Famous men and surrogacy

So incredibly selfish. I was reading something last week by a woman who had been adopted, and her feelings of grief when she had her own children.
Her birth mother had been a teenager and not able to cope with a baby, totally understandable reasons. How much harder will it be for surrogacy babies, many of whom will have been made with one woman’s egg and by another woman’s body.

I really cannot grasp how anyone can be so selfish as to make a child in this way, deliberately depriving that child of the most primal bind we have. How will girls born this way cope, when they grow up and have a child themselves ? What sort of parents will boys born this way be, when they have grownup learning that mothers are dispensable ?

Surrogacy should be illegal

That's a really horrible photo. The triumphant gesture is just gross. They have taken the most important thing in that babies life away from her, but they have what they want so it's all good.

It's sad. It's awful. And the crowds insisting that this is something to celebrate - a baby born to be taken immediately from the mother and the mother deleted from the baby's life - it's horrendous.

I used to this altruistic surrogacy was ok. No longer. Pregnancy carriers too many risks. Unless there is a very good reason babies should stay with their mothers through the fourth trimester and breastfeeding is the biological norm and should be supported as much as possible.

That photo was sad. A society celebrating that is very very sad.

Hmmm... Lola do women not have the bodily autonomy to choose to sell a kidney or a lung or a lobe of their liver?

Why no, no they don’t. Because everyone can see the harms in turning human organs into marketable commodities.

Simplistic neoliberal libertarianism is just that — simplistic.

Also many women are unaware quite how dangerous and life changing just pregnancy is on their bodies. Even if a woman has had a previous complication free pregnancy pre-eclampsia is a higher risk with surrogate pregnancy.

Hmm so do women not have the bodily autonomy to choose whether or not to do this themselves, fully aware of potential consequences?

The moment the baby's born it ceases to be a matter of bodily autonomy. The newborn is a living breathing human being. No one has the right to sell it.

It’s about both. It’s about a woman being asked to give up her rights over her own body so a baby can be traded as a commodity.

For me, it's not about the rights of the woman over her body, it's about the rights of the child being traded as a commodity.

Not if they don't know what to ask Lol and if they trust and the doctors and if they live in poverty their decision making will be impacted by the need to survive.

Doctors are working on behalf of the intended parents, they have a responsibility to the mother but I don't trust that the women know all they need to. One watch of Eggsploitation tells me that.

Hmm so do women not have the bodily autonomy to choose whether or not to do this themselves, fully aware of potential consequences?

I find this idea that if the surrogate mother doesn't provide the egg, then they are not the biological mother to be an odd one.

They didn't provide the genetic materiel, but from a fertilized egg up, they provided the matter to build every cell of that child's body! If that doesn't make them the biological mother, I don't know what does!

After growing that child inside them, they will forever have some of that child's DNA in them (from what I understand), and that child will forever be made of that woman's body (some parts of us are never renewed).

For me it boils down to that buying a human is wrong. No amount of fluffy feel-goodness can make it right.

Fanny I think that article you posted up thread should be on your Law Commission consultation thread. Poor Natasha

So we already see examples of death and exploitation of surrogates in the UK, yet this government advisory body’s proposals are to make surrogacy even more widely available.

What will it actually take to protect women? I am worried that there won’t be a floor to the acceptable human cost to women‘s lives (and never mind the cost to poor Natasha’s motherless children ), because already surrogates are on some level not seen as fully people, because they are providing a baby for someone else. Making those women very vulnerable to legitimised exploitation therefore. Patriarchy in action.

I want to qualify what I said earlier. If a couple cannot have a child naturally I don't think it is wrong for them to have her egg fertilised by his sperm and implanted in a surrogate mother. A surrogate mother must know all the risks, be healthy and very willing; she'll be paid expenses of course, not paid for doing the job, expenses can be generous. I also think she must have contact with the baby in the early stages because the baby will know and 'look' for her.

I don't like the idea of surrogacy when a baby is not the biological child of either parent.

It is a controversial subject.

Mummyofmytribe said she hoped her desire for a baby would not trump the needs of a child and I agree. In fact her entire post is very good.

