Why surrogacy should be banned

'My body my choice' only ever seems to be relevant when it's a woman giving up her body to make someone else happy. Have you ever heard it used in relation to men doing a similar thing?

Why do people who trot out 'what about my body my choice' think that selling your organs is illegal?

I always wonder about the Kardashians I don't know that much about them except lots of surrogate kids, they all look the model if health (know that's no indication for the ability to conceive and carry children) but surely all of them can't have fertility or pregnancy related problems?
In which case are they using other women's bodies so there's aren't changed by pregnancy.

Either way it's sad for both sides the surrogate's body is a commodity & the Kardashians bodies are commodities that they can't risk damaging.

What if the surrogate doesn’t consider herself to be the mother of the baby though.

It doesn't really matter what someone considered themselves to be in their own internal thought processes when it comes to definitions in law.

The act of being pregnant and giving birth makes her a mother, if she thinks she's an oven it doesn't make her one. A human is not a kitchen appliance.

What if the surrogate doesn’t consider herself to be the mother of the baby though. It is still wrong then to refer to the intended parents as the mother and father?

It doesn’t matter, she is legally. And biologically too; apart from the chromosomes, every single cell formed is built from the material supplied by the woman’s body.

If a surrogate is entirely happy with her decision and it’s her wish for the child to be placed with the intended parents then that’s far less of an issue.

Less of an issue for whom? For the mother, yes. But not for the baby. Judges make decisions about the welfare of the baby, not the willingness of the mother. It has to be the worst of the worst for the baby for a judge to rule removing the baby is in the baby’s best interests. A baby is not removed by a court order because it is best for the mother.

@NotBadConsidering What if the surrogate doesn’t consider herself to be the mother of the baby though. It is still wrong then to refer to the intended parents as the mother and father?

I would think that most of those people struggle when they find out because they’ve been lied to, which is not the same thing. Yes, it does strike me as uneven. I’m not condoning surrogacy (I couldn’t do it) but I’m not as black and white opposed to it as lots of others on here. Plus I would think that part of the reason a judge has to agree to it is because of the significance/impact on the mother of placing a baby for adoption and taking it from her against her will. If a surrogate is entirely happy with her decision and it’s her wish for the child to be placed with the intended parents then that’s far less of an issue.

If the law changes in the UK to grant commissioning parents legal parenthood at birth we will see much more aggressively asserted ownership of the baby before birth causing conflict between surrogate mothers and commissioning parents with the NHS mediating, particularly in situations such as the one I have just referenced where the health of the surrogate mother is at risk and the health of the baby will be impacted.

Only time I've ever seen keeping up with the kardashians one of them was getting counselling to be able to have a surrogate, she was shocked when they explained that is the mother's life was in danger she would have to abort the baby. The Kardashian said it's she allowed to do that it's my baby.

Wow @Sickoffamilydrama

I've never watched anything related to the Kardashians either. But she isn't alone in the view that the choice should be hers.

In this podcast the (surrogate) mother suffered a life threatening pulmonary embolism as a result of the fertility drugs she had to take and she literally had to explain to the commissioning father (a single man) that if she died he wouldn't get a baby.

Which KK also apparently hadn't thought of.

How can people be so stupid, as well as entitled and heartless and ignorant?

But they're all going to be wonderful loving parents if a desperately needed baby.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/venus-rising/id1481872967?i=1000467220094

Many children who are removed from their birth mothers have happy childhoods, but many struggle when they find out. When it is intended to remove a newborn from its mother because she has been deemed unfit, a judge has to decide that that is a reasonable thing to do because of the significance of doing so. But in surrogacy, the baby is just…taken. Doesn’t that strike you as uneven?

[quote FannyCann]And here is what happens when babies are reduced to a product for sale. Defective products are returned to sender. I'm only surprised the woman didn't ask for a refund.

Woman rejected disabled surrogate baby as a ‘dribbling cabbage’.

[[https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/906372bf-1f6f-4195-b75b-d18202b12bd6?shareToken=43de95cb9d48a273a791cd8470ad9dcf]]f_[/quote]
That is awful, even worse that siblings have been split up, the emotional impact on them when they find out ( which they are bound to) will be awful.

Only time I've ever seen keeping up with the kardashians one of them was getting counselling to be able to have a surrogate, she was shocked when they explained that is the mother's life was in danger she would have to abort the baby. The Kardashian said it's she allowed to do that it's my baby.
So that tells you everything doesn't it she felt it's too dangerous for her to be pregnant but quite happy to put someone else in that position.

The woman who gives birth is the mother. If a woman has her own baby with the use of a donor egg, for particular reasons such as genetic disease, would you tell her that it isn’t her baby?

