To not understand the issue with surrogacy?

I don't know how much they paid for expenses - I think the legal side of things was pretty expensive though

@OhHolyJesus 14 and 12. Yes they know they are surrogate children - no they don't have anything to do with the birth mother

They wouldn't exist if the surrogacy process hadn't happened

Yes. They would not have existed if they weren’t created in a planned and complex transaction for the purpose they were created for.

Nothing to do with us directly, so we should all ignore the issues and let those with vested interests set the policy.

Exactly.

Imagine if...

Women who haven't yet experienced the menopause were involved in improving awareness for employers around the biological process and how is hinders women at work

Women who have never had an abortion campaigned for access to safe and legal abortion

Women who were over the age of 30 drove Parliament to vote for women under the age of 30 to get the vote

Women who have never sold their body for sex campaigned for prostituted women to be rescued from the sex industry...

The position of liberal feminism to me can be summed up as "I'm alright Jackie" vs radical feminism which is "are you alright Jackie?".

I know two people who have used surrogates. Both were very wanted babies, they have private schooling and everything they could ever want including two fabulous loving parents. I absolutely see the issue in going somewhere like the Ukraine but both of them had their surrogates in the US and the birth mother wasn't forced into anything. Those kids have a better life than many who are still with their natural parents and so I don't get the problem. I don't see any psychological issues in these kids - it's not like adoption where you grow up with the thought ur parents didn't want you or it's an abusive household. They've had a great start in life and are very much loved and cared for. The baby is created to be born to these parents - it's nothing like selling another human being. They wouldn't exist if the surrogacy process hadn't happened

What I also have found surprising, is one poster’s attitude that people should not get involved in attempting to protect women and children.

Nothing to do with us directly, so we should all ignore the issues and let those with vested interests set the policy.

What a shock that feminists would be advocating against the exploitation of women and children.

On a feminist board on a parenting ….

Oh. That’s ok, we are not the right kind of feminists!

I forgot.

PaleBlueMoonlight - thank you for your post. I've been wriggling around on the fence about altruistic surrogacy, but you've helped me understand it must be viewed in a wider context.

I don’t see any evidence that babies given to loving parents who want them are in any way disadvantaged.

Well there is tonnes of it. So I can only assume that you haven't looked and are just making an assumptions based on your own life experiences. Which is pretty awful really given the subject matter.

Evidence shows babies bonds with dads when they are the primary carer, I don’t see any evidence that babies given to loving parents who want them are in any way disadvantaged.

I am not quite getting the relevant argument here.

So, because an infant bonds with the dads as primary caregiver (at what age? 3 months? 12 months?) when the mother is still there in that infant’s life, it is ok to remove another child from the only mother they know directly after being born?

Because the new parents love them?

Would you do this to an animal? What about if you took a pup away from its mother and gave it to another dog who loved it? Still ok?

At what point is it ok to take a human child away from its mother because it was created to be given away?

Are their voices to be ignored? Because they had a good life and so they have nothing to complain about?

Whats the name of the thread on MN about toxic and narcissistic relationships? "We took you to Stately Homes".

What strikes me about famous people who buy babies is just how narcissistic they are. And just how incapable they are of seeing how they are exploiting a power imbalance when they traffick their products. If you have this level of inability to empathise it cannot be a healthy dynamic.

As I said upthread there is this belief - particularly in more affluent circles - that abuse is only physical. Emotional abuse because it doesn't leave a physical mark is much harder to identify and deal with but definitely exists. Those in total denial of it kind of worry me for the most obvious of reasons. Its almost the equivalent of saying "oh don't worry about her, she just walked into a door again. She just does that" when its bloody obvious that someone has been knocked about for the 3 or 4 time by her husband. Or the ubiquitous "she just crazy".

Adam, bought for $8k from a Russian woman had a full passport by the time he reached his first birthday due to the scale of the global baby sex trafficking.

First birthday 3rd birthday. I don't like using the names of the parent traffickers as it makes me sick to think of them but the psychiatrist for one of them said he wasn't a paedophile but was coerced by older partners.

