Why surrogacy should be banned

And here is a photo blog. That poor girl, she tries to be upbeat through her tears.

Of course she had OHSS - in so far as she didn't end up in ICU it would probably be classified as "mild".
And she is left feeling guilty for refusing to do this again as other buyers are keen for her eggs.

www.weareeggdonors.com/blog/photo-essay

Those adverts are exactly what we in the U.K. will be seeing on Mumsnet @Delphinium20 if the law is changed to allow advertising.

We are egg donors website has some interesting blogs.

Here is one from a woman who had an ectopic pregnancy immediately after her previous donation cycle and it is possible this was directly connected to egg donation. Of course no one had counselled her about this and as egg donors aren't routinely followed up there is no research to confirm or exclude this risk.

www.weareeggdonors.com/blog/egg-donor-ectopic

[quote Porridgeislife]@Delphinium20 it’s worse in the UK because egg donors don’t get paid. You get all sorts of egg donation agencies begging young women to consider giving a “gift” to another family, tugging on the heart strings of women with not enough experience of life to know the risks but very keen to do something altruistic.

Having been through IVF, there’s no way I’d risk egg collection if I didn’t have to. I ended up with sepsis on one occasion and this was with a very good clinic that I still rate for their care & expertise.[/quote]
I'm so sorry for what you went through.

God, that's just awful - making a young woman put herself at such risk. It's wrong to pay them, it's wrong to manipulate them to do it for free...it's just wrong all around.

I took DD for a uni open day when she was considering going into midwifery (pre Covid) @OhHolyJesus and they showed a similar breast crawl video.
We could send questions via a wifi link to the whiteboard and I couldn't resist a snarky question about the value of skin to skin contact with fathers and was rather pleased when the tutor said there was none. Those men be they ordinary fathers or commissioning parents who strip off and clutch the baby to them are very irritating imo and I'm sure the babies find it even more irritating given the absence of breast milk or the smell of its mother.

@NotBadConsidering I’m aware she is legally. I thought you were more saying it was ‘morally’ wrong to say that a surrogate isn’t the mother, which is why I said what I said. Apologies, I miss understood you.

And yes, for the mother, that was my point. I was under the impression that in the case of adoption where the mother does not want a baby/child to be adopted it is such a difficult decision and has to be approved by a judge because of the impact it will have on the child and the mother. Whereas, and I might be wrong, if a woman wishes to give her baby up for adoption and multiple professionals have agreed that is her genuine wish then that is what would happen regardless of whether it is in the best interest of the baby? So it’s only a difficult decision (for judges/professionals, not for the mother of course) if it’s an unwilling adoption.

I know very little about adoption though, so I might be completely wrong. I had just hoped that if a woman genuinely wished to put a baby up for adoption then she would be able to do that without too many obstacles.

It’s worse because the egg donation agencies go on to charge large sums - in the thousands - for six or twelve eggs, whilst the donors get nothing.

@Delphinium20 it’s worse in the UK because egg donors don’t get paid. You get all sorts of egg donation agencies begging young women to consider giving a “gift” to another family, tugging on the heart strings of women with not enough experience of life to know the risks but very keen to do something altruistic.

Having been through IVF, there’s no way I’d risk egg collection if I didn’t have to. I ended up with sepsis on one occasion and this was with a very good clinic that I still rate for their care & expertise.

Depending on the country from where you log onto MN, you may be targeted with ads for surrogacy or egg donation. If you are short on cash, you can get $14K for donating you eggs. If you have blue or green eyes, blonde or light hair, athletic, smart, and have a 'sweet personality' your eggs are needed.

How anyone can exploit a young woman like this is beyond my comprehension.

Earlier posters said either the surrogate mother is the mother or the egg donor is the mother in cases where a surrogate mother and an egg donor are used. I'd say it's both. A child has a birth mother who carried, nurtured and birthed her. A child also has a genetic mother who looks like her, acts like her, inherits half her DNA and may have shared half-siblings with her. Surrogacy and egg donation exploit women, and as a feminist, I'm opposed. Surrogacy and egg donation do not center a child's needs, and as a mother, I'm opposed. Adoption is a way to find a family for a child who can not be raised by their biological parents and most adoptive parents are counseled to help their child with both issues of origin and separation. Surrogacy and egg donation exploit origin and separation.

I also went through IVF, and feel really angry when I see "egg donation" suggested to students as though it involves no more than "sperm donation"

Thank you for saying this.

They target young woman, 18, 19 years old who have never had children of her own and likely is doing it for quick cash. It's exploitation and manipulation of female socialization. It's also eugenics as, in my country (US), they advertise to young, pretty, college-bound girls. I realized this disturbing marketing when my 15-year-old daughter was looking online at colleges and she was targeted with ads to sell her eggs. 15.

My sister went through IVF with her own eggs, got one baby and said enough. The side effects of egg stimulation and unknown long-term health risks were surprising to her - and she is an educated, experienced woman who was in her 30s and willing to put herself through that. The industry knowingly uses young women's bodies and buys their body parts, advertising to them to do this. Imagine your 15 year old son being advertised to donate his kidney. Oh wait! That wouldn't happen.

