Why surrogacy should be banned

"Given the choice between being removed at birth, or never existing at all, I think most people would choose being removed at birth"

By that logic it would be ok to produce children to be slaves, or to have their organs harvested for transplants. As it would be better than not existing at all.

Now poor women are convinced to sell their babies and breast milk to richer couples and this is called a choice.

My how times change.

That only applies when it comes to abortion.

Which is a massive grey area in surrogacy. The surrogate may be pressured to abort against her will or beliefs if the baby has congenital defects, or equally she may be prevented from aborting if the strain of pregnancy impacts her physical or mental health to a deleterious degree. It’s a particular problem where surrogacy is a commercial enterprise.

I am in Ireland. Not a week goes by when there isn't a sad story of infertility in the newspaper that ends with a happy couple and a cute baby through surrogacy. It is a massive campaign to normalise it. Couples complain then about the legal situation they have created for these children because there is no legislation for surrogacy in Ireland. Yet they entered into these arrangements knowing this.

At the same time there has been huge national discussion about mother and baby homes and the forced removal and adoption of children in the past. And the need now for those children to know their past and the importance of identity. The cognitive dissonance is astounding.

There will be a reckoning in about 30 years. Another tribunal and wondering how we let this happen.

I was going to post in this thread. But the fact that there are posters on here Belle de Jouring an industry, which is in my eyes, even worse than prostitution, has left me feeling sickened within myself physically.

I'm against all surrogacy.

I once made the mistake of uttering this opinion in real life...I was absolutely crucified because, you know, be kind and cute babies blah blah.

There is so much scope for it to go wrong.

It's dangerous for the mother. Any woman could decide to be a surrogate and have life changing birth injuries, or find out that handing over a baby in the fourth trimester is unfathomably painful and emotionally scars her for life.

Or the baby is born with a disability and ends up unwanted.

There are Ukrainian women, pregnant with British surrogate babies right now. Should we be evacuating those women when we evacuate British citizens to protect them from Russian invasion? What happens when they have given birth?

If you think about this question for more than a few seconds, it reveals the insidious nature of surrogacy. It makes women and babies into a commodity.

Adopting an existing baby is completely different from commissioning a baby through surrogacy. Surrogacy is creating a baby so that it can be taken away from its mother at birth, just because someone else wants one. It's inherently selfish.

As for the child removed from its birth mother? That is sad yes, but the alternative for that particular child was otherwise to not exist at all. Given the choice between being removed at birth, or never existing at all, I think most people would choose being removed at birth.

That argument could be used to justify quite a lot. “Yes, my parents were abusive, but if they hadn’t had me, I wouldn’t exist at all, so...”

It is a form of slavery (of women and children)
I’d never considered that tbh, but yes, if you’re buying human beings, I guess that’s the definition of slavery.

Hmmm. A lot of nasty stuff happens in the surrogacy industry, particularly in low income countries, but I don’t agree it should always be banned. (I’d ban alcohol first, which creates far more misery than surrogacy, which also creates a lot of joy.)

There are lots of win-win scenarios that happen, particularly in America. The only person I know who did surrogacy paid £100000, of which £60000 went to the birth mother. She’d finished having her own children and wanted to help someone else be a mother who otherwise would not be able to have a child. Obviously giving birth to an additional child had an impact on her body, but she was very happy about how it all went, and she is now using the money to give her own children opportunities they otherwise wouldn’t have had. As for the child removed from its birth mother? That is sad yes, but the alternative for that particular child was otherwise to not exist at all. Given the choice between being removed at birth, or never existing at all, I think most people would choose being removed at birth.

When it's rich white women being surrogates for poor Black women I'll believe it's a 'choice'.

Regarding "my body my choice" I'd say that of course women can choose to get pregnant and have a baby. What they shouldn't then be able to do is to sell that baby to the "commissioning" couple/person. For some reason babies are excluded from the protection that older children and adults have from being bought and sold.

I'm opposed to surogacy because it puts the needs of the future parents above the needs of the baby to be with its own mother. I hadn't thought of it as slavery before but I can see the writer's point.

Should you be able to choose to sell your internal organs?

How and when does the baby make the choice? At what age does it become acceptable to sell another human being?

‘My body, my choice’ is the call of the privileged.

It is so so damaging to remove babies from their mothers, not to mention the damage done to women’s physical and emotional health

'My body, my choice' is all well and good if you are in a society and a situation where things really and truly are a completely free choice. We aren't there.

And yes, the Mother can agree to be a surrogate on the basis of 'her body, her choice', but it massively downplays the rights of the baby.

I repeat: why are we talking about adoption?
The very first post on this thread was whataboutery.