To not understand the issue with surrogacy?

I do think there is a lot of judgmental posters that don’t agree even with IVF but would be the first to complain if someone passed judgements on their circumstances.

Who is talking about ivf? The topic is surrogacy.

**Do you mean women who deliberately trick a man into making them pregnant, and possibly dont ever tell the father that the baby even exists? Because yes, that is absolutely immoral. Or do you mean women carrying on with an existing pregnancy even though the father doesn't want anything to do with the baby? Because that's an entirely different scenario.

Either way, "we can't stop some kids from having a shitty start in life, so why does it matter if we actively condone some other kids having a similarly shitty start in life" is clutching at straws as far as arguments go**

These aren’t my personal opinions and generally I’m of the opinion that we all try to do the best with the set of circumstances that we’re born in to and we bring our kids up the best we can.

I do think there is a lot of judgmental posters that don’t agree even with IVF but would be the first to complain if someone passed judgements on their circumstances.

The baby will still want it's mother.

Let’s say for argument’s sake, that the mother is in no way coerced, financially reliant, and genuinely altruistic:

1. at the 12 week scan a serious abnormality is found that may be life limiting. Who decides what to do? What if the intended parents want to abort? Should they be able to impose that will onto the mother? What if she does but they don’t? Should they be able to impose continuing with the pregnancy on the mother? What if it’s not a life limiting finding but something less than perfect. Can the intended parents change their minds? What if it’s not the sex they want?

2. what if the fetus or baby suffers a hypoxic-ischaemic episode either antenatally, perinatally, or postnatally and the baby has a high outcome chance of cerebral palsy? Can the intended parents refuse the baby (as some have)?

3. what if the mother suffers a severe brain injury and is in a vegetative state? Should the intended parents have control over the woman’s life support decisions instead of the woman’s family, to allow them to grow the baby to a viable gestation (actual clause in a California surrogacy agreement)?

4. what if the obstetrician recommends a caesarean but the mother doesn’t want one? Should intended parents be allowed to compel her? What if she refuses and the baby suffers a brain injury? Is she liable for that injury? What if she wants a vaginal delivery and they don’t?

5. what if the mother suffers any complication that leaves her with long term disability? Are the intended parents going to support her for life? Who decides what’s reasonable?

6. what if the pregnancy goes smoothly, the mother has no issues giving up the baby, the intended parents are happy, but in 20 years’ time the child is suffering from the trauma of the circumstances of their birth? Does the child get any protections? Does the child get to know their mother?

7. what if the mother suffers severe postpartum depression or psychosis as a result of the process? What if she dies?

These are just some examples. You cannot create a framework that protects all parties. Someone has to sacrifice something. There are no surrogacies that are 100% successful. There are only those who got through the pregnancy and birth process without major issues and are just desperately hoping the child doesn’t display trauma as they get older.

I was referring to IVF available on the NHS to a man and a woman!

We’re not discussing ivf here. That’s totally different to surrogacy.

Of course society as a whole should have a say in this.

I think many women have brought babies in to the world in shit circumstances and they know it and get touchy when it’s brought up.

You can’t have it both ways. Many people want a baby and that’s it, fuck the circumstances surrounding it if I want one I’ll have mentally and bring the child in to crap set of circumstances

Are you pissed?! What on earth are you on about? I don't want anything both ways and neither have I brought any children into the world in shit circumstances

School holidays??

These are things that not a lot of children can count upon. Personally I think we need to see a lot more adoption rather than surrogacy though--it's horrible to think of the parentless children living on streets or dying of starvation when there are childless people who would do anything to care for them.

And if you understood the health risks of donor egg stimulation vs wanking into a cup you might understand the significance.

I’d probably be 100% correct to say no male ever had a stroke or lost their ovaries due to wanking into a cup.

However, I can also feel 100% confident that there are numerous instances of young women having strokes and losing their ovaries after ‘donating’ eggs for money. And losing their own fertility before they have ever had their own children.

I don't think the outraged talk about changing the law in the UK was about money not changing hands

Or is it all about altruistic friends? That would be so good.

But you don’t get to decide because it’s not your choice
I didn’t mean me personally. I meant ethos committees, law makers etc.

I am an adopter and I completely get what you are saying. I see it all the time with my baby, how it has affected her, how she struggles with that loss that I can't fully comprehend or make up for.

I'm pretty pissed off on your behalf and that of my DD at some of the ignorance around that trauma on this and other surrogacy threads.

for you.

You can’t have it both ways. Many people want a baby and that’s it, fuck the circumstances surrounding it if I want one I’ll have mentally and bring the child in to crap set of circumstances

The point being, if it’s all about the best interests of the child, then half of the people on here will have brought a baby in to the world under less than ideal circumstances.

WTAF?

Long as the child knows

It’s hard as an adopted child when you get to about ten and the burning inside to know who you are. Where you came from why you are here

I know a child has a right to info on a sperm donor. Don’t know about egg donors

What about the women who bring children in to the world when the father has specified he doesn’t want to be involved? Is that not immoral? Bringing a child in to the word whereby they won’t have a relationship with their biological father?

What are you saying here? That a woman should abort a child if the father doesn’t want that child?

That a single mother is a poor parent? That a mother is immoral to have their child if the father doesn’t want it?

I mean, I don’t see the relevance here at all.

The relationship with the infant is primarily established with the mother. Yes. The father’s voice is also recognised I am sure, but it is the mother who carried that child.

Otherwise, what is the relevance here?

Whataboutery.

And what about the use of donor eggs when a woman can’t produce her own? Is that inappropriate?

Or when a woman get to 40 and uses a sperm donor? Is that morally questionable?

What if no money exchanges hands and a woman wants to do it?

Because even IF you could be 100% certain that it is done for genuinely altruistic reasons and the mother is in no way coerced, there exists no legal framework within which all three parties can have their rights protected. Someone has to lose rights. And no framework exists that can deal with all the myriad of possible outcomes of things that could go wrong with a pregnancy and a delivery. Again, someone will always lose out.

And losing out has serious consequences in this situation. It’s losing out with grief, trauma, loss, death, disability.

Either way, "we can't stop some kids from having a shitty start in life, so why does it matter if we actively condone some other kids having a similarly shitty start in life" is clutching at straws as far as arguments go.

But you don’t get to decide because it’s not your choice

Commercial surrogacy is illegal in the UK. So I'd say it's definitely not a choice.