Posted on 07/01/2003 11:53:14 AM PDT by bedolido
A woman has sparked controversy by revealing she is trying for her ninth surrogate baby.
Carole Horlock, 36, who has two children of her own, has given birth to eight surrogate children.
Now she has signed a £15,000 expenses deal to produce a child for a couple living in the Home Counties. The announcement comes just 12 weeks after she gave away her eighth surrogate baby, and she says she'll "retire" only after producing her tenth.
Miss Horlock, a launderette manager from Stevenage, Hertfordshire, said: "People call me rent-a-womb, which is unkind. But I do what I do for the love of it. It's not about money, it's about making childless couples happy.
"I am addicted to the whole process of being pregnant for someone else. Far from being ashamed of my role, I'm incredibly proud of it. I think 10 is a nice round number. I'll stop then."
Researchers at the Family and Child Psychology Research Centre at City University have claimed that babies born to surrogate mothers receive better parenting and more love than children brought up by their birth parents. However pro-life campaigners have denounced her actions.
John Smeaton of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children said: "To deliberately disturb the psychology of the child from the outset is seriously wrong. Separating a child from its biological mother is unnatural and will cause that child great suffering and pain."
He added: "Surrogate children can spend their whole lives wondering who their real parents are. What she is doing is an affront to the dignity of human life."
Perhaps her most outspoken critic is former husband Stephen Horlock, father of her oldest daughter Steffanie, 12.
Mr Horlock, a 46-year-old design engineer whose marriage to Miss Horlock collapsed in 1990, said: "Money is definitely what drives Carole. She will never reveal how much she makes from it, but she once said it was thanks to surrogacy that she has been able to pay for her council house. She has never really held down a proper job. I find the whole surrogacy thing bizarre. I am glad that episode of my life is over."
Her father, Ron Levy, a " committed Christian" from Colchester, also strongly disapproves: "I find the whole business deeply upsetting. They are all my grandchildren and I shall never know them and they will never know me as their grandfather. I have 11 grandchildren including Carole's two children of her own - but really I have 19 grandchildren when you think about it."
The bizarre story of Miss Horlock, who has bought her three-bedroom terraced house on a council estate where she lives with her children Steffanie and Megan, nine, will be told in a Channel 4 documentary next Tuesday.
Entitled The Baby Maker, it shows her giving birth to baby Maria - her eighth surrogate - three months ago, when she broke the UK record for surrogacy.
After giving birth to her ninth surrogate, she then plans to conceive a baby brother or sister for Maria, now living in Athens with her parents.
If all goes well, by then she will have had 12 children in total.
Under the terms of her latest deal, she will receive expenses in return for donating one of her eggs and renting out her womb.
Surrogacy is legal in Britain, provided no money other than "reasonable expenses" is paid to the mother - but because there is no legal definition as to what that might constitute, it is left to the individuals to reach an agreement, usually between £8,000 and £15,000.
Her boyfriend of four years, mechanic Paul Brown, 50, has a child of his own from a previous marriage and does not want any more, although he attends the birth of the surrogate babies.
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