Surrogacy

Altruistic organ donation is life-saving.

Prospective parents will not die due to not being able to have genetically related children.

They aren’t comparable scenarios.

Yes organ donation is life saving for the recipient but there is no benefit, only risks, to the donor.

Furthermore, I understand that there are significant checks and balances on altruistic organ donation alongside the obvious complete ban on commercial organ donation.

Except organ donation is life saving, hence the ethical dilemma of should we risk a life if we're not saving a life.

What if the surrogate mother dies or is damaged - can society condone a practice that is NOT lifesaving where one party can load that risk onto another?

Society accepts that risk with altruistic organ donation.

When weighing outcomes is it better for the child to be one of many children fathered by an "anonymous" sperm donor who grows up to know that they have multiple unknown half siblings or a child who grows up with genetic parents and knowing their gestational surrogate?

With any ethical minefield one has to consider all the absolute worst case scenarios and check the balance and sacrifice of human rights.
Even with altruistic surrogacy there are horrible outcomes.
What if the surrogate mother dies or is damaged - can society condone a practice that is NOT lifesaving where one party can load that risk onto another?
What if the surrogate mother wants to keep the baby, it isn't genetically hers, but she IS the mother in exactly the way any woman who conceives a child naturally or with IVF and donor eggs is the mother. We would never condone a claim on a child from the donor from a woman who had conceived a child through IVF and donor eggs or sperm. Why does the surrogate mother have less rights, or the baby less?
What if the surrogate mother gives up the child and then struggles with the raising of that child by the relation, whether it may be abusive or not. Her legal rights may be forfeit, but her moral concerns will remain and families can be torn apart by competing claims on a child.

There are many worst case scenarios that are possible and the prospect of some happy outcomes must be weighed against the disastrous implications when it goes wrong.

Is it different? I think it's an interesting question.

Genetic make up can have lifelong effects in a way that who gave birth to you doesn't. It's the essence of who you are.

if you are against people having babies because they are not able to have them naturally

That’s not what we are discussing. The topic is, surrogacy.

There is no comparison in your example, as we are specifically talking about the intentional creation of a child that is to be seperated from its mother. It is entirely different as the role of the mother is unique and creates a physical and hormonal bond. Anyone who has been pregnant will understand that that is completely different from being a biological father.

OvaHere

Citing health risks to the mother are different though.

I think using donated eggs or sperm is turning children into commodities.

I have less of an issue with using genetic parents eggs and sperm and an altruistic gestational surrogate than "anonymous" donor eggs and sperm.

I feel like there’s two very different sides to surrogacy.
For example: say my Dsis can’t carry her own baby, and I carried it for her. I would give birth to that baby, then maintain a normal, aunt-niece/nephew relationship with that child, and still be a part of his or her life. No money exchanging hands etc. I’m not saying I would do it, but I think this kind of surrogacy is very different to the horrible “rent-a-womb” agencies that seem to be rife in the US. That makes me deeply uncomfortable in every sense. It think it’s barbaric that once a woman enters into that contract, she essentially loses all bodily autonomy for the “contract period”. It feels exploitative, and turns something that is on the surface “a beautiful gift” into something very very ugly
I’ll never forget reading about the gay, reality tv couple from the US (can’t remember their names!) who documented their “surrogacy journey” on TV, and they were actually faced with a lawsuit because they filmed a lot of the appointments/labour/birth etc without the surrogates permission, and pretty much told her that they essentially “own her womb” while she’s carrying and birthing their child and they could film what they liked

It was pointed out a generation ago that women were losing maternal rights, and gaining paternal ones. Meaning that they had a "right" to their genetic children, but not the baby they had gestated.

Anonymous sperm "donation" has been rendered very unanonymous by DNA home-testing kits. Any competent 12 year old can order a kit online, and find close relatives (half siblings, cousins etc) who have also done the test. There are lots of men who sold their sperm as students, and 15, 20, 25 years later discover dozens of children, or rather, the kids find them via ancestry.com or even facebook. Presumably this will soon be happening to ova-donors too, although the demographic differs in significant ways (usually young-ish women seeking fertility treatment).

There is no equivalence between sperm donation and pregnancy.
Removing a child from the mother in whose body she has been created, grown and nurtured bears no resemblance whatsoever to dropping off a turkey baster and getting on with life never looking back.
Do I think a child has the right to know as much as possible about their parental origins? Yes. Do I think the absence of a father is equivalent to the absence of a mother? No. Not in most species, and not in us. We're remarkably adaptive and we can handle circumstances where there is no mother, and exceptional fathers can do a tremendous amount to compensate for that loss. Some extraordinary fathers will do a better job than a mother.
But of all the circumstances where the differences between the sexes is most profound, this is the biggest. Childbirth and the infant maternal bond.
The more I hear people attempting to bring an equivalence to equal parenting rights the more I think I've been brought up believing a crock of shit.

