Why surrogacy should be banned

Could yet didn’t twice. The kardashians write their own narrative. She had very common pregnancy and birth ailments and had two successful ones.

Kim kardashian- I had two miserable pregnancies so I paid someone to do my last two because it would have been too hard on my body. Paraphrasing obviously.

I am not condoning paying a surrogate in any circumstances, but this unfair. There’s a big difference between having miserable pregnancies and having a potentially fatal health condition that could lead to needing an emergency hysterectomy

Yes, the egg sharing is extremely dubious ethically @OhHolyJesus
I have exactly the same concerns as you. Also a donor is entitled to find out if any babies have resulted. Imagine the pain of going through IVF unsuccessfully but knowing there are babies that are genetically yours somewhere, maybe near to where you live and had your treatment. I'd be obsessed, I'd probably get a private detective to track them down and hang around outside their school. I really couldn't handle it. Same for the donated embryo TurquoiseBaubles
mentioned.

Would anyone say 'oh well human trafficking happens anyway, so we should just regulate it'?

So why are people saying it for surrogacy?

It’s human trafficking.

I’ve been opposed to surrogacy for some time now.

The recent priyanka chopra surrogacy was the icing on the cake “I had no fertility issues, I just couldn’t fit in trying for a baby with my husband because of our busy work schedules”

Kim kardashian- I had two miserable pregnancies so I paid someone to do my last two because it would have been too hard on my body. Paraphrasing obviously.

I don’t get the notion of “if I have enough money for someone else to go through the pain and worry why wouldn’t I?”

I find it so demoralising and abusive to the majority poor women’s bodies for their own families gain and putting her through complete turmoil. I’ve watched many documentaries on the subject too and most agree to do it because of financial hardship (it’s incredibly rife in India, Romania and Ukraine).

If all you really want is to be a parent and care for a child from birth then adoption or birth the child yourself should be the only options- time constraints, toll on body infertility an all.

Babies also bond with and recognise their mothers heartbeat in the womb, not just their voice and smell.

The more I read about surrogacy, egg sharing, selling embryos, the more I think it should all just be banned. Having children the old fashioned way has left us with nearly 8 billion people on the planet, over populated yet here we are coming up with more ethically dubious ways to create more people.

I think human beings need to accept that if they can't have children for whatever reason then that's that. Yes, I'm sure it must be heartbreaking but we are talking about actual babies not consumer goods that you can order on demand

I don't think it should be banned.

But I think ALL form of financial recompense - including for expenses - should be banned completely. No covering medical bills, loss of earnings, NOTHING.

Then if secure, financially stable women want to be a surrogate purely out of the goodness of their heart, good for them.

so couples were told that if they donated excess embryos that they wouldn't be "wasted" and in return they would have their cost covered.

This is similar to egg sharing, where discounts are financial incentives to giving away some of the eggs that are retrieved when doing your own IVF.

I always wonder if the good quality eggs are used for your own ivf or if the eggs collected are equally split out so to give equal chance to yourself and the person who you eventually share your eggs with, or even if their dosage of drugs is increased to boost the chance of collecting more than your average number of eggs...and if that happens are your chances of suffering with OHSS are increased.

Financial incentives around any of this (infertility, donor conception, surrogacy, etc) puts the practice on shaky moral ground IMO.

I've heard about the 'adoption' of embryos, you can even put your embryos up for adoption on Facebook.

https://people.com/human-interest/what-its-like-to-put-an-unused-ivf-embryo-for-adoption/

The only stories like this I've read come from the US, I've seen it in framed in terms of 'souls' being 'abandoned' and religious and emotive language being tied into science and medical procedures, but you can just give them to your friends...

https://www.insider.com/3-friends-1-set-of-embryos-created-families-without-men-2021-1

Again, like 'unused' eggs, no one was using these embryos, they are just sitting there, taking up freezer space

Sorry, the situation was not hypothetical - it was the real outcome for many couples back then.

This led to the hypothetical situation where a poor couple would have a failed ivf cycle and go home without a baby, while at the same time another (more than likely "rich", in that they could afford to pay full whack) couple would receive their donated embryo and take that baby home. The anguish of the infertile couple knowing that somewhere out there might be a baby that was genetically theirs while they didn't have a child themselves is heartbreaking.

It was sold as an embryo sharing situation, and the pressure put on couples who couldn't afford treatment any other way was appalling.

One of many articles that appeared in the summer of 2020 for those who missed it at the time.

I've really not heard anything since and have no idea how many of those babies were claimed or when. Does anyone else know more?

