In GENERAL terms, all forms of surrogacy, altruistic included, is problematic

The UK's extremely tightly regulated altruistic surrogacy features predominantly women from lower social classes, women who cannot give truly informed consent. You don't need a PhD to understand that even more women like that would be exploited if the rules are loosened.
Given the state of academic "feminism" and misogyny in our institutions, it's sadly the PhD people that I'd suspect might be least willing to see these basics.

@SoManyActivities - you asked upthread about the number of 'altruistic' agreements that involve strangers. A UK paper put it at 79% and a Canadian study found 75%

Thanks. A surrogacy arrangement with a stranger is not really truly 'altruistic' at all is it?

[quote PegasusRex]@SoManyActivities - you asked upthread about the number of 'altruistic' agreements that involve strangers. A UK paper put it at 79% and a Canadian study found 75%

The problems with surrogacy from a womens rights AND children's rights perspective are huge. There is no justification for it. That is why pro-surrogacy advocates appeal to choicy choice feminism and pretend they have a rights that don't exist[/quote]
And the Law Commission's own almost 600 page report found that women who are disadvantaged and/or living in poverty are overrepresented amongst surrogates. As are women who do not fully understand what they are agreeing to.

They very much seemed to include this assessment reluctantly. Almost grudgingly. Because they want commercial surrogacy in the UK that removes existing rights from the birth mothers in exchange for better remuneration. And yet, they admitted this.

The UK's extremely tightly regulated altruistic surrogacy features predominantly women from lower social classes, women who cannot give truly informed consent. You don't need a PhD to understand that even more women like that would be exploited if the rules are loosened.

Surrogacy is basically creating a person and the very first thing you do is to damage it.

Yes, Mumoftwoyoungkids this, exactly this!

In voluntary adoptions after birth there is, in many countries, a delay built in before the child is handed over. But with surrogacy? Immediate removal. That is cruel and unusual punishment for any newborn. In my view, unless either is in danger, or the mother is a danger to the newborn, there should be no separation at birth.

We have so much research now about separation trauma. Which almost always involves an unplanned separation forced by circumstances. Yet here we are, inflicting it on purpose?

@SoManyActivities - you asked upthread about the number of 'altruistic' agreements that involve strangers. A UK paper put it at 79% and a Canadian study found 75%

The problems with surrogacy from a womens rights AND children's rights perspective are huge. There is no justification for it. That is why pro-surrogacy advocates appeal to choicy choice feminism and pretend they have a rights that don't exist

Surrogacy contracts are unenforceable in the UK. And quite rightly so. No aspect of human trafficking should ever be contractually enforceable

Do they know that though?

When the birth mother refuses medication or or choses a birth intervention that places her at greater risk on the pretence of the contract. Does she know its meaningless

The level of neglect and even abuse that a parent has to put a child through before children’s services remove the child from its birth parents is pretty shocking.

The reason for this is that the damage done to a child by removing it from its parents is huge. It is basically better for a child to stay with it’s really quite crap birth parents than it is for the child to be removed and adopted by Mr and Mrs Lovely with their bookshelf full of ladybird books and their endless unconditional love that they are desperate to give.

Surrogacy is basically creating a person and the very first thing you do is to damage it.

Contracts protect as much as they require compliance. It’s a two way agreement. And for record, I am against commercial surrogacy. But think altruistic surrogacy with a contract in place to protect the surrogate is what should be allowed.

Surrogacy contracts are unenforceable in the UK. And quite rightly so. No aspect of human trafficking should ever be contractually enforceable.

The quote is from an essay I linked to upthread that explains in detail why both commercial and altruistic surrogacy violate the human rights of the women and children involved. I can only recommend you read it. If only to see what the other side is arguing.

I also lost a well-written post and when I have time, I will repost it as it deserves it's own thread. One element from it includes the rights of all children (The Netherland's and Sweden's argument btw) to know their biology. Wanting to know your biological parents is a desire of many adoptees, children with a parent who abandons them and well as donor-conceived children. Not knowing how many biological siblings you may have walking the earth? And what about the woman who gave up her eggs as a young person, not knowing what it could mean to be an adult and wonder if you have a son or daughter out in the world. The mother is also the woman who donates her eggs, risking her health and future fertility.

IVF that uses the sperm and egg of both parents isn't exploiting women or ignoring the rights of children. It's just bypassing sexual intercourse.

This podcast about surrogacy is very, very good. Renate Klein pulls no punches.

www.feministcurrent.com/2020/05/11/podcast-surrogacy-a-human-rights-violation/

[quote TheCunkOfPhilomena]I'm opening myself up for abuse here but I am against both surrogacy and IVF.

It is the most extreme form of male entitlement to think a woman's uterus is ever for sale.

A child has the right to at least one loving parent/caregiver, no one has the right to have a child.

I think we need a huge push for people to consider adopting (and I don't care if this is for same-sex or heterosexual couples or single women or men.

I am so angry at some of the stuff I've been reading about surrogacy today.
www.aljazeera.com/features/2018/09/13/ukraines-baby-factories-the-human-cost-of-surrogacy/[/quote]

I am too.

