Five men know what a woman is

FannyCannthanks for posting that video. I was in floods of tears. That poor poor little girl

Awful.

One of the comments on it is

Please viewers don't blame the surrogates. They are desperate

Oh I blame them 100% - stupid, selfish, horrible people.

Thank you Fanny. It is outrageous that a consultation is written in this way - it's almost as if they're deliberately excluding ordinary people (especially women) in order to ensure that they get the responses that they want. We really ought to be used to it now - the manipulation of consultation to get the results that men want in this country is becoming a national scandal!

Thank you Fanny

I looked at the consultation a while ago and was totally put off. Will give it another go!

I hope that something can be done to help her. It breaks my heart that she will just be left with no treatment. It’s no life and she seems such a loving little girl and she never asked to be born. It was all her selfish parents’ fault and then they just left her. Breathtaking.

I will look at the consultation. I agree- I think they want to drown us in paperwork so that ordinary people don’t respond and they can pretend like everyone agrees. I am glad that Nordic Model Now have produced a guide.

@FannyCann
@JazzyGG

I'm so sorry. Multiple pages open at once explains part of it - but how I @ed the wrong person is a mystery even to me!

Thanks JazzyGG, and apologies once again FannyCann

@FannyCann yes different thread I just posted on the most recently commented. It was about this below and must have had some
Interesting comments but sadly I didn't see!

www.stylist.co.uk/people/juno-dawson-dating-as-a-trans-woman-myths/291297/amp

@FannyCann

I had your Juno post marked to read later.
Maybe you could repost it with different wording that MN would find acceptable.
Or even better, post it on spinster.xyz/home where it could be read and freely discussed.

Chatty yeah I don’t think there is much research on it. If we accept that kids who were adopted suffer issues (although adoption is of course the least bad outcome where parent can’t or won’t look after their kids) how can we be so sure that kids born by surrogacy suffer no issues at all? What makes it so different?

Also, how is this any different to buying and selling organs? At least an organ can save a life. There is absolutely no medical reason for a child to be conceived. It’s all about satisfying the demands of adults. Often, there are heartbreaking stories of infertility behind it. Sometimes it’s just a display of pure greed and selfishness, eg Kim K who already had 2 kids and then another two by surrogate. And sometimes it’s fucking sinister, such as that Australian pedophile who dumped his Down’s syndrome kid with the impoverished surrogate in Thailand and fled to Australia with the healthy twin sister. In none of these cases can surrogacy be seen as a necessity. It just reeks so badly of western privilege and of wanting something to the extent that you will exploit others to get it, including your own kid.

I haven’t been following the Times column but thanks for the share token. It’s confusing though- why is it ‘USA or bust?’ A doctor can’t keep a woman’s embryo because she cant afford to use it with him- why can’t she fly it back into England and then work out the next step?

I’ve only had a quick google about but I haven’t come across any research findings, interviews or anything written by adult children born by surrogacy or adult children of surrogates, about what they think of surrogacy based on their experiences.

The political advocacy around this seems to be totally led by adults who were not born by surrogacy themselves.

I’d be delighted to be corrected on this of course.

NotTonight totally agree. I absolutely hate that sort of talk when people make out that you’re being selfish for not giving your parents grandchildren. Every child is a unique person, not a means for their parents to acquire some status that society tells them that they must have. It’s stuff like that that makes women like Sophie pay obscene amounts of money to greedy charlatans like her fertility doctor. She has been told from day 1 that her life won’t be worth living unless she has kids and that she has a duty to give her parents grandchildren. Fuck that shit. I think it’s getting a bit better but I have an older friend who has no kids and people used to tell her to her face that she was obviously selfish for not having kids. On what planet? Whereas spending thousands, hiring some poor woman who is desperate for cash to become pregnant, and potentially leaving the baby to rot if it doesn’t come out perfect like you ordered is obviously the very height of selflessness.

That sounds horrible. I feel sorry for Sophie, I really do. But I think that as a society we need to change our attitudes to infertility. It’s disappointing but it’s not the worst thing that can befall a person. Over 20% of women of Sophie’s generation will not go on to have children. Her life will not be wrecked or meaningless because of it and she does not have an unconditional right to become a parent just because that is what she wants. I know it sounds heartless but it becomes dangerous when we say that people can have what they desire no matter what the consequences. For one thing, having what you want will only be an option for the very privileged. Had Sophie been born on a different continent and in different circumstances, she may not even have survived her breast cancer, let alone had any options about becoming a parent. So it’s only a prospect for the rich and too often it means exploiting someone less privileged. I guess it’s good that at least she is recognising that her surrogate’s impending divorce makes it unsuitable but it sounds like she might still go for it.

There's a very uncomfortable column in the Times detailing the attempts of a couple to use a surrogate in the USA. Of course it's all gone pear shaped and now they are looking at using the UK system and they've run out of money (and I suspect been ripped off). I have some sympathy for them as hers is a difficult journey health wise but the whole series is a classic example of some of the pitfalls of the USA system - and that's just for the 'purchasers' with little examination of the potential abuse of the birth mother.
Share token for a recent column :

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/surrogacy-and-me-we-have-some-heavy-decision-making-to-do-sc6c6vqrf?shareToken=4dca1829e777ddd448cf1dc83c59ed45

I mean if I had been say 5 and my mum was pregnant, I’m not sure I would have truly understood why I wasn’t getting a brother or sister, especially since I would be likely to have school-friends whose mums were also pregnant and they would be getting a sibling. I think the surrogate mums always say ‘oh yeah, my other kids totally get it and are so happy about it’ but I think that’s being way too simplistic and optimistic.

Yeah thankfully that’s quite different to the Ukrainian refugees that are being exploited by carrying babies for rich people but we only ever see the success stories. What about if this woman contracted sepsis and died after the c-section, leaving her own kids motherless? What if she suffered complications that left her with permanent damage to her body and unable to work? There aren’t going to be that many altruistic women who just really want to help a couple that they already have a relationship with. But the demand for surrogacy means that they will need to find women from somewhere and I am quite worried about how that will happen.

Also, that woman has 4 kids of her own. Is she totally sure that they are all cool with her giving away what could have been a sibling? Maybe she thinks they are but who knows until later on how they really feel about it.