# Couple wins child from mother who broke surrogacy agreement



## Lorna (Apr 8, 2004)

There is a story in the Times today:
Couple wins child from mother who broke surrogacy agreement http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2148160.ece

Hubby and I worked with a surrogate who lived in the North East part of the US. Despite the fact, we were working, under the county law of the state she lived in, I still managed to learn a bit about how things are done in California.
California, is considered to have the best surrogacy laws in the US.

The first thing that struck me about this story, was I actually read something in the press.
At some point in the future, this child will grow up. They will be able to go back through old copies of newspapers, and read about how the surrogate (their biological mother) and their dad, the biological father slugged it out in court. In the USA, this is considered to be a bad thing for the future adult. In places like California, there are special courts, specifically for issues to do with infertility, and they are closed courts. Nothing is supposed to leak into the press, and so prevent any problems occurring.

Secondly in California, particularly when it comes to custody issues, they to resolve things quickly. 17 months to decide the permanent home of this child, is, IMO, completely unacceptable. In California, they try to resolve the issue within the first month, and definitely, before the child is 6 months old.

And then we are back the fact that the surrogate used her own eggs. Every single contested baby case, I know about, occurred, with traditional surrogacy. And I havent heard of a contested baby case occurring, where the surrogate uses either the intended mums eggs, or a donors eggs.
The UK needs more donors, it needs to offer parents real choice on donors, so each parent can find the perfect donor. The perfect donor for me is not the perfect donor for you. We are different people, so we need donors with different qualities. All good donors, have the same fundamental need to help someone, but different donors, have different qualities..
In the UK, the lack of donors, means kind hearted surrogates, may well offer to do traditional surrogacy, in order to help the couple achieve their dream of a family. Now we only have the newspaper report that says she had tricked the couple, and I am always suspicious of what newspaper say, but if she did trick the couple, then they were probably sucked in, by the fact that their surrogate offered to do traditional surrogacy. In the US, it is so rare to find a traditional surrogate, that they must go through months of counselling, before the surrogate is allowed to try to get pregnant.

And lastly, in the US, there are lots of full time, professional organisations, backed up by large staffs of people. We went to the USA, and worked with an egg donor as well as a surrogate. I must have looked a around 100 short profiles for donors, and about 40 long profiles. By the time I had finished, I could spot, who would make a great egg donor, and who would be nothing but trouble. I had developed a nose.
There are so many professional organisations in the US, that work, day in and day out with surrogates. They can spot in an instance whether a potential surrogate is worth evaluating further, or whether that woman should be dropped. They just know which women are trouble and which arent.
OK occasionally they are fooled, but then these organisations, have surrogate meeting, that surrogates *must* attend. Surrogates dont want someone who is going to make them look bad, and can spot someone who isnt serious. These professional organisations, can swing large numbers of full time counsellors, or whatever is needed, to head off trouble. It is very unlikely, for something like this to get to court. And that, IMO, can only be good for the child.

So when I look at this newspaper report, I feel sad, and very angry. We could stop cases like this from ever occurring again, if the UK had infertility laws, based, on the all the research that has been done in the states. But I dont think, that is going to happen, and that means, that in the future we will have more tragic cases, where small children get hurt. Thats terrible.

Lorna
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