I'm not massively keen on anonymous sperm donation because I feel in an ideal scenario everyone should know and have access to their genetic history/parents.

I find it less problematic and exploitative than surrogacy though. To the best of my knowledge no man has ever been at risk of health complications or death from ejaculation.

Also the removal of a newborn from the familiar body that gestated them is a different scenario from an absent father.

Is it not about turning babies into commodities though? Surely, if you are against people having babies because they are not able to have them naturally (see above comments about gay men) then that applies in all cases?

A lesbian couple is no more able to conceive a child than a gay couple.

Is it surrogacy across the board that people are against, so in instances of surgery or illness too?

Not if one of the lesbians is the gestational mother. The cruelty in removing a baby from their gestational mother is to do with the so called fourth trimester rather than the right to know their parents.

Because it affects the child's rights - the right to not be taken away from it's gestational mother, or to be treated as a saleable commodity.

Would this extend to a lesbian couple using a sperm donor to conceive a baby? Does a child not have an equal right not to be removed from its father too?

I have come to the conclusion after considering the arguments for and against surrogacy that surrogacy should be banned. Because it affects the child's rights - the right to not be taken away from it's gestational mother, or to be treated as a saleable commodity. As far as I can see surrogacy is only ever in the selfish interests of the adults paying, never in the best interests of the child.

Plus of course all the risks of pregnancy to the gestational mother, some of which can be permanent and affect the rest of your life, which isn't discussed enough. Like prolapse.

Agree that the comparison of people's attitude when a baby's mother dies in childbirth or shortly after and the attitude to surrogacy really needs examining.

Even the words are stolen from us. A "surrogate" means "in place of". The woman carrying the pregnancy is doing the actual work. Give her the dignity of calling her the gestational mother. It is her blood that feeds the embryo. It is her bones and teeth that the fetus will leach for its calcium needs. It is she who bears the risks, as well as the baby. Her risks are not surrogate: from gestational diabetes to life-long pelvic floor problems.

In addition, calling her a gestational mother makes it clear that she is not the genetic one. "Surrogate motherhood" as a term can refer to women carrying their own genetic child, as well as women who carry embryos unrelated to them. The former used to be common, but technology means the latter predominates, ensuring the woman who gives birth has even fewer rights.

Brokers are doing big business. A few years ago, the market was worth hundreds of millions of dollars in India alone - but their government decided that keeping poor women in pregnancy hostels (practically prisons) wasn't such a great idea after all.
Wikipedia is interesting but out of date:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_surrogacy_in_India
But here's The Telegraph from December:
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/12/20/india-bans-commercial-surrogacy-stop-rent-womb-exploitation/

The normalising of womb rental is disturbing on all fronts. It's not just the gay/trans aspect but also the wealthy/celebrities who are more than happy to pay another woman to bear the health risks and inconvenience of pregnancy.

There was an interview a few years ago with the eldest (surrogate baby herself) daughter of the Drewitt Barlows - who run a large surrogacy agency. She spoke about potentially having a child herself via surrogacy for no other reason than that it avoided the undesirable aspect of pregnancy and childbirth.

Disconnecting women and children from the concept of motherhood and the process of child bearing and turning it into a commodity is not something that should be encouraged or emboldened.

As with the Nebraska case it's very worrying when people start eyeing up their female relatives as potential chattel ignoring the very real risks to her physical and mental health but also the risks to the child. Considering that women are labelled 'old' in the context of pregnancy at around 35 I can't imagine the immense risk the 61 year old woman was faced with and in turn the child due to maternal age.

As always when the topic of surrogacy comes up I always think of the saying 'just because you can doesn't mean you should'. I have grave concerns that in the current climate surrogacy is not going to be banned or further restricted but made easier due to the behind the scenes lobbying that undoubtedly is going on currently by various orgs.

The 61 year old woman having her sons baby really upset me to see. That’s not good for her at all.

I don’t support surrogacy for two reasons. It uses women as vessels and disregards her health and safety, and importantly because intentionally creating a child to be separated from its mother is a rights violation for that child.

It’s gaining popularity in NZ where I’m from, as a popular tv host did it recently and is trying to change the law using her connection to Jacinda Ardern. She wants to be able to pay women and to fast track or get rid of the adoption process as she was not happy she had to adopt the child. Ardern has promised her changes are coming.

Gary Powell, a long-standing gay rights campaigner has spoken up about this loads. He’s worked with Julie Bindel and Jennifer Lahl.

There wasn’t a hint in the bbc coverage that this situation was anything other than a wonderful thing. Tiny caveat about her health and how not every 61yo would be able to do it.