Commercial surrogacy

legal reform

I'm very against anything that would allow the commissioning parents to have legal ownership of a baby in another woman't uterus.

I think, much like sex, surrogacy (which I fundamentally disagree with) can only approach being acceptable when it's by full and enthusiastic consent all through, and up to sharing the baby with the new parents - and you don't get that when someone is contractually obliged.

Surrogacy UK's second report of the surrogacy uk working group on surrogacy law reform makes it very clear that there is no appetite for commercialisation of surrogacy in the UK amongst surrogates or intended parents - but there is a strong desire for greater regulation and legal reform

May be of interest

surrogacyuk.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Surrogacy-in-the-UK-2nd-Report-20181230.pdf

Ukraine is not known for its progressive methods of surrogacy, and actually this is out and out exploitation of my European neighbours

www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/ukraine-baby-factories-human-cost-surrogacy-180912201251153.html

I don't have a problem with non commercial surrogacy as OddBoots described, in fact the only surrogacy I'm comfortable with is when the birth mother is NOT paid and so has no financial incentive. I do worry about the impact on birth mothers and children though.

Bitter that's an interesting justification he has there. It reminded me of this: www.objectnow.org/news/2018/9/20/ten-ways-surrogacy-is-like-prostitution

Surrogacy is the use of a woman's body, and can be a "choice" - but honestly (like prostitution) given female socialization, how much of a choice can it really be?

Why is every small chink of altruism immediately turned into commercial exploitation? (Rhetorical question)

I've never had children because I've never really wanted to be a mother but I see the whole of commercial surrogacy as completely exploitative. Interesting that there are few women in our own country queueing up to become surrogates through pure altruism but many, many dirt-poor women's bodies being used as mere containers for rich westerners wants.

I had a conversation with my boss last week about this very subject. A touchy one for him because he and his wife have been unable to start a family, and were patently considering the surrogacy route. His view was that women's bodies were already being exploited by being for sale through prostitution so surrogacy was less dangerous and much, much more lucrative. To say I was shocked would be an understatement

This one's on Radio 4

And don't let's forget the plight of these Cambodian mothers.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001bpp

I recommend listening to Dustin Lance Black's podcasts on surrogacy which are interesting and informative. Sorry I can't copy a link, it doesn't do one for some reason. Search Surrogacy on bbc radio iplayer 5.

With a generation of sterilised teens hot on the heels of the gays who seek the use of a woman's body to propagate a baby for them, not to mention the woman who is currently contesting a compensation case with the NHS demanding that the NHS fund not one but FOUR surrogate babies for her there is going to be a massive demand for surrogates in the future.
I wish I could resurrect Huxley for a chat. The future looks bleak.

Guess if the exploitative system is capitalism rather than theocracy, we’re just not supposed to complain?

That's a brilliant way of putting it.

Thanks for interesting thread OP, will have a proper read later but I agree, a lot of people automatically jump to "awwww, cute" at the thought of surrogacy without really thinking it through.

''Progressive' has been distorted into being interpreted as 'liberal' due to people being so used to the future being liberal and because people have become complacent about the influence and strength of authoritarianism at present.'

Excellent point.

Everything in history was 'progressive' once. The Nazis were hailed as progressive as thats how eugenics were viewed at one time. All progressive means is 'the way in which the future is headed and how things will change'. The politics around that direction can be both liberal minded or authoritarian.

'Progressive' has been distorted into being interpreted as 'liberal' due to people being so used to the future being liberal and because people have become complacent about the influence and strength of authoritarianism at present.

The more I read about commercial surrogacy the more I am against it. It feels akin to selling a kidney to survive. Reading about surrogate mothers in India being treated as dehumanised cheap incubators is heartbreaking.

Surrogacy also seems to ignore that pregnancy can be fatal to the mother and often has lifelong impact on the mothers body.

It is rightly banned in this country.

(Posted the above to demonstrate that carrying a baby isn’t simply being an incubator - birth mothers bond with unborn babies, whether they have a legal ‘right’ to do so or not)

Ignore the inflammatory headline (seems to have been written by a different author to the article):

Surrogates who kept the baby - www.babygaga.com/15-baby-stealing-surrogates-who-actually-won-in-court/

I read it, I agree that commercial surrogacy is something that should be eradicated, I know quite a lot about it due to the nature of my career and I'm not disputing that it is exploitative by its very nature.

I simply stated that altruistic surrogacy shouldn't be lumped in and that it should be decided case by case. It's often the people who have the biggest opinions who have never been directly affected by it.

Much like many important issues, living through something is quite different from reading about it.

Perhaps reading a tiny bit of the Tom Daley thread would mean we don't have to go round in the circle of explaining everything all over again from the point of view of the baby?

That's a beautiful story @OddBoots and a wholly unselfish thing you have done.

I agree commercial surrogacy is vile. I disagree wholeheartedly. I don't think it can all be lumped together though. @OddBoots and other surrogates know their circumstances and I find a lot of people who are absolutely against it have absolutely no personal experience of surrogacy. I say personal experience counts for a lot in situations such as these.

Each to their own in this respect. It's easy to say you disagree with surrogacy when you have happy healthy children. That is down to pure luck, the good luck of fertile couples and the bad luck of infertile couples.

I don't feel comfortable with commercial surrogacy but maybe that is because I am financially comfortable and could afford not to be paid when I carried surrogate pregnancies. Each of the children I carried are in or nearly in their teens now and show no signs of trauma, we did try to be as careful as we could in that their mothers recorded themselves reading stories and I played these recordings to the bumps. We also spent lots of time together during the pregnancies and afterwards and I am still involved in their lives now even as the eldest approaches adulthood.

I would happily do it again if I was medically fit but I have been lucky it has always worked out well for me, I have seen cases when it hasn't.

Thank you for posting the links. We were living in a town here in New Jersey USA with a relatively high number of same sex couples who had DC either via adoption or by using surrogates and/or donated sperm or eggs. Before I became a mother myself I never appreciated the bond I would have with my children and how DH had and has such a different relationship because he didn't grow them.

I have become quite conservative with this area and I believe homo/heterosexual should not be allowed to procreate with donated gamates or use surrogates beyond a close family member or friend with zero money involved.

It upsets me that others have thought I'm homophobic when I'm very supportive of equal rights. What many don't understand is that becoming a parent isn't a right but a privilege.

Interesting article on a little discussed impact of pregnancy on a woman's body - microchimerism.

Microchimerism can get especially complex when a mother has multiple pregnancies. The mother’s body accumulates cells from each baby—and potentially functions as a reservoir, transferring cells from the older sibling into the younger one and forming more elaborate microchimeras. The presence of fetal cells in the mother’s body could even regulate how soon she can get pregnant again

www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/babys-cells-can-manipulate-moms-body-decades-180956493/

I don't know, my instinct is to think about the poor mother, carrying the child for nine months and giving birth, knowing all the while she'll have to hand it over and be completely erased from its life.

The birth announcement that made no mention of the mother was quite chilling, I found.