Chrissy Teigen surrogacy

Just putting this here. These two lads produce some very interesting and insightful videos,

Is this sarcasm?

Yes viper. I believe that some people have a very simplistic view of force. And may not understand the coercive powers at play in these decisions.

Coercive power can come in so many forms in surrogacy.

What do you mean by "forced"?

Physical fear of death or injury? Having a gun put to your head?

Some women experience something very like this - organised crime gangs are involved in the surrogacy in many parts of the world, and women and girls are literally trafficked into this foul industry and kept perpetually pregnant, in the same way that many are forced into and trapped in prostitution. There are also documented cases of children paedophiles using surrogacy obtain children.

Forced by poverty? - a huge reason for many, if not most women. Why would any woman risk her life for money knowing that she could die and leave the children she is doing it for without mother?

Forced by societal pressure? Massive cause in many so-called "altruistic" surrogacies. Families putting on pressure a woman to have a baby for sister/ auntie/ cousin whatever. You can't even imagine how great this pressure is for many women in all cultures.

And there are accounts of husbands who realise that their wives fertility provides an easy way for them to get money, and push their wives into surrogacy even though they don't want to.

In addition, very few agencies properly explain the risks involved in being pumped full of hormones, or carrying a baby, or giving birth even in this day and age in the first world. And many, many women don't have first world advantages for medical care.

And many commissioning parents look for ways to avoid paying the full fee, and course don't tend to favour the surrogate.

There are absolute horror stories out there - and many aren't just from the perspective of the surrogate, but looking at what has happened to the infants is chilling.

https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/surrogacy-biomarkets-india-troubling-stories-2021-act

Thank you for this link - really interesting study.

I looked one below on "vaginal seeding', too, and that was intriguing (except that the authors used "parent's vaginal secretions" rather than "mother's", which I found extremely jarring. Anyone who gives brith to a child is a woman, whether they like it or not.

DM are throwing shade at her today with the headline that she spent the night away two days after announcing the surrogate baby had been born.

Apparently spending the night at Ken's house in Malibu was more glamorous than looking after a newborn.

I'm pleased Kourtney Kardashian didn't go down the surrogacy route when she so easily could have.

Oh give it a break, no she is not the other, she agreed in exchange for money to carry the child for them simple.

She was not forced so stop with the victim crap and if she wants a bath then she goes and gets pregnant.

who is the victim? the surrogate who knowingly agreed to be a surrogate in exchange for money? And what the hell has this got to do with prostitution?????

Mothers are permanently altered by pregnancy, foetal cells cross the placenta and stay permanently in their bodies. Nobody knows the longterm effects of these cells coming from an unrelated foetus, it hasn't been studied.

It also goes the other way, maternal cells stay permanently in the foetus, and experiences during pregnancy shape expression of genes (epigenetics).

The idea of the pregnancy as the foetus being held in a passive and otherwise empty vessel is simply false.

Have you heard of fetal maternal microchimerism?

There's also brain changes caused by pregnancy.

https://www.livescience.com/pregnancy-causes-dramatic-changes-in-brain

I read about the surrogate babys in Ukraine being cared for in make shift nursery/dormitories in hotels during covid. The reports focused on how desperate the parents were to get there, how carefully they were planning their journey, how traumatic it was to wait etc. No mention at all of how the baby might find being taken from the birth mother but then unable to form a bond with its new parents

A commercial surrogate is selling the use of her body parts.

That’s why I said donate. Last I checked no surrogate is selling a body part, so I don’t see the relevance?

Well said.

And I can't say I've noticed any particular enthusiasm on MN for a woman's right to be used and abused for porn or sex work.

Maybe I'm reading the wrong threads.

That was heartbreaking and horrific. I remember it well - same when the Russia-Ukraine war started. All of those innocent babies trapped in a wars one. There was a big fuss about a British couple who braved the shells to get "their" infant, and how wonderful it was to have "their" baby. Not a single thought for the mother that baby left behind, or her safety.

