Gay dads take surrogate to court after she bans them from seeing twin baby girls

But so is the use if a sperm donor
Same issue if some genetic material being left and a generic child somewhere in the world

The system of receiving free or reduced cost IVF in exchange for egg donation is equally problematic for me since it is treating women's body parts as something to trade and implying it's not a problem to have your own genetic child out in the world being raised by someone who is a stranger to you. But somehow this is allowed.

I think of the person whose egg was used as the 'real' mother. I know that others disagree and feel the mother is the one who grows the baby. Which is why I don't like the whole idea of egg donation and host surrogacy, since it leaves children with no clear idea of who their mother really is.
The woman donating the egg doesn't consider herself to be the parent, yet often neither does the woman carrying the baby since there is no genetic link. It means the resulting children have no mother.

@Michelleoftheresistance
Please don't belittle, appropriate or negate the reality of the experience of pregnant women to try and bolster the importance of males

I would NEVER do the above! I have suffered numerous miscarriages myself, at varying times during pregnancy, i know the heartache this carries. Same could be said for my partner, and i believe he has as much right as me to be heartbroken for the loss of our child. I don't need to bolster his importance, he is important!

I feel that if surrogacy is made illegal then so egg donation and sperm donation should be too.
But the reality is that the two latter are seen as ethically ok when, IMO, they carry very similar issues FOR THE CHILD
With surrogate mother, there is the added risk of being left with a baby that is unwell and suddenly not wanted anymore. Or fur her the deal with giving away a child she has formed and attachments too.

I dint quite buy into the physical issues associated with pg bs donor egg because there are many issues associated with being egg donor toi (which is basically IVF with all the issues it entails incl overstimulation). And if we consider egg donation ok (on a physical
Risk POV or ‘using women’s body) then why it surrogate?

What does it matter if you have siblings you known nothing of, a medical history with gaps, no sense of roots or belonging

There is actually more legislation to protect children born via egg, sperm, & embryo donation, and through surrogacy, in terms of their rights to know their genetic parentage than there is, for example, to protect children born to mothers who don't know who the father is or to fathers who clear off and can't be found. Scenarios that are actually far more common than surrogacy.

Children have the right to be created without baggage already being in place. No one should have the right to set up any child to fail. No child should start their life with the prospect that they will never know if the stranger they pass in the street is their father/mother/sibling. No child should start their life being deliberately deprived of either one of their biological parents

But this happens all the time regardless of surrogacy - especially now with so much divorce or so many children born into step-families or brought up by step-parents. Many children have step-siblings they don't know about and many children are born to biological parents who have 'baggage'? We don't seek to legislate against that.

Surrogacy should be banned where the mother is using her own eggs. If another woman's eggs are used then the babies really are not hers and she has no right to them.

No. We cannot elevate the right to genetic material, donated eggs and sperm, over the rights of the mother who literally creates an entire human FROM and OF her body. We cannot assign superior rights to one person over the contents of another person's body.

We cannot reduce a woman to a vessel - first because this is inhumane and unconscionable, and second because this is not what she actually is.
Babies aren't fruit trees. You don't merely plant a pip and presto the sunshine and earth magically do the rest.
A human, a woman, creates every cell of that human from her blood, her bones, her organs, her body, after that embryo implants. The genetic material is a blueprint. But the child is entirely OF her body, OF HER.

The enormity of a pregnant woman's creation of another human is so great that it dwarfs any competing 'claim' made by anyone else over her own to that baby.
A claim either of the person who provided the sperm, or the person who provided the egg.

We must never diminish that physical reality in order to contrive to elevate the genetic contribution over it. To do that is to reduce women's rights over the children they make with their bodies beneath the rights of any man or woman who used her body.

Surrogacy should be banned, full stop.

Regardless of whether a mother creates a baby with her own eggs or with donated eggs.
Creating every cell of an entire baby with your body from the microscopic embryo, and giving life and birth to that baby, is of far more importance and gravitas than donating an egg or a sperm, which is meaningless on its own.

I would rather rewrite as this:
If another woman's eggs are body is used then the babies really are not hers and she has no the absolute right to them.