I am aware of several cases in the USA of babies that have been stranded for a year before collection. There is a surrogate mother who has been posting on TikTok recently who has twins that are around a year old and she is now consulting lawyers with a view to keeping them as of course she is bonded with them and the commissioning parents haven't arrived to collect them. There must be babies in Ukraine that are over a year old still awaiting collection or maybe just dumped in an orphanage or who have been sold on.

www.nytimes.com/2020/05/16/world/europe/ukraine-coronavirus-surrogate-babies.amp.html

Talking of Ukraine I fear things will be very bad for surrogate mothers and their babies now.
During the early days of the coronavirus pandemic we saw dozens of babies stranded, cared for in hotels as commissioning parents were unable to collect them. Then it all went a bit quiet. Who knows if they all got collected or if some CPs just decided it was all too difficult. Especially those from Australia or New Zealand who simply haven't been able to travel for the past two years.
Now there are fears of war. I heard on the radio while I was driving to work that USA is withdrawing some diplomatic staff and families of staff from the embassy. U.K. foreign office advice is to leave Ukraine now while it is still possible.
There are an estimated 3000 surrogate babies born for international clients each year in Ukraine - maybe more, I don't think anyone is keeping a count. So about 57 a week. Don't tell me there aren't unclaimed babies stacked up somewhere, because there will be.
I fear many will never be collected or will be sold.
The sorts of situations @TurquoiseBaubles mentioned upthread.
Perhaps some of these women will be trafficked abroad to have their babies outside Ukraine.
If anyone is working in midwifery in U.K. they should be alert to new arrivals - I heard on the grapevine two years ago that some women were being brought from overseas to deliver within the private system and it was causing safeguarding issues if they needed to be transferred over to the NHS. It's quite possible that some of these women will arrive in the U.K.

Just another reason for banning surrogacy.

I remember talking to a Chinese lady who was very smug about paying someone to carry her baby as she didn't want to put her own body through that. Sounds like a story from a film but I talked to her myself. She went to a gynecological visit and said that she expects a baby in a month and she was size 0. Then explained that she is far too busy with her business to carry the baby herself. Anyway there will be these people if commercial surrogacy continues. I also know a wealthy couple who cannot carry their own children and had a child from surrogacy that will inherit all their wealth and they cannot be happier. That said I have no clue who the surrogate mother is apart of that she is from Ukraine. Ethics is often a controversial and complex issue.

What is CNY by the way?

It's a chain of clinics in the US.

I thought it was a good example of how the women had disconnected from their bodies. The 18 yo daughter thinks nothing of giving her mum her eggs, presumably as they came from her she is just 'returning some she doesn't need' and the mother doesn't reject this offer but wishes to explore it because her child is an extension of her and so she still has some rights to the eggs she gave her?

It's a weird world view to have, where the eggs inside you are not part of you but they are what connects you to family abs can be shared around like passing the potatoes at dinner? I don't know, I can't comprehend it.

I remember the Barrie/Barry Drewitt Barlow discussing the offer of his surrogate-born daughter Saffron's eggs for him and his boyfriend to have another new surrogate baby. His acceptance or rejection of her eggs for more future children is yet to be decided I think.

As an aside, I've noticed another theme or line of conversation around egg donation - it seems there is the idea that 'your not using them' so someone else 'might as well' have them. Is it careless for women to have periods and be simply washing or throwing away these valuable eggs that someone could be using?

I'm not using the strands of hair I shed daily or my toenail clippings but I don't suppose anyone can make much use of these...

Interesting views and a lot to think of! What about embryos being sold to infertile couples to carry and birth?

WTF @OhHolyJesus
Isn't that incest?
And apart from anything else to even consider putting your own daughter through the egg donation process.

What is CNY by the way?

If there is a bond before birth it can't be voice and smell.

Voice is felt through vibrations as well as it heard via sound waves, as is her heartbeat

Can you not hear sound underwater? It doesn't need to be crystal clear, tones and pace are identifiable.

How do you think deaf newborns know his or her mother? Smell follows after birth but taste is via shared fluids prior to birth.

The studies I shared will help to explain, though there is only so much we can understand, the third trimester and the environment inside the womb is pretty difficult for anyone other than foetuses to understand and long term memory hasn't so far to be proven to go back that far.

If there is a bond before birth it can't be voice and smell.

I never said an infant wouldn't have a bond, I specifically asked about recognising the voice and smell as I don't understand how that can work

I think it's probably one of those things that is so innate and primal, we cannot explain it in very clear, logical terms. We are only animals at the end of the day and nature is pretty clever!

On the subject of egg harvesting/donating gametes. This is a genuine post from a FB group (I'm not actually in this group, a friend sent to me as part of a discussion about Big Fertility and Eggsploitation, a film by Jennifer Lahl.)