A house is an object - a person is not. You can buy and sell houses, as well as rent them. You cannot buy and sell people. People can rent their services, but not control of their body.

Actually, no, you can't legally own a fetus or a child. As a parent you make decisions for your child, but you can't actually own them. And their status as parents doesn't allow them to make medical decisions for the surrogate. While pregnant, the surrogate has control over her medical decisions, even if they affect…

That is the problem for the business owners who need to decide how they are going to run their business, set their pricing and negotiate better credit card fees (because 3-4% is a high fee). The problem should not be dumped on the employees.

The problem is that no checks would have been done in the first place, because there is a gap in the law regarding international surrogacy in his state.

I hope he isn't allowed to keep her, but it's no guarantee. They might argue that she isn't at risk if she is his child, unlike the previous victims. That argument would be a load of bullshit, but he might get away with it.

I think here the implant is a bit more common than IUDs or Depo. It's interesting how types of contraceptive use varies from place to place.

I haven't noticed many people here mention the implant (implanon/nexplanon). Are they not commonly used in the US? It seems fairly popular here in Australia.

The problem is that people talk about this like it is any other type of 'service' with penalties for failing to perform the contract. If the penalty for refusing an abortion is the child being abandoned with you and/or bankruptcy (because many surrogates aren't wealthy enough to accept the costs) then I can't see how…

If it's your body, you can chose to abort. But just like biological father's don't have the right to force an abortion, neither should parents hiring a surrogate. That right lies only with the person who is pregnant.

But should it even be legal to establish a legal contract that allows the contracting parents to have so much control over the body of the surrogate? Forcing the surrogate to chose between abortion, financial penalties, or raising the baby themselves is unethical, and should be illegal.

It is her body, and therefore her decision! The biological or contracting parents don't get to own her body just because she is acting as a surrogate.

In which case he needs to get permission from the people whose photographs he wants to use.

That's the point of making based on a percentage of their operating budget. If their budget is huge, then their fine is correspondingly huge.

The comments on this one are chock full of arseholes.

The point is that the bystander wasn't sure so she asked, which is also what the guy should have done in the first place. Someone being passive because they are scared isn't consent.

Mandatory arbitration clauses should be void in cases where there is a big power difference between the parties (e.g. employer/employee, consumer/corporation).

There's nothing at all wrong with you talking about how you found one worse than the other, or for other people to share their own experiences in response. But it is wrong for Dawkins to declare that one is worse than the other as a general fact.

Economic rather than social liberalism. I.E. companies can do whatever they like, but people can't.

Is the fact that they will only be able to safely have a small number of births advice people are given before they have Caesareans? It seems like whenever I see risks of VB vs CS discussed the focus is only on the current birth, and not the additional risk involved in subsequent births.

Also, if medical decisions are being based on risk of lawsuits instead of a combination of doctor's advice and patient's wishes, then there is something very very wrong with the system. There are many people in this thread arguing as though the risk of lawsuits is a legitimate reason for making medical decisions.