# Spanish anger over US surrogate baby **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 30, 2023, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spanish-anger-over-us-surrogate-baby/981885 "2023-03-30T15:07:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2023, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spanish-anger-over-us-surrogate-baby/981885/1 "2023-03-30T15:07:26Z")
[Article here.](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65122973) Maybe I’m missing it, but are they angry she broke the law, or something else? Not 100% sure this belongs here. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2023, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spanish-anger-over-us-surrogate-baby/981885/2 "2023-03-30T15:25:22Z")
From the article you linked, it seems like in Spain surrogacy is seen as exploitative towards the surrogate women. I found another article that goes into more depth: > [@](#): > > According to the Spanish Supreme Court, surrogacy contracts are not valid because they “seriously violate the fundamental rights recognised in our Constitution and the UN Convention on the Child’s Rights.” Unacceptable, the judges found. “Both mother and child are treated as mere objects and not as persons endowed with the inherent dignity and fundamental rights associated with their humanity.” > **[Spanish court: Surrogacy violates rights of mother and child](https://cne.news/article/955-spanish-court-surrogacy-violates-rights-of-mother-and-child)** > > In Spain, surrogacy contracts are void because they violate the fundamental rights of the surrogate mother and child, the Spanish Court of Justice ruled. This appears to be a common stance in the European Union, with similar laws in Germany, etc ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2023, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spanish-anger-over-us-surrogate-baby/981885/3 "2023-03-30T15:28:42Z")
Ah, that makes sense. I can certainly understand how someone pressured to “rent” their womb might come off worse from such an experience given all the troubles and difficulties of being pregnant and giving birth, and probably not reimbursed sufficiently. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2023, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spanish-anger-over-us-surrogate-baby/981885/4 "2023-03-30T19:40:09Z")
That brings up an interesting question, which I imagine has been answered, and that the surrogate probably signs documents valid until Charles II has no living descendants. Who does the baby belong to, the woman who’s egg was fertilized, or the woman who gave birth to the child? ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2023, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spanish-anger-over-us-surrogate-baby/981885/5 "2023-03-30T21:41:50Z")
Assuming that those are different people, it’s going to depend on the jurisdiction. In some places, the intended parents can get a court order to list them on the birth certificate based on the contract. In others, there must be an adoption after the birth. In this particular instance though, I’m not sure that it would be considered surrogacy. Traditional surrogacy uses the surrogate’s egg and the intended father’s sperm. Gestational surrogacy has some variations but it usually involves either the intended father’s sperm or the intended mother’s egg or both. I suppose there could be a situation with a donor egg and donor sperm , where the baby is not related to either of the intended parents and I wonder if that’s part of the reason for the anger in this case. I’m pretty sure no one used a 68 year old woman’s egg for in vitro fertilization and there is no mention of an intended father. But even if there really was a woman who got pregnant specifically so that Ms. Obregón could have a child, this seems awfully close to baby-selling, closer than the more usual surrogacy situation where the baby is genetically related to at least one parent. ( I also suspect that 68 years old has something to do with it) ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2023, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spanish-anger-over-us-surrogate-baby/981885/6 "2023-03-30T23:11:22Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > I’m pretty sure no one used a 68 year old woman’s egg for in vitro fertilization and there is no mention of an intended father. Does a post menopausal woman have eggs? ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2023, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spanish-anger-over-us-surrogate-baby/981885/7 "2023-03-30T23:18:06Z")
Possibly - they don’t all instantly disappear with the last menstrual cycle. But that doesn’t mean they are viable. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2023, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spanish-anger-over-us-surrogate-baby/981885/8 "2023-04-05T16:32:33Z")
A followup: [apparently the baby is her late son’s child.](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65186636) ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2023, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spanish-anger-over-us-surrogate-baby/981885/9 "2023-04-07T00:55:25Z")
> [@Love\_Rhombus](#): > > Ah, that makes sense. I can certainly understand how someone pressured to “rent” their womb might come off worse from such an experience given all the troubles and difficulties of being pregnant and giving birth, and probably not reimbursed sufficiently. ⁢ But surely that would apply to poor people, not some celebrity who has a decent amount of money. The issue would be with poor people being exploited, not surrogacy itself. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2023, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spanish-anger-over-us-surrogate-baby/981885/10 "2023-04-07T01:14:33Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > But surely that would apply to poor people, not some celebrity who has a decent amount of money. The issue would be with poor people being exploited, not surrogacy itself. I might not be understanding you properly - but it’s the woman who is pregnant and giving birth who (along with the child) is being “treated as mere objects” . And that woman is not a celebrity with plenty of money. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2023, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spanish-anger-over-us-surrogate-baby/981885/11 "2023-04-07T01:44:22Z")
I have a friend who is attempting to hire a surrogate mother. She’s unmarried, and intends to remain unmarried. She successfully created a lot of fertilized eggs with donor sperm. After two years of trying to get pregnant, she succeeded, but developed preeclampsia early in the pregnancy, and was told she would die if she didn’t abort. She still has a lot of viable eggs in a freezer. Anyway, the rules in the US vary both by state and by surrogacy agency. The one that she’s using lets the birth moms pick and choose who they will work for. I believe they also have the right to back out at any time, presumably forfeiting the payment. (But keeping reimbursements for expenses incurred. The egg mom pays all medical and legal fees, of course.) They try to select against women who will be overwhelmed by the prospect of giving up a baby by only allowing women who already have children participate. My friend is trying to avoid exploiting a birth mom, but it’s obviously easy to do in this situation. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2023, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spanish-anger-over-us-surrogate-baby/981885/12 "2023-04-07T14:06:58Z")
To add another point to the anger of the Spanish public over the story, besides the legal and moral implications people are also upset that a rich socialite of 68 years wants to have a child at that age (which could have all kinds of unfortunate and maybe damaging consequences for the child’s upbringing), and they allege that the woman merely does it to boost her own profile and ego. My cite is an article about the case in my German local newspaper (Westfalenpost).