The Honourable Henry Thynn was born on December 30, 2016. His father was Lord Weymouth, but Lady Weymouth, 30 years old, did not give birth. That duty went to an unnamed American lady who, for a consideration, undertook to carry the baby to term. Apparently US laws on surrogacy are more secure than ours. I am not concerned here with the morality of such an arrangement but rather with the situation of any married woman for whom a pregnancy would be medically dangerous.
Lady Weymouth, 30 years old, has a rare condition called hypophysitis. It is a complex condition which had caused difficulties with her first pregnancy, and could seriously threaten her life if she had a second one. But for my purposes her condition stands in place of many commoner conditions which foresee dangers in pregnancy. I think in particular of a close friend who, after four children, was told that she should have no more because of her increasing tendency to blood-clotting. She was 32. It must have been a difficult decision.