I am pleased at least one child get out of there, but NOT A WORD about the mother.

I wonder how many of these little ones got to their commissioning parents after covid? How many were traumatised by war and what was effectively an orphanage situation? How many were no longer wanted because the buyers wanted a "new" baby? How many mothers didn't even get paid because they commissioning parents didn't feel they got what they wanted?

It's almost as if MN is not a monolith and different people post on different threads 🤔

Once I was ok with altruistic surrogacy. But then I met a few of them, as you say, sister for a sister, best friend for her friend of 20 years, cousin for gay male cousin. And what I saw was coercion.

Each and every time. It was actually bullying in the case of the cousin for gay Male and huge dollops of coercion.

One of the sisters had life changing injuries from the birth and now the family are estranged. She only went through with it because she knew she could see the baby often. About 5 years after the child was born the estrangement happened.

I think the "commissioning parents " felt bad for the surrogate, but causing a rift and moving far away with the baby didnt help the now disabled sister.

Shes left on benefits for life, the baby is across the world and probably has no idea about the surrogacy.

The best friends are no longer friends.

I dont know how altruistic surrogacy can be stopped, but we should try.

We can start with commercial surrogacy.

That Ukrainian baby farm makes me feel physically sick. How dare they do that to newborns? It's an obscenity.

FTR, I'm as against prostitution and porn as I am surrogacy. Anything that reduces female bodies to commodities to be bought, sold, rented or trafficked, be that to gestate a baby for someone else or as an object for men to ejaculate into/over, is ultimately bad for women and girls as a sex class.
👏👏👏👏👏

This.

Ignoring the systemic issues that oppress women based on their biology in favour of "be kind, celebrate an individual and their decisions" style so called feminism really screws women over.

The individualistic "don't question my decisions or discuss the culture surrounding decision making" type of thinking benefits a patriarchal model that keeps women in their place. Who benefits by celebrating renting women's bodies for various purposes? Not the women who are commodified.

That’s a very good point and something to think about. What amount constitutes exploitation, or is any amount of money exploiting someone? And if so, if I choose to be a surrogate for my sis for free am I still being exploited?

Plus, it's worth mentioning that in most commercial surrogacy arrangements, only a small portion of the amount the couple actually spends will go to the surrogate. Yes, there are medical bills for the IVF and antenatal and maternity care, but in most cases there will also be an finder's fee for a surrogacy agency which has matched the couple to the surrogate, and which exceeds the amount paid to the surrogate.

Can you think of another industry involving the commoditisation of women's bodies where the person who matches the client to the woman providing the service earns more than the woman providing the service does?

I can.

Thank you so much ❤ x

Part of the problem here is that we all have differing ideas about what constitutes wealthy.

So a woman from the UK who has never had a baby or who has had easy pregnancies and straightforward births, but who earns £24,000 per year working at McDonald's and struggles with the cost of living might well be of the view that a white woman living in a modest house in suburban America who gets paid $50,000 to carry a baby for someone else and is able to stay at home with her kids this way is an affluent woman making a free choice to use her body as she sees fit, earning good money and making a couple who want a baby very happy.

My annual salary is around twice what that commercial surrogate in America gets paid to carry a baby for someone else and I work reasonable hours, sitting in a comfortable chair, with regular breaks. The biggest dangers it poses for my health are the potential impact on my already bad eyesight from staring at a screen all day, and my constant close proximity to the biscuit tin at home and coffee and vending machines at work. I think $50,000 for carrying a baby for someone else is a risible sum and totally exploitative, even though I would struggle to pay that much to someone else.

For a couple like Chrissy Teigen and John Legend, $50,000 is a sum of money so small they wouldn't even notice it was missing from their bank account. They could spend that on flying a helicopter to downtown LA for dinner and then going to a club afterwards without even blinking.

@Lwrenagain You do not need to explain yourself ❤️ ignore the judgemental kind x