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

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.

Yes by all means, discuss safeguards and how to prevent exploitation. But the issue of whether surrogacy should be outlawed is to me like arguing to ban abortions. You’re taking away my right to have a baby as and when I choose either way.

Just replying to the OP

I agree. Same applies to prostitution/sex work.

While SOME women may have the ability to consent to surrogacy without pressure or ties MOST woman will do so from familial obligation, pressure to be kind, and in some parts of the world financial pressure. One woman going through a pregnancy as a surrogate as a result of pressure is too many.

The other issue is the child. Removing a child from the birth mother in the first 3 months is not optimal. We call it the 4th trimester for a reason. Doing so for child protection reasons is always a hard decision. This should not be done to appease someone who cannot have a biological child of their own.

It's heartbreaking for those unable to carry a child, but it offers better protection for women and children in the wider term and so I don't think surrogacy should be allowed.

Not in ones I have seen. They have exit clauses where if the surrogate changes her mind she can obtain an abortion (if legal) or keep the baby. I have never seen one where an abortion was forced. The contracts usually stipulate that the parents to be must pay for all pregnancy costs even if they change their minds mid pregnancy

Do they ever say the parents have to take that baby regardless ? So if its premature or disabled they have the baby anyway ?

Or do they walk awY leaving the poor single mum recovering from an emergency c section at 26 weeks to have to decide whether to keep the baby or give it up and how the hell she can feed her 3 year old now she wont get paid

I find it incredibly unnerving how men are so easily able to shut-down women, discussing an issue which specifically affects only women, which the men have explicitly put in the public domain for discussion, on a parenting forum's Feminist discussion board.

Yes, this a million times, can we keep saying this because I really think attention needs to be drawn to what is actually happening here.

Weird how surrogacy cases keep ending up before the courts, though, if it’s all so easy breezy and watertight...

My friend offered to be a surrogate for me. I didn't take her up on it because I didn't want a surrochild anyway and was still doing ivf but I in no way asked for it. She had very clearly thought about it for months and discussed it at length with her husband and parents. She had contacted other surrogates about their feelings and was very clear which rules, wishes and boundaries she had (clear things like only me in the delivery room at the end and if its unhealthy then so be it, no abortions). She knew the risks and felt that it was worth it to offer being a surrogate for me.

I declined her amazing offer, but I fail to see how it would have been exploitation in this case. I never asked for it, never thought about it, she thought it up all herself and was very well informed and prepared.

You must be seeing the worst case exploitation....which is why surrogacy is problematic. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

All we can do is set up a system to support and protect her from exploitation

What do you think the contract would do? Dictate what she can eat or drink or do . Whether she can go on holiday, whether she can even have medical treatment.

If she isn't free to make medical decisions without running past someone else first then thats being exploited.

Regardless, we can legislate a contract that protects the surrogates rights, nothing says that surrogacy has to be run in the most draconian exploitive manner possible.

www.organdonation.nhs.uk/get-involved/news/500-people-have-now-donated-a-kidney-to-a-stranger/

I've answered my own question.

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/

This kind of donation has the potential to be harmful and exploitative (and indeed is in other countries), but in the UK is largely managed safely, to ensure that the donor is not being coerced or receiving financial remuneration.

Are there many examples of people who give kidneys to complete strangers?

it must be accepted that childlessness is sufficiently harmful to justify any risk to the gestational mother or child and no other remedy for that harm exists.

No it doesn’t. Why should it? Harm arguments have no place when talking about a woman’s bodily autonomy and her reproductive rights. If a woman wants to reproduce, have a baby, for another person, then that is her right to do so. All we can do is set up a system to support and protect her from exploitation.

Your it must be accepted that harm to this person must outweigh the harm to another is a bad argument. It can be easily extrapolated to any pregnancy, Adoption is somewhat harmful to a baby, but we don’t force mothers to have an abortion unless she can demonstrate the harm to her outweighs the harm to a baby being adopted out? No. That is a sword of Damocles you are proposing.

A woman’s bodily autonomy is absolute. These decisions are for her and her alone.

To me a contract doesn’t dehumanise, it actually underlines the surrogates full person hood. It wasn’t that long ago that women were deemed not mentally capable of being a signatory party to any contract. The right to contract is an equal right that we fought long and hard to obtain. The right to bodily autonomy is also one we have fought for and I think it morally wrong for any of us to tell a woman she cannot volunteer as a surrogate if she so wishes. In addition, any baby that woman has is her responsibility and she can abort it, keep it, or adopt it out either prearranged as a surrogate or not prearranged and as a result of an unplanned pregnancy.

