NCT and surrogacy - two men tell us about the birth they wanted

odds on @GrumpyHoonMain coming back to explain why objecting to the buying and selling of human beings is ignorant? I'm going 10 / 1

What is ignorant about objecting to the hiring out of women's bodies for breeding purposes, and the purchase of babies?

NCT classes where I currently am usually offers seperate classes for lgbt+ parents and surrogates because of the ignorance as shown on this thread

I missed that comment.

I would say its male trait, not a homosexual one. But all gay men are men so why would they be exempt from wishing to have control over a woman's body?

I think it's homophobic to suggest that having that level of control over another human being's body is in some sense a common homosexual trait.

This is actually a really nasty thread. In fact this is borderline homophobic. Are these two men not entitled to be parents? Can they not make other parents friends? Can they not be interested in the birth and safety of the child that they will raise?

What do you mean borderline? You either think it is or it isn't.
No one, whatever their sexuality or sex are 'entitled' to be parents and no one, NO ONE is entitled to the use of a woman's body. To put it through something that is still potentially lethal, in order to perpetuate their blood line.

It is only homophobic to object to two men using a surrogate if you don't object to heterosexual couples using surrogates. I have enormous sympathy for infertile couples (remember, this couple are not infertile) but I can't bring myself to condone it even in those circumstances.
This is a feminist discussion board and surrogacy is a feminist issue.

That's mental. So their birth plan presumably stipulated what kind of pain relief the surrogate mother should receive, preferred methods of intervention if needed, whether she'd have access to a birth pool, where she'd give birth. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

And can they sue the 'manufacturer'?

The trouble with people - any people - 'commissioning' a baby that will be the 'product' of a woman or women who both are and are not the mother of the child is the issue of quality control.

How much input do the commissioning parents to the diet and activities of the gestating surrogate? Will she have to sign up to avoid alcohol, tobacco and other drugs? What happens if antenatal testing reveals that the baby has a genetic defect? What happens if the baby is damaged in the perinatal period?

A child seen as product, not person, is surely at risk of rejection for any imperfections. Not to mention what could follow if the commissioning parents break up before the birth.

It is far more like trafficking than assisted conception, even if not a penny changes hands.

From the Law Commission summary of the consultation on Surrogacy Law:

"Our project does not seek to examine whether or not surrogacy should be allowed. Instead, we take as our starting point that surrogacy is an accepted form of building a family, as recognised by the Department of Health and Social Care in the guidance it publishes on surrogacy arrangements:
The government supports surrogacy as part of the range of assisted conception options."

Hiring women to breed babies to order = just one option for assisted conception.
The natural progression of that line of thought is that the NHS should fund this along with other types of fertility treatment. There is considerable pressure for NHS funding for this and already the NHS in Scotland and Wales will fund surrogacy IVF.

The woman behind the go fund me linked upthread states that she believes the NHS should fund her son and his husband for surrogacy.

As if the NHS didn't have enough on its hands at this time of managing a pandemic, quite apart from other ethical considerations.

s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/lawcom-prod-storage-11jsxou24uy7q/uploads/2019/06/Surrogacy-summary.pdf

So true TheNewLook

Sometimes I stop and think : Whoever first thought it was a good idea to pay another woman to have a baby for them and give it up to them? And how the hell did that catch on, so that so many people appear to think it is a perfectly reasonable way to obtain a baby if you want one?

I mean WTAF? How are we living in times where people think this is acceptable?

Surrogacy really upsets me. I think it is immoral and should be banned completely. I don’t give a fig if the mother is giving up her child of her own free will and no money is exchanged. She shouldn’t be allowed to deliberately create a baby with the intention of giving it away. That is human trafficking.

How the fuck is it even allowed?

For the record, I feel this way whether the intended parents are male, female, gay or straight. Donor eggs do not make it better, only muddier.

It's a complete false equivalence and these men are appropriating the 'lived experience' of a recently bereaved father and the motherless children and comparing it to the fact they created a child for the purposes of deliberately removing a brand new, fresh from the womb baby from her mother.

That is because they are not considering the baby at all, only their own wants. A bereaved father will be mourning the loss of their partner but will also be mourning the loss of the child’s mother and what that child will miss by the absence of their mother.

I asked what was the point of men stripping off for skin to skin.
NONE. She confirmed it. Just men getting in on the act as usual.

Last year, The Archers featured a surrogate mother giving birth to a baby for two gay men, one of whom did indeed do skin-to-skin.

The whole storyline was repellent, imo, but I think one can gauge the Beeb's stance on surrogacy from the fact that not a single character expressed any concern or diapproval of two 'intended parents' in their 50s commissioning a baby (donor egg). The presentation was unrelentingly positive. Oh, the grandmother-to-be got into a bit of a tizz thinking the surrogate mother might dare not to want to give the baby up, but of course that was just A Woman Being Silly.

Yeah, it annoyed me quite a lot.

During the first few months after Lucille’s birth, it surprised me how many times I had to answer the question, ‘but where is her mum?’. I wondered how someone would cope with that question if they had been a new dad who had lost their female partner in childbirth
This stood out for me.
My immediate response is 'well you aren't a bereaved father so its irrelevant'.
Its another example of appropriation of other people's experiences.

That’s very true and well said. We can’t know what the background is to the article, whether the mother refused involvement but the NCT chose to write and publish this. Chose not to show that essential perspective. It’s made me think twice about my own acceptance of what is presented.
“Today 00:10 RedToothBrush

These conversations should not be happening without the voice of the mother.

Not in interviews. Not in private. Not ever. “

Is something wrong with surrogate parent or has surrogate become a word that can’t be used (like woman
The surrogate in this instance is ths woman who will carry and give birth. The men in this case are the commissioning parents, or baby buyers or fee payers, or whatever but commissioning parents is least worse I think. Unless you can come up with better.
But in human trafficking sorry surrogacy, the woman is always the surrogate.