If you don't want your genetic material to be used by another person who will create, with her body and at risk to her own life and health, an entire human with it, then give birth to that human and have rights to the baby she made with her own body, then don't donate your genetic material for the purpose of it going into another person's body

You can't reclaim a donated kidney once it's been transplanted into another human, because once it's inside their body it is theirs. It ceases to be yours, the donor's.

What becomes part of another person's body becomes part of their bodily autonomy.

So don't give up your eggs and sperm, ever, or any other body parts thinking you can retain some sort of prior ownership over them once they have entered another person's body.

Inside my body? Mine.

The more I think about the issues around surrogacy and egg donation, the more I find myself thinking that egg donation is also fundamentally morally wrong.

The one constant that remains is that we are each sovereign of ourselves and all "within our skin". And that includes the babies that we create with our bodies.

^ surrogate baby

Surrogacy being illegal only exacerbates the risk of exploitation.

Making something illegal doesn't make it disappear (making drugs illegal hasn't exactly worked).^
All it does is make it easier for individuals to be exploited as the legal framework to protect them isn't clear and they themselves risk being prosecuted.

Will you quietly talk me through the process of becoming legal guardians in any Western European country where surrogacy is banned.

Or through how you legally adopt a child from abroad in any of these countries?

The idea that the law can not be used for this subject is in no way comparible to banning alcohol or drugs.

I find the idea that someone sees it on a par with that, very bizarre.

Surrogate babies show no difference in temperament or behaviour compared to non-surrogate babies.

DId I claim that they did? What I said was there will be implications based on knowing that you were a surrogate - emotional impact of knowing you were paid for, were treated as a commodity etc.

In India, the women pressured by family members into free surrogacy were already doing that anyway even when commercial international surrogacy was legal

Maybe so but if you create legislation that bans commercial surrogacy apart from if through a sister (as quoted in my post) or a close family member, that legislation, in turn, creates a situation that puts undue pressure on those women. That is the effect of such short sighted legislation. That's my point. Not whether it used to happen or not.

I feel the same way about surrogacy as I do about prostitution - ultimately it's all commodifying women in a way which disproportionately affects the economically disadvantaged and has a high likelihood of leaving them physically and mentally damaged.

I am genuinely sorry for anyone who desperately wants a child and can't have one - I've supported friends through the grief of infertility - but that does not give anyone the right to buy a child from someone else. That's not what is meant by "the right to family life".

When I had children with my DP was he putting me through potential emotional trauma to fulfill his desires to have children?

I'm guessing he didn't interview you or provide financial support based on a working relationship with you that was entirely and solely about your use in providing him with children? And ended with your handing the children to him at birth and walking away? Since you refer to him as DP I'll guess there's a rather different context involved.

Would you say to someone's husband whose wife has had a miscarriage that its not about him, its not allowed to be about him as its the woman that suffers?

To an extent, yes. A partner of a woman who miscarries has the disappointment of the pregnancy loss and planned for child, and the emotional fall out of supporting a loved one who has experienced the trauma and loss of a child dying inside her and the physical ordeal that follows. And the hormones. And the psychological effects. I had guilt for years about the children who'd died inside me, in one case continuing for a week carrying a dead child inside me, and if I'd done anything to cause that, and my disability is directly related to a medical disaster caused by one of those miscarriages.

Please don't belittle, appropriate or negate the reality of the experience of pregnant women to try and bolster the importance of males.

So couldn't the same be said about any man then? When I had children with my DP was he putting me through potential emotional trauma to fulfill his desires to have children?

Presumably you and your DP made a decision to have a baby together, that you would both be raising. I also assume your DP cares about your welfare. Not really comparable to using women as a conveyor belt of wombs and risking their health until you get what you want, and completely erasing them from the narrative too.

Surrogate babies show no difference in temperament or behaviour compared to non-surrogate babies

Not knowing one's origins may not affect their temperament or behaviour but I suspect, in fact I know, that it affects them in all manner of ways. There is a pressure on children who don't know a parent/parents and who will never have the opportunity to do so, to pretend that they're okay with it. Mustn't hurt the adults who made those life choices for their own good etc. What does it matter if you're only a half sibling when everyone else is full ? What does it matter if you have siblings you known nothing of, a medical history with gaps, no sense of roots or belonging ? Being wanted, even desperately, isn't enough. Being loved isn't enough. Being rejected, in whatever form it takes, scars most children.

