Thread by @WombsNotForRent

We were shocked by published responses to the Law Commission Consultation, revealing the dark heart of the surrogacy industry.
This response from a NHS OBG deserves a thread of its own.

NHSOBG hasn’t time to read the full 500 page consultation but they think its “a very good thing”.

They refer to the Surrogate Mother as “The Host”.

When NHSOBG says “it’s difficult to imagine a situation where invasive tests could not be anything other than the choice of the host” one senses they wish this wasn’t so, reserving sympathy for the Commissioning Parents (referred to as Intended Parents or IPs).

“it was difficult for the intended parents as they had no say in the decision whether to have it performed”

Those poor CP’s , with no say in the decision to perform an invasive test on the pregnant woman carrying the baby.

When the relationship between the Surrogate Mother and the CPs breaks down, all sympathy is reserved for those CPs who had no legal rights over a still born baby delivered by a woman who NHSOBG fails to understand may have been somewhat distressed by the situation

When problems arise in a pregnancy, and CPs possibly demonstrate more concern for “their baby/ies than for the woman hired to gestate them, and maybe attempt to dictate medical treatment, it should be no surprise that the relationship between parties should become strained.

These complex cases are all picked up by the NHS, investing the best of fetal medicine and NICU facilities for premature babies. But CPs expect sick babies to be transferred free of charge to a nearby NICU to suit their convenience.#Surrogacy

A long ambulance journey, with attendant paediatrician and paediatric nurse. Presumably as the Surrogate Mother was the legal mother, this lead to argument over funding the transfer to a hospital that wasn’t the local hospital of the SM. Assuming the availability of a NICU cot.

NHSOBG also seems to think the act of surrogacy removes a Surrogate Mother’s right to privacy and control over the sharing of her own medical history.

NHSOBG doesn’t seem to realise that the pregnant woman is the patient to which they owe a duty of care. The one person who should be at the centre of all decision making. A woman who will grieve a still born baby. And a woman whose informed consent and privacy are a human right.

It is truly shocking and chilling to think NHSOBGs have attitudes like this.
Surrogate Mothers deserve better.

Aagh. I hate a grammar fail! “To whom”!