Surrogacy: what do you think of the court decision?

The surrogate mother has been allowed to keep the baby and this is the article

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1349487/Surrogate-mother-changed-mind-allowed-baby.html

Surrogate mother who changed her mind is allowed to keep baby

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 12:40 AM on 22nd January 2011

A surrogate mother who had a baby girl for a couple, but changed her mind about handing her over, has been allowed to keep her.

A judge made the groundbreaking decision when he ruled that the welfare of the six-month-old child, known only as T, ‘requires her to remain with her mother’.

Mr Justice Baker told a hearing in Birmingham: ‘In my judgment, there is a clear attachment between mother and daughter. To remove her from her mother’s care would cause a measure of harm. It is the mother who, I find, is better able to meet T’s needs, in particular her emotional needs.’

The judge said the risks of entering into a surrogacy agreement are ‘very considerable’.

He added: ‘In particular, the natural process of carrying and giving birth to a baby creates an attachment which may be so strong that the surrogate mother finds herself unable to give up the child.’

He said the mother met the couple, Mr and Mrs W, over the internet in 2009 and agreed informally that the mother would be inseminated by Mr W, and hand the baby over after the birth.

During the pregnancy, however, the mother, who has two older children, changed her mind, and at T’s birth refused to hand over the baby as agreed.

After Mr and Mrs W wed in 2005, they tried unsuccessfully to have a baby themselves, which led them to consider surrogacy.

It was agreed that the mother would act as a surrogate for the Ws, using Mr W’s sperm, and she became pregnant, but at some point during the pregnancy, relations between the parties deteriorated.

The child was born on July 16, and Mrs W went to the hospital, but says she was made to feel unwelcome by the mother’s friends and family members. Her husband began legal moves a week later, and another judge appointed a woman as the child’s guardian.

Mr Justice Baker said: ‘At the date of the hearing before me, T was five months old. The evidence from the guardian is that she is thriving in her mother’s care.’

The judge said he did not believe that Mr and Mrs W or the mother had told him the whole truth about a number of matters. However he had formed the clear impression that each was devoted to the child.

He was concerned about the mother’s behaviour, including that at one point she had adopted a false persona to elicit information from the Ws.

He also found she had falsified a document and lied to the court about it.

But he did not believe she had deliberately set out to deceive the Ws from the outset.

As for the Ws, the judge was concerned about their involvement with a woman known to them initially as D but more widely, including to the police and social services in Scotland, as CL.

Mrs W said she came across CL via an internet chatroom. CL told her that she was a victim of domestic violence, and Mrs W felt sympathy for her and offered her refuge. CL stayed at the Ws’ home for about a fortnight.

However the guardian had made some inquiries and there were allegations that she is a prostitute and surrogate parent.

The judge found that the Ws had misled the court about how they got in touch with CL and that Mrs W came across her via a surrogacy website.

‘It was wholly irresponsible of the Ws to invite her into their home, and the fact that they have no awareness of this risk is alarming.’

The judge also found Mrs W had told the mother that Mr W had been violent to her on one occasion, and that both Mr and Mrs W had concealed the truth about the incident to the court.

He was also concerned about their ‘startling lack of insight’ as to the child’s needs and the difficulties that might arise if she were to be moved to their care immediately at the end of the hearing, as they proposed.

The judge ordered a review hearing for next month to see how matters have progressed, and gave leave to the guardian to tell the local authority about the case. There will be ‘interim visiting contact’ between the father and the child until the hearing, to be arranged by the guardian.
@June ~ British surrogate mothers can only legally claim out of pocket expenses such as if loss of wages due to pregnancy, any medical treatment she may have to pay for. It is illegal to profit from surrogacy here so any legitimate expenses don’t have to be paid back.
@7rin ~ Thank you for posting the link

Abortion, successful men and women, who would you save?

You have been successful in Texas. (Or your own state)
You want to help other people.
You don’t like abortion, but you don’t like other innocent people to die either. Here are the facts you have to work with:
1.There will be more than 78 thousand abortions in Texas next year. You as a citizen want there to be fewer abortions, so this is an area where you might invest some time and money. You determine that from pregnancy to birth to post birth the cost to help one mother is about 10 thousand dollars to do it right. And the odds of being successful from the point of conception changes with time. Up to the first 8 weeks only 30 percent of fetuses will survive due to natural abortion. After that the chance of success is much greater with at least 70 percent success at 28 weeks and up to 90 percent thereafter. The benefit of attempting to stop the abortion is that you save a life and all that entails for every year until the child dies. The cost is that the investment is risky in that he fetus could die, it will require an investment of 10k birth expense and 10K other expense the first year and 10 k a year until the child is 18 years old. Failure to invest properly by yourself or others will lead to possible suffering.
2.There are 900 thousand years of potential lost life in Texas each year. You as a citizen don’t want people to suffer and die needlessly and you especially don’t want parents to die that have children. You do not want women that are carrying fetuses with the intention of giving birth to have their fetuses die. And you don’t want the elderly to suffer and die needlessly. The risk is that with such a large pool of people that will die, choosing the right person to save will be very difficult. And it is difficult to determine which people can or cannot be saved. Some can be saved relatively inexpensively simply by furnishing an inexpensive medical procedure, others will require very expensive medical procedures. Some will benefit simply from improved safety measures and some will benefit for general health care and advice regarding a healthy life style. Some of those saved will cause a very wide return on your investment due to the fact that you may save a pregnant woman or a productive member of a family. Costs will range from 80k to save a person with a heart problem to a few dollars to furnish medication. There is a wide range of possible places to invest money and time and therefore you can easily choose to spend a little on one or a lot on another. The up side of the investment is that you will save more lives by choosing your investments wisely or you may choose to save a fetus and encounter the same cost as saving a potentially aborted fetus.
3.No matter what you do, you cannot save a large fraction of the 78 thousand aborted fetuses or a large fraction of the 900 thousand early lives lost.

