Ms Georgina Roberts:

I am also related to my half-siblings. They are the three other children that my surrogate has had. One is also a surrogate baby for a different family. That is for context. I see all of them as my half-siblings. I have always been very comfortable using that as a language to describe them. They are my half-brothers and they call me their half-sister. We need to think of how in most families now it is not just mum, dad and children. Families are constructed in so many ways. We are talking here about a specific way to construct families where half-siblings are more likely to have happened but let us not forget that half-siblings, step-siblings and adopted siblings happen in all families. This is not a problem unique to surrogacy and this is not something that we need to overly worry about. Surrogate families will come up with their own language. I have met some families where they do not describe each other as half-siblings but call each other cousins or special friends and that is fine. So long as the openness is there the language is very much as people want to have it. I have always got on quite well with my half-brothers. We speak and we see each other a few times a year. I feel quite privileged to have them and particularly my half-brother who was born through surrogacy because he has been the only person I have known growing up born through surrogacy. I have been able to share experiences with him and talk with him about surrogacy a little bit. It ought to be helpful because it is in the same family so we have had near-enough identical experiences with the openness and the surrogate so we have been able to speak very openly about those things. So emotionally or legally I have never found having half-siblings problematic at all.

On traditional or gestational surrogacy, I might have a bit of a different view from the other two guests. My views on surrogacy come from a place where my mum's role as my mum was undermined. I think she finds that very difficult and therefore I find that very difficult as well. I feel quite defensive that her role as my mum was undermined from very early on because that is not right. Whether we have children, like Ms Rowley-Smith had with Max or whether we think about going on to have children, we all assume that we are going to have children who look like us and who share things like mannerisms with us and that we will be pregnant. For intending mothers it is very difficult because you already have to let go of so much in not carrying a child that it is good to preserve as many of the other things that we all think about having with our child as we can. If I could have been genetically related to my mum that would have been nice and to be able to say I look like her and we share genetics but I am not and I do not feel any pain about that. I think, as technology advances, it is in the best interests that if they can be genetically related to both parents then they are. Mine is just one voice in this.

I do not think it does anyone any damage if it is a case like Ms Baldwin mentioned where mothers cannot be genetic mothers because their eggs are not viable. I think that covers all the questions.