In this case an IVF clinic made a horrendous mix up and inserted at least two unrelated embryos into a woman who gave birth to twins she was not genetically related to.

After carrying and birthing both babies she was legally ordered to return at least one to the baby's genetic parents. (Unclear what's happened to the other baby).

https://nypost.com/2020/03/06/california-couple-drops-case-against-fertility-clinic-that-botched-ivf/

Utterly horrendous. I understand IVF has brought joy to many people (and I can't promise you I wouldn't have used it myself if I had been unable to conceive) but this is what happens when doctors play gd.

"Pregnancy comes with costs. Clothing, toiletries, extra vitamins, childcare, travel to medical appointments... oh and loss of earnings, particularly for the self employed. £15k is a very normal level of expense for a pregnancy. Some surrogates expenses are higher and some are lower dependent on their circumstances."

WTF?!

Clothing you can get v cheaply (Primark) or second hand.

What "toiletries" cater specifically to pregnant women? And how would you rack up £15 grand's worth?

You don't need pregnancy vitamins. Again these cost about £10 and often come free in the pregnancy pack you usually get on your first visit to hospital.

Childcare + loss of earnings - most healthy pregnant women continue their lives normally - working and taking care of their existing children - until their due date. That's why you rarely start mat leave more than a week or so before giving birth, unless there are complications.

Travel to medical appointments. Again, unless you're agoraphobic and don't leave the house you're going to be using the same travel card/car you'd use for getting around daily anyway.

So explain to me again how, in the UK where there is free healthcare (down to free medicine and dentistry while pregnant and in the first year after) a pregnancy could come to anywhere near £15k?

It's payment for carrying the baby, not expenses. Why sugarcoat this?

That's so cruel to the baby.

Well, having watched the program about Hannah and Jake Graf it seems that they are. Obviously it was edited but it did seem to be that once Hannah and Jake were there (and they were very annoyed that due to Covid restrictions it was several hours after the baby's birth that they were allowed to see her) they immediately took the baby and that was it.

Jake also made a comment along the lines of 'imagine if they baby tries to breastfeed, that would be awful' or something similar.

When Mark from Westlife had a baby via a surrogate, he posted an image on Insta of him and his husband in the hospital, backs to the camera, wheeling away a baby in a cot with a hand each in the air.

I don't know how typical that is though, but my assumption has always been that the baby is removed immediately.

Surely the baby isn't taken from the mother straight after birth?

It is my understanding that yes, they frequently are.

Here's some information for women considering surrogacy from California -
www.westernfertility.com/third-party-reproduction/what-surrogate-mothers-should-expect-after-delivery/

Pregnancy comes with costs. Clothing, toiletries, extra vitamins, childcare, travel to medical appointments... oh and loss of earnings, particularly for the self employed. £15k is a very normal level of expense for a pregnancy. Some surrogates expenses are higher and some are lower dependent on their circumstances.

Sorry but there is no way that pregnancy alone (where you don't have to buy anything at all for the baby itself) comes close to costing 15 grand. Mine certainly didn't! Extra vitamins and clothes? The cost of pregnancy is not really monetary is it, there are other costs, emotional, physical etc.

However, that sum could be quite an incentive for a woman who doesn't have much money.

My other issue with surrogacy, was that previously it was something done occasionally on behalf of mothers who were unable to go through birth themselves. Now it appears to be a lifestyle choice for Hollywood stars and gay men.

I think rich people should have their own babies like the rest of us, and single-sex couples need to find co-parents who they can have a family with. Yes that's more messy and involves compromises, but wherever possible children should be brought up knowing the background of their parents.

But I don’t think it’s directly comparable, a surrogate child is never abandoned - it is much wanted and goes straight into the arms of loving parents.

I broadly fall into anti-surrogacy, largely through persuasion that the costs to poorer women outweigh any benefits.

I did used to have less issue with altruistic surrogacy in this country. My biggest concern here would be the abandonment issues a child will have. As I understand it, the issue isn't so much literally being abandoned and uncared for, but being removed from the mother they spent the last 9 months growing in, who is the only person they know through voice and heartbeat.

Surely the baby isn't taken from the mother straight after birth?

Hi Anon992

Welcome to the thread and thanks for posting.

I hope it's okay to ask a few follow-on questions:

1. Talk us through your life circumstances at the time you made this decision (how did it come about, what was your employment, did you have children/a partner of your own, who suggested what, and what was your socio-economic status at the time)?
2. How did you find the parents? Who did you give your baby to and why? Do you have any contact with the child? Was there any friction between you and these parents? Were there any agencies involved?
3. Did you provide your gamete as well as carry the child? What was the pregnancy/childbirth like, were there any complications during? What about now/later on?
4. What was your financial compensation? If you went through an agency/clinic of some description, how much money did they take?
5. Did you have a contract? What was it like? Who brokered it (was it a legal firm, for example)? Could you abort the foetus for any reason? Could you keep the baby if you wanted to? Were there stipulations/restrictions on your activities? What happened if you didn't comply with some part of the contract (e.g. missed a medical appointment, had an alcoholic drink)? 6)What parts of your pregnancy/childbirth care was delivered by the NHS and what by the private sector?
6. What do you do in terms of surrogacy now? Have you ever recommended to any of your friends/other women that they should also be surrogates? Do you speak in professional or organisational settings about your experiences to people who might be "embarking on a surrogacy journey"?