Coercion again. This time as an excuse for horrible child sex abuse.

timeisaline I think that the argument here is that the risk is just too high for all women, to allow some women to make that choice. The negative effect for women as a class is just too great to say it is ok for the minority of women who actually make a free choice to take that risk, because they aren't making that choice in a vacuum. The moment you normalise surrogacy in some contexts, it is virtually impossible for that not to be exploited and for the boundaries not to be pushed (as is evident in the UK where nominally we only allow altruistic surrogacy, but where the concept of expenses is exploited and where a Royal Commission started with the idea that surrogacy needed to be modernised - ie the rights of birth mothers reduced - and where a supreme court judge gave damages to a woman to allow her to seek commercial surrogacy abroad despite it being illegal here). And this subject matter (bringing babies into the world) is too important to prioritise the interests of a few individual women who wish to make this choice above the needs of all women to be safe from exploitation and for women and children to be free from commodification.

And that is all before you get onto the rights of children and whether it is desirable to seek to disassociate gestation from motherhood.

I mentioned a paedophile up thread but that was ignored.

Here's another. Adam, bought for $8k from a Russian woman had a full passport by the time he reached his first birthday due to the scale of the global baby sex trafficking.

But that Russian woman should get to choose and we are to leave the legal frameworks up to the men, or those who benefit from surrogacy and those know what they are talking about, we have been told here. These silly women 'activists' need to Be Kind and Be Quiet (we are allowed our 'extreme opinions' but shouldn't share them.)

For clarity for the hard of thinking, the above is sarcasm. The below is real, it can be crossed checked across numerous news sources and when reading I would urge caution and you will need a strong stomach. Surrogacy, the commercial kind in this case, with no safeguards...how badly would you need money to get paid 8k to give away your baby to two paedophiles?

www.smh.com.au/national/paedophile-peter-truong-says-he-misses-his-son-20140310-34i66.html

That’s not very kind now is it?

The expectation of ‘kindness’ is a good example of a type of coercion.

Don’t disagree, or call out the disparities in my arguments, it isn’t kind….

That’s not very kind now is it?
Who said anything about kindness.
Women, be kind! Again, you first.

Go back and find my questions, comments and links, on both threads where IVF has been raised on the recent surrogacy threads, and we can discuss. I've already said I would. You can't be reading all I am saying as you've missed my invitation and earlier comments. Don't be lazy, I'm engaging in good faith but I hate repeating myself.

"I think that's what you were saying".
No. Be sure, quote me. Ask me. Start a new thread about IVF and the feminist perspective or stick to the subject. My posts are there for you to see. You can see what I have said about IVF and so can everyone else. Find something I have said, not what someone else has said, and point me to where you think my view on IVF is an 'extreme' one and come back to me.

@PaleBlueMoonlight I do understand that only women can take this risk, but I don’t understand the leap to therefore no woman can decide to take this risk. Only women can have babies and therefore each woman should be the deciding vote on their having a baby or not.I agree coercion is a problematic issue but I just can’t get on board with women are not able to make this choice. I would never be a surrogate as I hate pregnancy and am quite ill for the first few months (currently I’m 7mo pregnant and hell would freeze over before I went through this for someone else to have my baby) but if I loved pregnancies (seems crazy to me but some women genuinely do) , had had one before so not totally naive, and chose to have one for a close friend or family member I’d be ropable if someone thought my being female meant I shouldn’t get to choose that. It really is just saying we don’t have capacity, whereas for everything else unique to female biology we say because it’s their body women should have sole agency for any decisions. (Nb I would say that sex work by definition involves a financial transaction and so cannot be considered free of coercion)

I don’t see any evidence that babies given to loving parents who want them are in any way disadvantaged.

Disadvantage describes many different aspects of a child’s life.

Although, it has been discussed in some depth already on this thread, as a society we are becoming more aware of mental health issues stemming from being adopted or ‘created to order’.

What number of people struggling to cope with the reality that they feel they have been purchased / designed to order is acceptable? How is it any ‘advantage’ to know even though you are loved, you were deliberately created and one or even more women’s bodies were exploited to create you. Because it may be a different woman donating an egg, it may have taken multiple attempts. And at each stage, a life has been risked for your ‘production’.

We know from many of those adopted just how much it affects them to not have a relationship or to just know their birth mother. Or understand why they were given away or taken away from the mother who gave birth to them.