Jesus, with all the damage we know has been done over the years with forced adoptions! This is no different. A baby is removed from its birth mother. Not because she died, or is unable to care for it, or some tragic reason but because somebody wanted a baby so they "made arrangements" and just took her.
The mother may be quite content with her role in this situation. We don't know.
But we also don't know if she'll come to regret it, or what the psychological effects will be for the baby girl.
How many stories have we heard of children searching for their birth mothers in later years. The tales of feeling something vital is missing for them.
We have , as a society, condemned the years of forced adoptions from single mothers or mothers of certain races.
Mass apologies to the stolen generations of Australia and Ireland for example .
We rightly condemn what was done to those mothers and babies.
Surely surrogacy is throwing up the same issues?
That photo made me sick. Like they were posing with a trophy they just won.
If I was a gay man who craved parenthood I would be desperately looking at options I'm sure. I feel deeply for anyone whose dream of parenthood is thwarted. It's such a strong urge for so many of us.
But I would hope that even if I was desperate I wouldn't decide my need for a baby trumped the needs of that baby.
I hope my conscience would not allow me to ignore the nagging doubt that surrogacy is simply not the right way to become a parent.

I'm glad I'm not the only one to have a problem with surrogacy. I honestly feel that not enough status is given to childless people and also no one has a right to a baby. A baby is a wonderful gift but if you can't have one, another door will open.

I say this as an adopted child who never knew real mother and father and was taken straight from hospital at nine days old.

If I had been infertile I believe I would have accepted the fact and found something else to do which was worthwhile - of course I'll never know.

Wow Fanny I had not heard of that either. The commissioning couple had already 5 adult children between them. Natasha the surrogate had only 2 herself. It does not feel right that people who had what most people would consider as plenty of children could put another womans life at risk for their desire to have more.

Wow. This is from 2005 but I hadn't heard about it before. Death of a surrogate mother in UK.

www.bionews.org.uk/page_89547

That photograph was horrid, and very upsetting.

I don't agree with any form of surrogacy. I'm blessed that I had children (1 who was stillborn) but I have never felt that I had a "right" to become a parent.

We live in such a world of entitlement these days but handing over a child for money can never be right no matter the circumstances.

I don't want to be enabled to sell a baby in hard times. Opening up the option feels unethical - I shouldn't be put in a position where my only choice is between selling a baby or being homeless and starving

This. And the same goes for prostitution. The state should be protecting its citizens from exploitation, not enabling it.

All sorts of men can’t have babies on their own, not just gay men.

Can any man contract with a surrogate, or does he have to be gay and partnered? That would seem discriminatory.

So why can’t, say, men who own huge farms contract with surrogates to birth children they’ll raise to pick crops?

Or why can’t a single straight man contract with a surrogate to birth him a daughter to grow up and cook for him and then take care of him in old age?

Or worse, as happened recently in Australia, I believe, where a man was arrested for sex abuse of the daughter he and his wife had contracted a surrogate to gestate and birth for him?

Can brothel owners contract with surrogates to birth girls for them? I suppose that’s one way to reduce trafficking.

What about drug companies in need of test subjects? Can they contract with surrogates?

If I were any kind of artist, I’d draw a picture of a heavily pregnant woman on her hands on knees. One chain would lead from the from the foetus to a gay male couple. One man would be fucking her from behind while another had his dick in her mouth. Two chains would lead from her breasts to cartons of Nestles Mothers Milk, ready for sale. Someone else would be shaving her head, to sell her hair.

The female body produces and reproduces products for men to sell in global markets they control.

Because they control those markets, they can control, or permit, who may purchase and just what purposes those products, including children, can be used for.

But all of this is premised upon the commodification — as opposed to the humanity — of the female body. That’s the Original Sin.

American adoption system is nuts.

Is simply not true for the majority. In the uk, anyone can adopt a child regardless of sexual orientation etc and I have worked with many gay couples who have adopted.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. In the US where I am at it is still the case the the majority of adoption agencies are run by churches and as religious organizations can and do refuse gay couples (and sometimes they also refuse atheist couples). And some of them have stated publicly that it is to protect the children from being sexually molested.

I’m relieved to hear things are better in the UK.

Either way women’s bodies are not to be sold for use by another person.

Imagine is awful like they are wheeling a shopping trolley
Which they kind of are 😰😰

How rude and disrespectful to know thank the mother

what group of women would consider this, for the sake of 'expenses'...wealthy, self made women like Kim Kardashian, or women living in poverty who think this was of using their biology might find their way out of it?

No doubt the choosy-choice fans would be overjoyed if impoverished women were given a greater variety of ways in which to have their bodies exploited.

As an unwilling woman of the underclass I hope like hell commercial surrogacy never comes here, because frankly I don't want to be enabled to sell a baby in hard times. Opening up the option feels unethical - I shouldn't be put in a position where my only choice is between selling a baby or being homeless and starving.

If it came down to a choice between surrogacy or prostitution I'm honestly not sure what I'd do. How do the mortality rates compare? (And how does the morality compare when you're weighing up the psychological damage to all parties?)

Plus I dread to think what the DWP would make of it. A whole new avenue of 'employment' to chase vulnerable poor women into!