Another surrogacy nightmare

Here is a new low for discussing women.

We are now ‘partners with eggs’.

twitter.com/millihill/status/1586256079566307328?s=46&t=cAmEHNkH9au3MlnrBlBOQw

And ‘bleeding bodies’ is ridiculous too!

twitter.com/millihill/status/1586269053965914113?s=46&t=cAmEHNkH9au3MlnrBlBOQw

This truly is an extension of the commoditising of women’s bodies for other’s reproductive purposes. I find it quite hard to believe that once this has been pointed out, that people don’t see the connection.

IVF with donated eggs in cases where neither the genetic mother nor the gestational mother are the intended social mother of the child is ethically appalling.

Egg donation has health risks for the genetic mother.
Pregnancy with a donated egg increases the risks to the health and life of the gestational mother.
The sole purpose is to break the biological bond between mother and child. To allow two women to disassociate from their child, to allow both to deny their motherhood. To create a child without a mother, so there is no challenge to the rights of the father to the child.

It’s awful.
It disgusts me that there are doctors who enable it.

Finally, for those saying 'its their body, their choice', these are HIGH RISK pregnancies. I am not quite sure that people understand this and in the glow of loveliness actually understand the potential of complications are much higher for the woman whose body is being exploited as a resource.

evidence.nihr.ac.uk/alert/donor-eggs-may-be-linked-to-higher-risk-of-pregnancy-complications-following-ivf/

Women who had IVF using donor eggs were at higher risk of developing high blood pressure in pregnancy (odds ratio[OR] 3.92, 95% confidence interval 3.21 to 4.78). Thirty five per cent of those using donor eggs developed high blood pressure in pregnancy, compared with 17% of those using their own eggs.

35% developed high blood pressure in pregnancy using donor eggs.

Perhaps those who are celebrating surrogacy are uninformed about the exploitative nature and the huge risks these women are taking while someone else exploits their fertility for their desire for a baby.

Maybe it is time to read the full stories rather than just glowing stories about friends and celebrities.

Or maybe not, if you still want to claim the ignorance that I feel is always behind 'its their body, their choice' when it comes to surrogacy.

Just leaving this here:

www.statnews.com/2017/01/28/egg-donors-risks/

It is an article about the fact that the long term health impacts for egg donors are still not well known. It mentions that

The one study on egg donors is a 2005 survey of 80 women who had donated eggs as long as two decades earlier. Thirteen of them said they were still experiencing physical effects that they attributed to the donation — things like ovarian cysts, fibroids, and infertility issues that arose later in life. But it was a small and unscientific sample, with no medical records to back up the women’s claims.

That is 16% of these women experienced issues.

How comfortable do those supporting people using donor eggs and surrogacy feel with that statistic?

That for every male couple getting a baby on demand, 1 out of 6 of those donating an egg may have significant impacts in the long term.

BUT this doesn't not cover those women who have had strokes and ovary torsion in the immediate or short term etc. These are also quite well documented by now in the USA due to the lack of care that some of these women receive after the 'harvest'.

Obviously, there are cases where a woman undergoing their own fertility treatment will donate remaining eggs. That seems to be a different scenario altogether - although there still could be coerciveness at play if she is pressured in ANY way to do so.

This is either human trafficking or child neglect. Pick your choice.

Whole situation is utterly ugly. Surrogacy needs banned.

I'd say it is classed so differently in public discourse, because the idea that babies conceived via surrogacy have no "genetic connection" to their mothers has captured the public imagination.

I can see how, but I find it unconvincing, because the first time I learnt about egg donation, it was in the context of women using donor eggs to get pregnant through IVF themselves, not paying another woman to have embryos transferred into her. Those women were extremely adamant that gestation outweighed genetic connection, because that baby would know his/her mother's voice, and smell; in fact, they even dived into epigenetics/the unique effects on gene expression from the interaction between the donor egg DNA and their own uterine environment. Oh, and fingerprint development.

Their reasoning was far better than anything I have ever seen from people proposing that a genetic connection to commissioning parents should automatically outweigh the relationship between a baby and its gestational mother.