We can't justify it by saying that bio parents often hurt their own kids. Surely the standard has to be higher than that ? Children have the right to be created without baggage already being in place. No one should have the right to set up any child to fail. No child should start their life with the prospect that they will never know if the stranger they pass in the street is their father/mother/sibling. No child should start their life being deliberately deprived of either one of their biological parents.

Being infertile can be distressing but we don't make it better by buying babies or women.

@GlitchStitch
"What they actually did was put several women through physical and emotional trauma to fulfil their desires, and it's all about them not the numerous women that went through it"

So couldn't the same be said about any man then? When I had children with my DP was he putting me through potential emotional trauma to fulfill his desires to have children?
Would you say to someone's husband whose wife has had a miscarriage that its not about him, its not allowed to be about him as its the woman that suffers?
The article clearly states that one of the men is the biological father. He has as much right as any parent to be happy/sad/heartbroken about the outcome of any of the pregnancies.

Surrogacy should be banned where the mother is using her own eggs. If another woman's eggs are used then the babies really are not hers and she has no right to them

The woman who gives birth is the legal mother in this country. If the egg and sperm donors are not happy with this, they should go to a less regulated country where it’s easier to rent wombs and purchase babies.

Please remember that women MAKE babies from their own bodies, from their flesh and blood. The egg and the sperm is only the starting point. The only thing that is familiar to a newborn baby is the smell and sound of the woman who gave birth to her/him.

In India, the women pressured by family members into free surrogacy were already doing that anyway even when commercial international surrogacy was legal.

The multinational huge profit making surrogacy agency suddenly seemed to have noticed them though.

This is why surrogacy (except perhaps in the case of sisters) should be illegal

Yes but there's an unexpected impact to legislation of this kind.
They recently banned commercial surrogacy in India (although we also have a ban on commercial surrogacy in the UK although reading this thread you'd never know) unless it's through a close family member.

The effect: young females are being coerced and pressurised (with no proper clinical care) into being surrogates for other infertile family members. Result: less choice, less power, less control for women.
Historically, when commercial surrogacy was legal in India, all women concerned had far more control over the situation an could make choices that worked for them.

FFS pregnant women aren't incubators.
Gestation is an intensive biological process where a woman makes a baby out own body.
Its not just heating up sperm

If anyone is ambivalent about surrogacy read more about baby Gammy and the child sex offender who 'commissioned' him. That will focus the mind very quickly

But abuse isn't limited to children born by surrogacy. Plenty of children are horrifically abused by their biological parents.

Surrogacy should be banned where the mother is using her own eggs. If another woman's eggs are used then the babies really are not hers and she has no right to them.

There will always be implications of this no matter how good your subsequent childhood is

According to long term studies into the the effects on babies born to surrogate mothers - fears that they will suffer psychological harm are unfounded.

Surrogate babies show no difference in temperament or behaviour compared to non-surrogate babies.

And, interestingly, 90 per cent of families still have good relations with the surrogate mother with no tension or conflict.

I'm too old now but I would have liked to have been a surrogate to a woman who could not have children and I'm not poor or disadvantaged or controlled by evil men by any stretch of the imagination, I'd have chosen to do it myself, with no payment, purely as an altruistic act.

I nearly did but I was in my late forties by then and we decided against it.

This is why surrogacy (except perhaps in the case of sisters) should be illegal.

The 4th trimester is only just starting to be understood and researched.

This stuff really matters, best outcomes for mother and baby are to be together. We used to understand this, mothers were supported by families and "lying in" was the norm. Even when I was born in the 70s mums would be in hospital for 7-10 days.

We knew this stuff matters, but, we didn't value it enough to prove it's worth, and so, we have a situation where the needs of premature babies are being forgotten in the squabbled over cash.

Absolutely disgusting. I agree, those babies are being let down.

www.babycentre.co.uk/a25019365/your-baby-and-the-fourth-trimester