You don't have to answer any of these but would appreciate openness.

I offered to surrogate to my sister when she was having fertility problems. Then she amazingly conceived twins. I am firmly against anyone telling me what I can and cannot do with my body and my reproductive capacity. It’s not for you to “rescue” me. My body, my choice.

No one is interested in 'rescuing you', or in denying that there are some (though not many) women who would willingly volunteer to be surrogate mothers.

This is about what governments and the medical establishment should tolerate and facilitate in order that some people can be parents, and what the social consequences of that would be. There are libertarian arguments in favour of commercial organ donation, using the same logic you have put forward, my body, my choice, no one has the right to tell me I can't sell my own kidney if I wish to, etc. Doubtless there'd be more than a few people who'd be eager to sell a kidney for, say, a million dollars. Society still doesn't facilitate or allow this, because, even while we acknowledge that an individual does, indeed 'own' his or her kidneys, we believe that the broader social effects of establishing a market in kidneys would be undesirable.

A woman’s bodily autonomy is absolute.

Not really. No one has the right to use their body exactly as they wish in all circumstances. You do not have an absolute right to sell your kidney, and you do not have an absolute right to rent or volunteer your womb to gestate a child for someone else. You DO have the right not to be forced to carry a pregnancy to term. The fact that women have THIS right does not make an argument for the state to facilitate commercial kidney donation or surrogacy.

I also think it is disingenuous to use the 'reproductive autonomy' argument in favour of surrogacy, because we have abundant evidence that the actual practice of surrogacy reduces the autonomy of pregnant women - witness the coerced abortions, the hyper-vigilant body monitoring of pregnant surrogate mothers, the fact that the surrogacy lobby is now openly discussing how to pass laws that ensure these women have no legal rights to the children they give birth to.

But, if we are to go with your abortion analogy, a society might decide that a woman's right not to be forced to carry a pregnancy to term does not outweigh the right of the potential child to be born. Feminists argue the opposite, and many societies today agree, because of the well-documented harms that result when women and girls can't access safe abortion. Harms that are so broad, they effectively preclude women's full participation in public life as equal citizens. Do women NEED surrogacy in order to do that? Obviously not. Surrogacy is for the benefit of others, mostly men.

I posted this on the deleted thread which sadly saw the loss of many excellent posts:

Here's an interesting exercise I like to play with my friends. Get a group of mothers together in a room and ask how many of them and their children would be alive without medical intervention during the birth.

You'll typically find it's very few of you. Without medical intervention, either the mother or baby (or both) would probably have died or been seriously injured. And even with medical intervention, many women are left with life changing injuries and trauma.

Birth (and pregnancy) is dangerous. It's dangerous for women, it's dangerous for babies. To dismiss that reality so airily makes me incandescent because it is something that is never discussed when women 'altruistically' gestate a baby for someone else.

Someone on Twitter has argued that 'consenting adults in possession of a uterus' should have the right to do with that as they please, in the name of bodily autonomy, including being able to 'market their reproductive capabilities' by being a paid surrogate.

Which is exactly the same argument put forward by people trying to legitimise sex work.

It also has the same rebuttal in that you rarely find women who have equivalent earning potential in other spheres choosing sex work or surrogacy as their go to employment of choice.

It's a means of last resort, not a positive "body affirmative" or "empowering" choice and by utilising/supporting these "services" you are capitalising on and exploiting someone's fiscal vulnerability for personal gain.

New to this thread - but as a U.K. based surrogate I hope my perspective is helpful. I’ve responded to a couple of points raised earlier on the thread.

Exploitation of women - you will never see a rich woman, a princess or the wife of a president for example , becoming a surrogate- even an ‘altruistic’ one.

Ahem. I am by all sensible comparatives a “rich woman” - and highly very educated - and I have been a surrogate. Lots of the surrogates I know are decidedly middle class - we are a very mixed bag.

The rights of the child. Someone posted amazingly on the other thread about the rights of the child. Having studied psychology I can assure you, studies on child abandonment are very distressing.

I am sure that this is true - and very sad. But I don’t think it’s directly comparable, a surrogate child is never abandoned - it is much wanted and goes straight into the arms of loving parents.

Once money is on the table - and £15k for "expenses" in a country with free healthcare is a fee by any other name - you are outrightly exploiting women.

I completely disagree. Pregnancy comes with costs. Clothing, toiletries, extra vitamins, childcare, travel to medical appointments... oh and loss of earnings, particularly for the self employed. £15k is a very normal level of expense for a pregnancy. Some surrogates expenses are higher and some are lower dependent on their circumstances.

Where's the "altruism"?

Altruism is a convenient concept and shorthand for a selfless act - but what decision anyone makes is every truly altruistic? We do things because we want to - because of how they make us feel. For some people, helping others makes them feel good. Watching my friends become parents was an incredibly euphoric and powerful experience.