Surrogacy

I used to think commercial surrogacy was OK. Why shouldn't a woman use her body to make money if she so wishes. Rather like I believe that sex work could be OK too... If it is free choice.
I beli strongly in free markets etc, men can sell their sperm to "make" babies do why shouldn't women be allowed to rent their wombs, especially if the child is not genetically related to them.
But the last few months, reading on here and reading articles about bans coming in India and Asian countries has made me re consider.
It is so hard to imagine being dirt poor in a dirt poor country and having no education so lacking critical reasoning skills and someone coming along and offering you money to have a baby. A baby you don't want.. You have enough mouths to feed already.. God it must seem so easy to those women. I bet no one explains physical risks, emotional risks..
And while I sympathise with the desire to be a parent, and struggle to think that that should be denied to people on basis of their sexuality.. I now strongly in the no surrogacy ever camp

Buying a baby ? How does that feel later on, if you are the one who was bought ?

Remember the earthquake in Nepal, the Israeli's rescuing surrogate babies commissioned by mostly gay couples. The mothers left to take their chances. Imagine growing up and finding out your father(s) did that.

www.washingtonpost.com/world/how-an-earthquake-highlighted-the-plight-of-israeli-gays-and-their-surrogate-babies/2015/04/29/419d60e8-ecf0-11e4-8050-839e9234b303_story.html??noredirect=on

Surrogacy is wrong. It is wrong whether it is altruistic or commercial, whether the parents are heterosexual or homosexual.

What women do, that only women can do, is devalued in our culture. Yet all of us are here because of it.

This^

Only on mumsnet have I seen the feelings of the child in surrogacy even considered.
If a gay male couple want to be fathers, then adoption is an option, a child who would otherwise be in care, instead loved and brought up by a male couple, no problem. But buying a woman’s body ? Buying a baby ? How does that feel later on, if you are the one who was bought ? Especially if you are a girl, or when you have your own child and truly understand that link between mother and baby.

We co slept for a long time, and the dds didn’t often get to the point where they would cry at night, because I would sense them waking and wake up to feed them. Dh would sleep through that stage. Even now, if I have one in bed with me , then I can’t sleep until she is asleep. Of course some women sleep more heavily, but there are inate links between mothers and babies.

What women do, that only women can do, is devalued in our culture. Yet all of us are here because of it.

Fermats - My older dd could turn her head from birth, so it is possible.

Off topic but some newborns can turn their heads. A couple of hours after my niece was born she turned her head around to look at her mum, it was actually quite freaky, have never seen it before or since. Anyway I am following this thread with great interest. I was absolutely flamed on another site recently because I said I was against surrogacy, I am not as articulate as most on here and could only say that it felt wrong and somehow anti woman. And imo deliberately creating a child, a person, in order to 'give it away' cannot be compared to donating an organ, which is after all a thing, albeit a useful, very essential thing. I also think that birth injuries and the long term effects of pregnancy and childbirth are not talked about nearly enough, the attitude seems to be gestate and pop out a baby for us, job done.

It’s not, but the criteria for that support is LAC or former LAC. (It was originally LAC only and then extended to former LAC so that children didn’t actually lose support by being adopted.)

But if they were removed at birth, then how is their trauma any worse than those of children born through surrogacy?

orchid, no. The criteria for that is that they were once Looked After Children.

The adoption point is interesting. Conventionally adopted children (ie those that were in care before adoption) are recognised as having additional needs over and above those who are brought up by their birth families.

They are eligible for pupil premium, priority housing, priority access to the school of choice etc.

Does that also apply to children born through surrogacy?

Maybe it was more turning his eyes towards you, for sure babies do that.

I wasn't actually there for the head-turning incident (obviously- I was out in the corridor), so it may have been poetic licence to convey the fact that they could tell he recognised my voice. I don't think they were suggesting he could lift it, or turn it while being held in an upright position, more that he rolled it to one side while lying in the cot.

Evidence suggests that babies start learning language in the womb too.
They can hear their mothers voice in the womb, other people's voices sound quieter.

They do recognise their mothers voice though! Definitely.

A newborn can't turn it's head...

My birth partners told me a lovely story about the immediate aftermath of my C-section. The midwifes brought DS back to the recovery room slightly before me (I was still being stitched up) and shortly afterwards wheeled me along on a trolley. DS heard my voice from out in the corridor, apparently, and turned his head towards me! He recognised my voice even at less than an hour old.

The attachment bond between a mother and her child is first formed in the womb, where fetuses have been found to develop preferential responses to maternal scents and sounds that persist after birth.

This is very well known/documented in adoption circles where even babies removed from birth mum at birth can have life-long attachment issues.

It’s a huge deal in adoption yet doesn’t rate a mention in surrogacy.

YY to Brave New World, so prescient.

Anecdote- the day after my first child was born I remember running to the bathroom for a quick shower and returning to find him screaming. A friend had arrived to visit and she was leaning over his cot, whispering and trying to soothe him. I said hello to her and the second I spoke he abruptly stopped crying.It was really amazing how he knew me from those months I carried him. The bond starts long before birth.

Anna's girl - Huxley was more prophetic in Brave New World, though it's turned out to be poor women's bodies rather than artificial wombs. (Mind you, Orwell wasn't really writing about the future, he was writing about authoritarianism in his own present - just that authoritarianism turns out to look much the same regardless of when it takes place).

There is going to be such a big push to legalise it, led by people like Lance Black and powerful legal lobby groups who obviously look set to make bundles of money from sorting out the official contracts.

It’s all going to be dressed up in language of looking after the child’s best interests, ensuring they are not stateless and how perfectly dreadful it is for the commissioning parents to apply for custody and permission to bring the child into the country and a passport.

I really hate the trend now of using one woman’s egg, and another’s uterus, I assume to avoid the woman giving birth changing her mind and wanting to keep her baby. It is particularly horrible as underlying it is the knowledge that the mother/baby bond matters.

Reading this gave me chills. This suggests the people doing it know exactly how important the bond formed in pregnancy is, and are using another egg to ensure the gestational mother has no rights. So they clearly just don't give a fuck about the importance of that bond to the baby and the negative consequences of taking that away.

And when it comes to using another woman's egg and thereby claiming the child is legally theirs - it's a form of ownership based on DNA. I don't think 'owning' a child is ok. I don't 'own' my children. And I also fail to see how donating an egg is performing more 'work' than gestating a baby, if it comes down to it. Not that this level of the argument should matter because clearly surrogacy should just be banned because it's a cruel thing to do to a baby.

So, my gut instinct having carried two babies to term, is that the link made between mother and baby during pregnancy is really very important for the baby, particularly early on. So I googled for about 2 seconds and found this (and other articles basically saying the same)
www.psychologicalscience.org/publications/observer/obsonline/how-mother-child-separation-causes-neurobiological-vulnerability-into-adulthood.html. One quote from this is "The attachment bond between a mother and her child is first formed in the womb, where fetuses have been found to develop preferential responses to maternal scents and sounds that persist after birth,"

Of course, some children tragically lose their mother early on and often their father and other adults in their life step up, and manage to overcome the negative effects of this. But it's not a desirable situation and the people in those situations had no choice because of shitty bad luck. And everyone thinks it's tragic and recognises how hard it is. Deciding - actually making that decision - to put a child through this just because you really, really want a new baby is really dodgy as hell. I mean you're doing something quite unpleasant to the child from the off, doesn't really bode well for later on, does it?

I also don't see the difference between commercial surrogacy and selling organs.