Are their voices to be ignored? Because they had a good life and so they have nothing to complain about?

Some of those speaking out as adopted children or donor assisted children fully admit to a great life in a loving family. They are proof that those ‘advantages’ don’t necessarily reduce the pain.

But obviously, their voices don’t mean a thing because they should be grateful. In the case of altruist surrogacy, grateful for the lengths their parents went to, making use of a nice person’s or a friend’s or a family member’s body, to achieve their aim of having child.

timeisnotaline. On the subject of taking risks, the point here is that only women can take this risk. This creates an immediate asymmetry between men and women. The fact of having/not having babies is of foundational importance to humanity and having children is a fundamental human experience. The combination of the asymmetry with the fundamental importance of bringing children into the world creates a situation that is ripe for exploitation of women and for the commodification of women's bodies and of children. Making a decision to take the risk of being a surrogate mother given the context is nothing like making a decision to take the risk of doing a bungee jump.

Re emotional coercion that is also common enough for e.g. Kidney transplants, I’ve seen quite a few posts on here with people unwilling to donate and feeling very pressured, and there’s always been lots of reassurance that the donor team interview candidates carefully and the slightest hint of coercion, reluctance, adverse power circumstances and they say you’re not suitable. Is it so impossible to have something similar for surrogacy? (Except when the baby is conceived the old fashioned way or at home anyway and that seems impossible to stop no matter what your opinion of it all is)

Yes, with ‘altruistic’ surrogacy (and in the UK financial ‘expenses’ are high, so it’s arguably already semi-commercial) there are risks of emotional coercion and/or a birth mother's emotions about the people she wants to help or psychological vulnerability impeding her ability to assess risks - for herself, the planned DC, and (if applicable) her partner and existing DC.

I disagree with this completely as long as there’s no commercial arrangement or coercion. Women and men can consent freely to all kinds of risks.

The point being made throughout this thread that there are many types of hidden coercion that a woman may be subjected to. How are these taken into consideration and measured?

And there are also undiagnosed mental health issues that are also exploitable. How are these taken into consideration?

If you cannot see the potential for women to be subjected to these types of coercion and exploitation by now as a mature adult, you probably will not see it ever. Quite a few of these situations have been discussed on this thread, but determinedly dismissed by some posters.

This isn’t just a bungee jump. This is pre pregnancy treatment, pregnancy, post pregnancy. That is one very long bungee jump and the woman cannot just get ‘off the ride’. And even with extensive therapy, the mental health impacts of giving up that child, seeing that child as someone else’s after your body contributed parts of itself to create that child, or any number of realizations or situations, could be life limiting.

I find the dismissal the coercive / exploitive nature, the easy potential of power imbalances, within families and friendships surprising. Even today, with all the knowledge around abuse, I guess some people will never quite understand how vulnerable some people are for the sake of relationships.

Those patterns have been set for decades by the point of agreement. Those who are vulnerable may not even realise how they’ve been coerced or exploited.

There are also those surrogates who are doing this for their own exploitative reasons.

Just how many surrogate agreements are overseen by a process where the potential surrogate is assessed by a professional? And a professional whose expertise is identifying these vulnerabilities, these power imbalances in all, not just the obvious, cases?

Are these women not worthy of care? And exactly who benefits from not having these safeguards in place?

For every purely non-coerced/ exploited altruistic surrogate, how many coerced or exploited by family and friends are acceptable?

All because some people think it is infantilising to have these safeguarding protections in place.

I don’t see any evidence that babies given to loving parents who want them are in any way disadvantaged

How do we know that the people who buy a baby are actually loving parents ?
Just because someone has money, yarns for a child or believes that they need a child to "complete their family" doesn't automatically make them loving parents .

It's so so sad and I think it's only in the future we'll find out the true effect of this horrific process
I fully agree with this.

We take better care of our future pets by keeping them for x amount.of time with their mothers because we know about their importance for the pets development

Babies have an attachment in the womb for the person who created them in it regardless of who that baby is from a genetically point of view. They know the heart beat, the voice, their surroundings the mothers smell. All ripped away when the surrogate mother gives away the baby. It's so so sad and I think it's only in the future we'll find out the true effect of this horrific process.