Here you show your complete lack of understanding. The contract specifically denies the surrogate mother the option to abort/keep/adopt out the infant. That is the whole point of the contract. The commissioning parents get to make those decisions because they purchased the egg and provided the sperm so they are the child's parents. The surrogate becomes an incubator for someone else's child.

I agree OP.

It's problematic because it can never be an equal exchange because pregnancy is inherently risky.

It doesn't necessarily follow that all problematic things should be illegal, but it does mean that it is impossible to quantify the exchange in a legal document.

I find it incredibly unnerving how men are so easily able to shut-down women, discussing an issue which specifically affects only women, which the men have explicitly put in the public domain for discussion, on a parenting forum's Feminist discussion board.

Yup. Me too.

What happens to the right to bodily autonomy when either the mother or the commissioning person wants or doesn’t want an abortion, plan?

In many US surrogate contracts, a mother can be forced into an abortion she doesn’t want by a commissioner, or denied one she does want, eg a reduction.

Where is her bodily autonomy then?

But I am in favour of altruistic surrogacy done in a way that reimburses the surrogate for her expenses including loss of income, minimises any/all risks to her and is done in a formal legal contract

How do you minimise the risks?

I mean besides perhaps you make sure yourexploited woman your surrogate isn't someone who's overweight, diabetic, has a bleeding disorder etc

You cannot minimise the risks of ttts or placental abruption, pre eclampsia, gestational diabetes, mirror syndrome, etc there is no amount of money and fuck all in a contract that will ever make a woman left incontinent or infertile due to infection feel adequately protected or compensated.

I don't really see the problem. I guess I should rtft to see what I'm missing.

I find it incredibly unnerving how men are so easily able to shut-down women, discussing an issue which specifically affects only women, which the men have explicitly put in the public domain for discussion, on a parenting forum's Feminist discussion board.

That's all.

Surrogacy in general is problematic.

But I am in favour of altruistic surrogacy done in a way that reimburses the surrogate for her expenses including loss of income, minimises any/all risks to her and is done in a formal legal contract. To me it is a type of adoption agreement with the only difference being that the pregnancy is planned instead of unplanned.

To me a contract doesn’t dehumanise, it actually underlines the surrogates full person hood. It wasn’t that long ago that women were deemed not mentally capable of being a signatory party to any contract. The right to contract is an equal right that we fought long and hard to obtain. The right to bodily autonomy is also one we have fought for and I think it morally wrong for any of us to tell a woman she cannot volunteer as a surrogate if she so wishes. In addition, any baby that woman has is her responsibility and she can abort it, keep it, or adopt it out either prearranged as a surrogate or not prearranged and as a result of an unplanned pregnancy.

Of course you can consent to something that carries risk of injury or death. Of course you can consent to something without knowing exactly what might happen. We consent to things all the time that carry such risks and without knowing the future.

Perhaps this woman really was thrilled to go through pregnancy and birth in her 60s so her son could fulfil his wish to be a father. Perhaps she found the whole process physically and emotionally traumatic, but of course, she would never let on - what would be the point?

Medics are usually worried about pregnancy in over 35s. Age can land you in the high risk category. Thats not to say 35/40 is too old to have a baby or that you won't experience the same complications at 23 , but its insanity to ignore the risks in someone at an age where ordinarily they would be done having children or even done menstruating. I had my babies at 26 and 30 and even at that age the toll on my body 4 years later was far greater and thats just at 30.

Now I know again that many many 60 year olds could quite easily out run me. Who are far fitter and healthier than me. But health can be absolutely fine. Until pregnancy. We just aren't meant to have babies at that age our bodies aren't made to have babies at that age and I think uts nothing more than an ethically dubious experiment to implant someone else's embryo into a woman of that age thinking that as the egg came from a younger person that you somehow circumnavigate the potential complications.

As with the story above , what is a 60 year old meant to do witg a disabled rejected baby who needs lifelong care who could well be dead long before the child is independent enough to live by themselves.

That’s a good article posted up thread. It also draws on some themes around childlessness that resonate with me

it must be accepted that childlessness is sufficiently harmful to justify any risk to the gestational mother or child and no other remedy for that harm exists.

It doesn’t have to be tragic to be childless. I am, and I’ve got a really nice life. Having children can be wonderful, but not having them can be, too. I get a bit fed up of the implication that it is just so desperately, life ruiningly awful not to have reproduced that really, anything you want to do to fix that is fair game. Such as recruiting your own mother to carry her grandson, as above.

It’s ok to not have children. It really is. Gay, straight, married, single, whatever.