Let's Keep The Surrogacy Laws As They Are

Kenneth Roy's Scottish Review is one of my regular reads and yesterday he was rightly proud to give his readers his account of the International Young Scotland Programme which took place last week.

In yesterday's edition he included a few of the award-winning papers and this one I had to read three times, just to ensure my understanding was correct.

The writer's subject was surrogacy and she rightly says it is legal in the UK.  Her paper is entitled 'Let's reform this outdated law on parenthood'.

It was a couple of statements in her introduction which gave me cause for concern: (the bold is my emphasis)

I first learned about this mess when I started researching alternative ways that I might be able to have a child. Surrogacy appealed to me medically, side-stepping many of the physical issues I thought I might encounter getting pregnant. But it also appealed to me socially. In a far too optimistic way, I was charmed by the idea not of an old-fashioned village raising a child, but of a modern community embracing science to make a child.

I imagined how the framework of law, the opportunities of medicine and the extraordinary capacity for human kindness would combine to bring about a new way of creating a family. 

Is this young woman suggesting we reject the present definition of parenthood and adopt her ideas?  If so this is dangerous to the social fabric of parenthood.

She also decries the UK's laws on surrogacy as out of date and wants the 'intended mother' to have ownership of the baby before or immediately after its birth.

I've always supported the use of a surrogate for women who are unable to conceive or manage a normal pregnancy, but in some cases the 'intended mother' cannot supply eggs and therefore the baby does not have her DNA.  Some may say that's of little importance, most woman have mothering instincts and that's the point of Ms Kaye's paper. I disagree.  Our laws are such that they protect the surrogate and 'intended mother' and although I can criticise the prolonged justices systems we have in this country, I see the lengthy process currently in law as effective and respectful to both parties.

If we had 'quickie' surrogate arrangements that would open the door for surrogacy to become big business.  That's not the reason many surrogates decided to help other women - although it could be in the future if Ms Kaye's suggestions are taken on board by politicians. 

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