Even apart from forced adoptions, which to some may seem an extreme comparison, international adoptions are more and more strictly controlled now. UNICEF is not very supportive of them, and in many countries it's not allowed at all or only under very strict conditions.

In the west there are more and more regulations that recognize the importance of, really the reality of, the biological connection between parent and child. Adoption rules are based on the best practice for the child and adoptive parents have to put up with all kinds of stuff because of that.

I don't understand how that all stays so separate from what happens with surrogacy. Some laws in western countries do recognize it to a greater or lesser extent, but I am thinking more in terms of the public discourse.

Ffs where does the child come into this?

The child doesn't, the child is a mere commodity, that is why ALL surrogacy is abhorrent and should be banned.

I agree. Even the concept of the much praised "altruistic" surrogacy is an abuser's paradise.

See this thread, about a woman on reddit whose sister had agreed to act as a surrogate (how to you say no to such a proposition?) and whose husband was pressuring her to give him permission to shag her sister. You know, to save on IVF costs.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4491024-Man-tries-to-exploit-surrogacy-arrangement-to-have-sex-with-his-wifes-sister

The Irish public love stuff like this. They will surpass that 30k goal. Sadly a lot of irish society see nothing wrong with what's happening here

Yea I find it so weird after all the revelations about forced adoptions and mothers being forced to give up their babies even though they also signed consent forms we now know it was often under massive duress and pressure from families. Theres a real cognitive disconnect going on.

I often wonder how many poor women are pushed into surrogacy by abusive husbands or family members and the women never see a penny especially in countries with poor records in women's rights. So sad.

The only way surrogacy is at all,in any way, acceptable is if....

You've given it no deeper thought whatsoever.

Add the DNA companies that have sprung up. So even if the mother (I will use this term for the pregnant woman) gives away all rights, uses a false name and jumps through other hoops to hide it, it's only a DNA test away to find out who she is.
Imagine in the years to come your child finding you and then you have to explain why you sold them.

I'm very upset about some of the contracts I've seen. The buyers have so much power over the mother. It is insane. They can demand a certain diet, to not go certain places, to have or not have medical procedures, even to abort and even after all of that they can walk away if the child is not to their liking eg disabled. Ffs where does the child come into this?

I can only imagine how bloody awful this is going to be in years to come. Adoption can be bloody awful on children, I know I was adopted, but there are usually good reasons and it's a last resort, this appears to be the first resort.

One young woman lost her fertility and had a stroke as a result of selling eggs.

How much was she paid to start with? $5,500.

twitter.com/JenniferLahl/status/1422580725610541060?t=t25mKmCIG3rcMNpJWWviEQ&s=19

imagine having to come to terms with the fact that you lost your ability to have your own child because you provided someone else with eggs or a child.

I am sure that hearing it was your own choice and you made someone so happy for either money to pay for your student debt or for food or just to feel good and getting lovely attention is a warm consolation.

Or if you have lost your fertility then maybe you think someone else should risk their’s and keep the cycle going.

We're all literally living in the period when the human consequences of the forced infant adoptions became impossible to ignore.

You have to be living under a rock not to have seen the media coverage of mothers looking for babies they regret relinquishing, people searching for their mothers, and people searching for their siblings.

What if they were a bit older? What is it going to be like for them when they're grown up and look back on this?

yes. I couldn’t image finding out my own mother risked her life to provide someone else with a child to order.

Yup. Childless/childfree women who've not been pregnant before, cannot make an informed decision.

That brings you to the rule that only women who've had a child already should make such a decision.

But then, I ask, what is the impact on the family of seeing mummy have a baby, and being told that the new brother/sister is not your brother/sister and he or she is going to be given to someone else to bring up? Upthread, I quoted an interview in which a woman said as a surrogate, she says her connection to the baby currently growing inside her is nothing like the motherly love she felt when she carried her own 3-year-old twins. This is a job, and as part of that job, she signed a contract to let the baby’s parents make medical choices for her, including whether to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

Can she stop her children forming a connection? If they're three, probably yes. What if they were a bit older? What is it going to be like for them when they're grown up and look back on this?

I wonder if it those saying ‘their choice’ had easy pregnancies. Having only one that was not without issue and a difficult delivery, I know that even one pregnancy can be high risk.

