Science and Technology Committee

Absolutely yes. They should be able to do this.
It is absurd that patients in this country have to travel overseas to obtain safe treatment. The prejudice of some should not inhibit the expression of reproductive freedom unless clear evidence can be produced to demonstrate harm. Great care should then be taken to construct legislation, as driving issues underground and people into dishonest positions (as with the forthcoming DI changes) can only be damaging in the long run.

No. We should seek to prevent treatments which are illegal under UK law from being carried out overseas, to grant a licience to carry out a procedure which is illegal in the UK is illogical.

The problem here is that anyone is free to go abroad to get treatment that is not possible in the UK. In this scenario the couple would like to use a licensed UK clinic as they suspect, rightly or wrongly, that standards are higher here.

So, by preventing them from exporting embryos we are not preventing the treatment taking place, merely making in more expensive and possibly being undertaken to lower standards.

Is there a danger also that offshore clinics will simply offer the same service outside UK law?

Homosexual and lesbian relationships are themselves evil. It is absolutely wrong to allow them to look after children.

The law should remain as it is and a licence should not be given to bypass the law. Payment for surrogacy is actually not permitted in this country (only certain ‘expenses’ are allowed). This is because paying for surrogacy arrangements potentially reduces children to objects of barter by putting a price on them. But people are not fundamentally things that can be purchased and sold for a price.

Another reason why payments to surrogates and surrgacy agencies are not allowed in the UK is because it is potentially exploitive, by the offering of financial inducements to often vulnerable women to undertake a risky and emotional procedure. Offering payment is clearly an inducement to take a risk, for no personal benefit, and some women will be more vulnerable to these risks because of their social, economic or personal situation. It is of concern already that currently many surrogates receive ‘expenses’ in excess of the recommended £10,000 limit, with some surrogates reportedly ‘earning’ up to £20,000.

In this scenario, any complications in the export ‘deal’ and consequent surrogacy will be magnified by taking place in another country. Medical tourism will always take place in a limited number of cases but this does not mean that our laws should be changed to accomodate this.

I do not see anything at all unethical about surrogacy.

I think it is important that information and support networks exists to to support those who may be considering or actually going through the process of bringing a child into the world using surrogacy. It is essential that those involved get the opportunity to make an informed choice.

I think by making surrogacy legal in the UK, support networks can be set up which should result in many of the potential pitfalls being avoided.

I find Ian's statement quite offensive as well as an extraordinarily unconvincing argument!

I will prescind from the questions of medical tourism and surrogacy to comment on the other issue which is part of the scenario: the attempt by a homosexual couple to procure a child.

This calls us to think deeply about what kind of discrimination we oppose in our society, and why. Not all kinds of discrimination are unfair: if I cannot speak French, and fail in my application to be a French teacher when the job is given to a francophone, I can hardly claim unfair discrimination here. Certainly an act of discrimination has taken place, and on entirely just grounds.

Likewise, we may hold without discrimination that technology should be used to overcome illnesses and handicaps*, but not to render unnatural what is natural**. As long as no other ethical issues arise, technological intervention may assist ANY couple to bear the children they wish hoped would have been borne naturally. Since in the case of a homosexual couple, they would not have been able to conceive children naturally, withholding technology from this case would not seem to be discriminatory.

Given the wealth of research into how men are, in general, different from women (e.g. Deborah Tannen's book "You Just Don't Understand") I find it eminently plausible (without having access to social science research for or against) that it is more beneficial for a child to be raised by two parents, one male, one female; while tragic circumstances may make this impossible in certain cases, surely it is questionable to deliberately procure the conception of a child such that it will be raised in a single-parent or homosexual-couple context?

* Acknowleding the sense of "handicap" which defines it not to be a merely physical condition, but the social consequences of being significantly different from the "average" person.

** I'm presuming that self-identifying lesbians would claim their sexual orientation is natural.

Dr Gareth Leyshon - M.A., MInstP, Member of the BAAS