More on The Breast Crawl

@ancientgran

By googling "babies know mothers voice"
I found this

www.babycenter.com/baby/baby-development/baby-sensory-development-hearing_6509

And this

parentingscience.com/how-do-children-respond-to-a-mothers-voice/

And this

www.pnas.org/content/112/10/3152

This will further explain auditory function and differentiation in foetuses awareness of male and female voices as well as explain how babies know their mother's face before they learn others at around 3 months and how they can differentiate between females.

"Researchers have found that babies are able to discriminate between their mother’s odors and odors produced by either unfamiliar lactating females and females who have never given birth. Newborns begin to prefer their mother’s odors, and this familiar scent may even help calm or soothe your infant."

"Studies have shown that by three months of age your baby can discriminate between their mother’s face and the face of a stranger. As with your voices, with more experience your baby will develop a preference for your faces and those around you. "

babyschool.yale.edu/does-my-baby-recognize-me/

You can find more about how a mothers diet affects a baby, such as if she regularly eats spicy food and how that influences their palette as they start eating solids through her breastmilk.

Babies are really quite clever, have you heard about 'breast crawl'? There is much we can learn about pregnancy and what is termed the Fourth Trimester from studies. Google is your friend, you may find the book The Primal Wound interesting as well as John Bowlby's work.

Is it cold to not understand something?

Do you understand THAT it happens, even if you don't know HOW? The science is clear that outcomes are improved by not cutting the cord early, skin to skin, breastmilk. They prefer their mother's voice. Babies have personalities immediately, just after birth. Studies, not reckons.

* I'm both amazed and horrified at how Ireland can run investigations into mother and baby homes and the forced adoption (and sale) of babies in the past, while simultaneously supporting the current surrogacy arrangements which are similar - poor young women in dormitories giving birth and having their babies taken and given to rich(er) women to raise.

I know. It's insane.

The people adopting the babies in the past were heartbroken by infertility too. It is heartbreaking, I can't imagine it which means I'm probably not allowed an opinion.

Is it cold to not understand something?

You cannot understand how an infant has a bond with its mother?

Have you ever seen an animal give birth?

I'm both amazed and horrified at how Ireland can run investigations into mother and baby homes and the forced adoption (and sale) of babies in the past, while simultaneously supporting the current surrogacy arrangements which are similar - poor young women in dormitories giving birth and having their babies taken and given to rich(er) women to raise.

The only difference is the genetic makeup of the babies, though in many cases although there is no genetic link between baby and surrogate mother, there is also no genetic link between baby and commissioning mother

Just as many adopted children and children of sperm donors feel a gap in their lives, we are creating a generation of children who will not know their full genetic or social history.

I too am worried about the situation in Ireland and would support an amnesty/ban.

The current situation reminds me of the foreign adoption issues that I unfortunately got caught up in in the early 90s. It started off well, with people adopting children from orphanages, but by 1990 in Romania is was a case of selling babies to rich (most Americans) and was completely unethical, subject to a lot of bribery and corruption, and ultimately there is a lot of evidence that the so-called paperwork that came with the babies was falsified, meaning some of the children might well have been stolen and/or there may well have been some "coercion" of young women to have babies to sell.

Unfortunately the compassionate surrogacy of a woman having a child for her sister, or getting pregnant with a gay friend etc now makes up a tiny proportion of surrogacy with the majority being a commercial transaction, so ultimately buying a child.

I also went through IVF, and feel really angry when I see "egg donation" suggested to students as though it involves no more than "sperm donation".

I've read this many times but I don't understand it. When the baby is in the womb they are immersed in fluid so any voice they hear will be distorted and how will they know how their mother smells? They don't breathe in the womb so can't smell anything and when they are born they will smell other people and probably hospital smells as much as their mother

What a cold way of thinking

I don't believe in surrogacy but I think it will go on regardless.

[quote whataboutlove]@theleafandnotthetree
@BessieFinknottle

That interesting. I have only seen the the happy stories too though Sarah Carey had a good piece in the indo last weekend which was surprising as they are always pushing the happy endings stories.

Was disappointed to hear the childrens rapporteur come out and say it was time to legislate because "people are going to do it anyway" .

My feeling is there should be an amnesty of sorts for the children who are here now and in a dodgy legal situation and then a ban. At the end of the day children should not be left in a legal limbo because of the decisions that brought them here. They will have enough to deal with.[/quote]
Agree on an amnesty, then an outright ban. This limbo serves nobody. Ireland is a very sentimental country and sadly policy is often determined by who can tell the saddest story to the media.

@JellySaurus. Totally agree. And if someone is traditioninally discriminated against - e.g. gay men or transpeople - then anything less than giving them everything they want now (and even celebrating it) is seen as whatever-they-are phobic. Being infertile or gay does not give you a pass to override other peoples (and especially other women's) dignity and value. But the 'be kind' crowd can find it hard to wrap their head around that kind of complexity.

As well as surrogacy and adoption, gay men who want children could consider co-parenting. This involves forming a platonic relationship with the other parent. I know of a straight single woman and a gay single man who had a baby this way.