Back when I was a naive teenager, I offered a gay friend of mine my womb as a surrogate when we were older.

After experiencing pregnancy myself, there is no way in hell I could go through all of that and then give up my baby too.

I suppose I'm in no position to judge.

I think if someone you know cannot make a judgement about your mental health regarding being a surrogate when you have no children of your own and knowing that that pregnancy could have the impact of you never having your own children, who can?

As a young woman without a child, without having been pregnant, I would have shrugged and said ‘their choice’. Now I am older and I know the risks and I know just how much can go wrong and I would question how much that person actually understood vs how much that person was financially or otherwise coerced.

He is a member of the travelling community which is why his spelling etc mightn't be the best as they are usually removed from school very young. A lot of them can't read or write. It also explains why he is trying to keep the fact he is in a same sex relationship quiet as it's massively frowned upon in their community

I used to work with a woman who'd been a surrogate at least a couple of times. I don't think she had any children of her own. Looking back she was probably only about 30 years old. She told me she really liked being pregnant. She seemed a bit fragile somehow. I didn't really question it at the time. I suppose I'm in no position to judge.

Women should have the choice of what to do with their own bodies, I hear, including the right to sign over their medical decisions to people they've never met. Outsourced to people who've given her a contract to sign that implies Cerebral Palsy can be detected by antenatal screening!!

Not only can it not screened for, cerebral palsy in babies is most commonly caused by oxygen deprivation during birth, as in a birth injury.

And if that pregnant woman doesn't have a termination as ordered, she will be in "material breach" of the contract, and responsible for all her own medical costs from pregnancy.

Yep. Nothing to see here. It is all lovely and wonderful in the land where surrogacy can only ever be viewed as a wonderful and kind gesture and everything is awesome!

Depending on how the contract was drafted, it might not be a matter of requesting. This contract specifies that termination is at the election and discretion of the commissioning parents. It says: the right of the Intended Parents to request termination/abortion is absolute and does not require any explanation or justification to the Surrogate.

I found it via Jennifer Lahl. extract from twitter
Ppl are asking me abt surrogacy contract language. Here’s a contract executed in California addressing “selective reduction” & termination. Note the heavy handed language
twitter

So this Californian contract specifies about selective reductions as well. For those not acquainted, who don't have pre-existing knowledge about pregnancy with twins, triples and high order multiples, selective reduction is when one or more fetuses are terminated, in order to increase the chances that the other fetuses will survive. It's an agonising decision that women pregnant with multiples sometimes have to make, because pregnancies with twins or more are high risk for various complications. Sometimes women and their doctors do have to choose between terminating one fetus or risking losing all of them. It's not, to my knowledge, an option considered in the UK for pregnancies that are proceeding normally. Apart from anything else, like erm, the law, you have to consider the future, and what it's going to be like to explain such circumstances to a child later on. What are you going to say? "You were one of twins, but we didn't want twins, so we chose to keep you because you looked the healthiest on the scan?" Well, you want to cause psychological damage, I suppose you could say that...

As it is, it is documented that it can be very psychologically difficult for children and teenagers to learn that they are a surviving twin from a pregnancy where the second baby died of natural causes.

Bearing all that in mind, look at that screenshot. The contract stipulates that the commissioning couple have decided they will have one baby, and one baby only, and they have the right to demand that the pregnant woman has a selective reduction.

If you're on a screenreader, it says, the Intended Parents reserves the ultimate and sole right to selectively reduce before the completion of 20 weeks of gestation

and the right of the Intended Parents to request a selective reduction is absolute and does not require any explanation or justification to the Surrogate

Above my post, @Helleofabore said, And perhaps you really should listen to the children who have been born from surrogacy when they reach adulthood and process that they were produced on demand and separated from the mother that carried them, the mother whose body created them.

Surrogacy is never child centred. It is only ever about the needs of the adults.

Too right. When I read this contract specifying that selective reduction will happen, I cannot help but contrast it with the anguish women on multiples support forums feel when considering whether to ever let their son or daughter know that they're the survivor(s) of a medically necessary reduction procedure.