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Original poster

IVF, surrogacy, sperm donation, feminism

133 replies

loopdeloo · 26/11/2017 17:16

Firstly, I should say that I have just had a second round of unsuccessful IVF and it looks like this is not going to work out for me and DH, so I am having a lot of emotional and confusing thoughts and I really hope people can bear that in mind if I say something offensive on what is a hugely sensitive topic and please forgive me if I get this wrong.

Because of our situation, we are now being talked to about egg donation (i.e. attempting IVF with another woman's eggs and my DH's sperm). I don't want to do this because it doesn't feel right for me personally for a number of reasons, one of which is it just feels too "Handmaid's" and that I would be a vessel to provide my DH with his own genetic offspring. He completely gets this, and the other reasons that resonate for both of us, and we are looking at adoption instead.

I have two sets of lesbian friends who have children through sperm donation from someone they knew. In one family, the father is involved, in the other he is not, although he is not being kept "anonymous". This has never seemed to be much of a problem to me. I also have one set of gay male friends who have adopted 2 children in the UK and they are wonderful parents and although it has been hard, their experience has really helped DH and I look at adoption positively.

And yet now I have a couple of male gay friends who have decided to go to the US to have a surrogate mother - who will be anonymous to the child - and it is making me feel deeply uncomfortable. The total cost is going to be near on $100k and they are spending time browsing through brochures of women's profiles. As I type, I'm not sure why the cost is relevant and yet it seems to be so I'm going to leave it in the post. This seems even more 'handmaid's' and I can't quite get my head round it.

Is this just a purely irrational and emotional reaction due to my personal struggle with infertility, or is there a feminist issue here? I am aware that I'm all over the shop emotionally at the moment and that there is the potential for great hypocrisy here and I'm genuinely interested in your thoughts and not looking for agreement or sympathy.

OP posts:
BrandNewHouse · 26/11/2017 20:54

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

QuentinSummers · 26/11/2017 20:45

Oh, also if you did go ED you aren't a third party in the relationship. That baby would be grown by your body, they wouldn't be there if not for you.
Did you know some if the foetal cells cross the placenta and grow into the tissue in the mother? So even though the egg material isn't yours, you would end up sharing genes with your child because of this. They would be part of you
://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/babys-cells-can-manipulate-moms-body-decades-180956493/

QuentinSummers · 26/11/2017 20:40

I don't think anyone deserves to have a baby. I think many women are lucky enough to be able to have a baby without medical intervention. I think for women with fertility difficulties like yourself then you have to become comfortable with your own ethical line. Surrogacy is that for me and although I'm sympathetic to gay men, they are men and should accept that and not feel their desire for a child entitled them to the use of a woman's body to gestate said child.
Adoption is a much more ethical way forward for them.
Flowers for you. Hope it all works out for you x

Original poster
loopdeloo · 26/11/2017 19:57

Thank you for your replies. I have friends (well I guess friends of close friends but with whom I've socialised quite a bit and are lovely) who were rejected as adoptive parents and I don't know why and haven't pried because it must have been incredibly painful for them. I have asked our closest mutual friend once but I can tell he genuinely doesn't know and is closest to the husband and they've talked about it being shit but not the reasons why. So we are prepared for the fact that even getting accepted to be adoptive parents, let alone having an adoption that works, is not guaranteed and is going to be a ver difficult process no matter what.

I suppose what's troubling me the most is my instinctive reaction to two men sitting there browsing through brochures of women to be their surrogates, when it didn't bother me at all when my lesbian friends were thinking of doing the same for sperm donors (although in the end they found someone they knew who was willing to donate). They are going to the US to do this and I don't know the situation there, and whether it is poor women who will do this for them in return for cash or what. They did seriously consider altruistic donation in the UK but they went to some meet ups and said it was ridiculous - so few women and so many hopeful couples (both heterosexual and gay).

This takes the discussion beyond a feminist one and towards the ethics of ED, but - beyond not wanting to be a vessel for my husband's biological child and feeling like a third party in the family - I just feel that if we can give a home to a child who could really benefit from one, I think going through the process of trying to artificially create a life (with only a 30% success rate anyway) doesn't sit right with me. I don't judge other women who've taken a different stance on this at all. Genuinely. And that's why I find it so troubling - that my male gay friends doing this is causing me such an issue when I guess they deserve to have a baby as much as anyone else.

OP posts:
newtlover · 26/11/2017 19:09

yes I think you are right to be uncomfortable
sperm donation is wayyy less difficult and costly for the man than egg donation. Surrogacy I feel very uncomfortable with, it smacks of entitlement and being able to buy a child.
Adoption is far from an easy option as you will see if you look at the adoption boards here.
However, I CAN imagine someone donating eggs as an act of altruism, just as people give blood (I realise there's more to it than giving blood). And I can also imagine that carrying a pregnancy to term would be an important goal and means of becoming a parent, so I think it's worth considering.

QuentinSummers · 26/11/2017 19:04

I think surrogacy is very different to egg donation.
Pregnancy is hugely risky to women and has the potential for rich couples to exploit poorer women. I see surrogacy as more like selling organs. Questionable unless you can be sure the woman is in no way coerced e.g. no financial incentive.

Julie Bindel has written about it
www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/apr/01/outsourcing-pregnancy-india-surrogacy-clinics-julie-bindel

Egg donation I see as less problematic as it's often a way for women to reduce the costs of their own fertility treatment and they are going through the egg harvesting process anyway. If I wasn't too old I would donate my own eggs to help women in your situation.

But it sounds like you have your own good reasons why ED won't work for you.

This is just me rambling but may be useful

vaginafetishist · 26/11/2017 18:59

I think you are right to feel uncomfortable about this, I object to surrogacy on feminist grounds and I am a lesbian who had children using an anonymous sperm donor.

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