distressing for the new family, and deters many prospective surrogates who do not wish to be a child’s legal mother. (My bold)

Yes, because the child has a right to know its origins. In the same way that Freddie McConnell can’t be listed as her children’s father and adopted children can access their birth parents’ information at age 8. It’s about the child.

The Guardian has a new article on surrogacy today - it is a much more detailed version of one they ran yesterday alongside the gay couple/Mexico article and is profoundly pro surrogacy (yesterday's version was much more balanced).

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jul/21/uk-surrogacy-law-creaking-at-seams-as-demand-rises-sharply

Here is yesterday's article if anyone wants to see how their approach has developed over the last 24 hours https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jul/19/rise-overseas-surrogates-increases-risk-stateless-babies-experts-warn

Demand. As is Supply and Demand.

A commodity.

Obviously I meant 18. 😂

I saw this article in the Telegraph. I think the judge has made a fair comparison

https://archive.ph/mmKUH

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2026/05/15/surrogacy-judge-ruling-unconstitutional/

In his ruling, he argued that children are human beings with their own rights and individualities, and therefore cannot be treated as property to be bought and sold through contracts or legal paperwork, comparing it to the buying and selling of slaves.

The Guardian also has another 'isn't surrogacy just lovely and so misunderstood' piece today: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jul/21/struggling-eight-rounds-ivf-midwife-surrogate

I note that they include the age of the surrogate but, carefully, not the commissioning couple, which I suspect doesn't fit the narrative. There's also this gently euphemistic paragraph:

Turner admitted the immediate aftermath of the birth was the most difficult part of the whole process for her. “The hormones come into play and you can’t do anything about that. So it was challenging,” she said.

No consideration, of course, of whether the baby might be feeling an equally deep-seated and fundamental reaction to the deeply unnatural act of separating mother and baby.