They’re not really comparable though, are they? You wouldn’t say that to a woman in those circumstances (or a man, if a sperm donor had been used) because it’s a nasty thing to say and really, being someone’s parents is about far more than birth and genetics. My dad is technically my step father. As far as we are all concerned he’s my dad, but if we did a DNA test it would obviously say that he wasn’t. We all know that, we’re not idiots, but he’s still my dad.

I am opposed to commercial surrogacy, but I think it’s much harder (for me, personally) to criticise those acting as surrogates for friends, family members etc, especially if the eggs and sperm of the intended parents are being used. And if babies are always damaged by being removed from their birth mothers (which some people have implied) then how were there so many people who didn’t find out they were adopted until they were older children/adults and had lovely, happy childhoods?

Think about how many women regret abortions or regret putting their child up for adoption. Imagine those women having to watch that child grow up with someone else right under their nose, and to know you can never tell that child that you are their mother.

Or imagine the woman changes her mind and is empowered enough to say so, and then keeps the baby. And then the sister has to watch the child grow up and always feeling it was meant to be their child.

And everyone else in the family taking a side, and the child eventually finding out that they are the reason why Mum and Auntie Beth don't talk to each other any more.

I'm sorry but I am just very sceptical of happy ending news stories: when the baby is born, that's not the end its just the beginning! These stories are usually focused on those on the receiving side of the arrangements and give a brief snapshot of a single moment in time.

If families really do want to do this, it can all be achieved through current adoption legislation, there is just no need to introduce sweeping laws to legalise surrogacy which open the door to the exploitation of women

Just leaving this here

Surrogacy Resource thread : please post your links here www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3782983-surrogacy-resource-thread-please-post-your-links-here

For the PP who lives in Ireland, and everyone else. Reform is coming.

The baby was also 100% the biological offspring of the couple paying.

The baby was also 100% the biological genetic offspring of the couple paying.

But... in cases like that of Kim Kardashian, they were HER babies and they didn’t belong to the woman who birthed them. So I don’t understand why you’re saying “the needs of the baby to be with it’s OWN mother”.

Ah yes, Kim and Kanye who bought babies from women far, far below them in economic terms. Such high moral examples to look up to. Where are those women now, are the commissioning parents friends with them, are they helping them go through college due to their enormous wealth they could afford to help couldn't they? Is it only poorer fertile women who are expected to help others?

When a woman gives birth to a baby who has been conceived from another woman's egg - who is the mother?

Do babies come into the world knowing the gametes they were conceived from?

But... in cases like that of Kim Kardashian, they were HER babies and they didn’t belong to the woman who birthed them. So I don’t understand why you’re saying “the needs of the baby to be with it’s OWN mother”

The woman who gives birth is the mother. If a woman has her own baby with the use of a donor egg, for particular reasons such as genetic disease, would you tell her that it isn’t her baby?

But... in cases like that of Kim Kardashian, they were HER babies and they didn’t belong to the woman who birthed them. So I don’t understand why you’re saying “the needs of the baby to be with it’s OWN mother”.

There’s a cognitive dissonance over oocyte/sperm sourcing. When a woman uses oocyte donation (infertility) and gives birth herself, very few people consider that baby to belong to the oocyte donor. This is the UK legal position as well, notwithstanding the child’s right to contact the genetic material donor at 18.

But in the same scenario where KK’s eggs & sperm were placed in a surrogate mother, suddenly Kim Kardashian’s kids belong to her? You can’t have it both ways.

Agreed- but I suspect the horse bolted/ ship sailed long ago on that concept.

If you mean we can’t now ban it, I disagree. Several countries have successfully enacted laws banning commercial surrogacy in the last 5-10 years or so.

I really feel if I had died giving birth, my babies would have been perfectly happy in the care of my loving family and would not have felt my loss

You don’t think that when they were old enough to ask questions about you, or old enough to see what other children had but they didn’t, they wouldn’t wonder what you were like, and whether they’re missing out on something others with mothers still alive have? Of course they would have been loved and well cared for, but many people who don’t know their birth parents wonder about what might have been. I find it a touch sad you think you wouldn’t have been missed.

Besides, there’s a big difference between unavoidable circumstances of loss and deliberately created circumstances of loss.

It does make me uncomfortable; very conflicting opinions in my mind which I haven't managed to square.

But this - 'and obviously it’s violence against women and children.'

I just cant abide this hyperbolic language. Its not violence. It might be emotional abuse, financial coercion or bribery etc to cause a women to put herself at severe risk of harm; but its not violence.