For this year, what do I do? Do I help one fetus at 20 thousand dollars or do I help save 20 children that need a thousand dollars worth of medication each to survive? Is it moral for me to save the one fetus that may die or must I save the 20 children that would die without their medication? Please give a detailed explanation.
Edit: Agent smith
Thanks for giving credit when it is due. I am glad that you understand that wasting time when saving lives ends up costing life. I assume that you still are pro life and will let the 20 innocent children die. If not please let me know.
Edit: an earthly hope
I assume your answer means you are pro life and will let the 20 innocent children die and save the fetus. If not please let me know.

Abortion, Wealthy political men and women, who should I save?

You have been successful in Texas. (Or your own state)
You want to help other people.
You don’t like abortion, but you don’t like other innocent people to die either. Here are the facts you have to work with:
1. There will be more than 78 thousand abortions in Texas next year. You as a citizen want there to be fewer abortions, so this is an area where you might invest some time and money. You determine that from pregnancy to birth to post birth the cost to help one mother is about 10 thousand dollars to do it right. And the odds of being successful from the point of conception changes with time. Up to the first 8 weeks only 30 percent of fetuses will survive due to natural abortion. After that the chance of success is much greater with at least 70 percent success at 28 weeks and up to 90 percent thereafter. The benefit of attempting to stop the abortion is that you save a life and all that entails for every year until the child dies. The cost is that the investment is risky in that he fetus could die, it will require an investment of 10k birth expense and 10K other expense the first year and 10 k a year until the child is 18 years old. Failure to invest properly by yourself or others will lead to possible suffering.
2. There are 900 thousand years of potential lost life in Texas each year. You as a citizen don’t want people to suffer and die needlessly and you especially don’t want parents to die that have children. You do not want women that are carrying fetuses with the intention of giving birth to have their fetuses die. And you don’t want the elderly to suffer and die needlessly. The risk is that with such a large pool of people that will die, choosing the right person to save will be very difficult. And it is difficult to determine which people can or cannot be saved. Some can be saved relatively inexpensively simply by furnishing an inexpensive medical procedure, others will require very expensive medical procedures. Some will benefit simply from improved safety measures and some will benefit for general health care and advice regarding a healthy life style. Some of those saved will cause a very wide return on your investment due to the fact that you may save a pregnant woman or a productive member of a family. Costs will range from 80k to save a person with a heart problem to a few dollars to furnish medication. There is a wide range of possible places to invest money and time and therefore you can easily choose to spend a little on one or a lot on another. The up side of the investment is that you will save more lives by choosing your investments wisely or you may choose to save a fetus and encounter the same cost as saving a potentially aborted fetus.
3. No matter what you do, you cannot save a large fraction of the 78 thousand aborted fetuses or a large fraction of the 900 thousand early lives lost.

For this year, what do I do? Do I help one fetus at 20 thousand dollars or do I help save 20 children that need a thousand dollars worth of medication each to survive? Is it moral for me to save the one fetus that may die or must I save the 20 children that would die without their medication? Please give a detailed explanation.
edit fight fan:
OK now I understand, it is not murder to kill 20 people who are sick, including pregnant women, your friends and your mother, but it is murder to kill a fetus.
Edit: brian and brown
Someone pays the 20k or the kid suffers or dies. You can force the woman to pay (fat chance) or the public to pay, but you better believe someone will pay.
So I am putting you down for letting the 20 kids die and saving the fetus.

I’d rather die than be pregnant, why do I feel this way?

I’m an adult, a young one, but still an adult. When I was younger I liked the idea of growing up. getting married and starting a family, but ever since I had a pregnancy scare the whole idea of being pregnant makes me feel physically ill. I do want a family when I’m older, but I find pregnancy really scary and sorry to say this but disgusting. Just because it’s natural does not mean it’s beautiful, taking a poop is natural and that’s not beautiful is it?

I live in a country where abortion is illegal if I wanted one i’d have to fly to another country and it would cost over 1000 for the whole thing. I don’t really agree with abortion, or at least I didn’t until I thought I was pregnant.

I’m currently in college studying and I have about 3 years till I get my degree, if I had a baby I couldn’t afford college, would have to miss a lot of classes because of pregnancy etc

I hate that this pregnancy scare has made me so against pregnancy, the fact that I can’t get an abortion in this country even if my own life is threatened or I’m raped makes me feel sick too.

I can’t fully explain how I feel, it’s like suddenly realizing that I am not in control of my own reproductive organs has made me absolutely hate something I once thought was a precious thing.

I have to have sex, anyone who suggests “just don’t have sex until marriage” has obviously never lived in the 21st century as a 20 something year old.

I want a baby in the future, but I want one when I say it’s okay, when I have a steady job and can look after it and when I actually WANT IT.

I don’t want my first child to be a product of rape, or to be born and have me die right afterwards because I shouldn’t have carried a baby to full term in my health and I certainly do not want my first child to be an accident that I don’t want, can’t afford to look after that will force me to drop out of college and ruin my career before it’s even begun.

Even thinking about, or seeing pregnant women makes me feel nervous and sick, I dunno whats wrong with me??

Also I feel very scared to have sex with my partner now, so much so that sometimes he can’t even have sex with me if I want it because I tighten up completely and we just can’t do it.