Normalising buying babies

I just did some googling and I am afraid my first, catty thought was '38!? And the bloody rest love'.

I was out last night and it turns out my friend knows the pair of them. Despite the fawning on Instagram, at least some of their circle is (privately) appalled.

That’s actually reassuring in a way. Looking at their friends comments on Instagram did make me despair a bit. But I guess it makes sense that any dissent from friends would be in private rather than done publicly.

She in particular seems so invested in creating a perfect looking aesthetic and image. I imagine any hint of public dissent from a friend on IG would lead to instantly being blocked and kicked out of the friendship group!

I do t see anyone shouting here though?

There is a very reasoned back and forth with stylist differences but no shouting that I see.

I find the whole discussion excellent with great points on both sides.

I agree choice is important. With that in mind if that lovely dd of yours came home and said she was skipping uni and going into sex work would accept or try to dissuade her? Would you set her up in the spare bedroom and ask dh to bring a gang back after pub?

Oh gawd, I just looked at the tablescaper and husband’s instagrams. It’s just so tone deaf - they’re basically having a family holiday in LA, lots of seaside visits, theme parks etc, interspersed with occasional photos of the newborn.

Yet, not too many miles away (but presumably not in Malibu🤔) an unphotographed, unnamed woman is recovering from giving birth to another human, and then being separated from her newborn.

This is an ideology, though, that has in differernt circumstances proposed that because some non-white groups don't perform as well on certain kinds of tests, the standards should be changed. Even when they seem kind of important.

I think there is an underlying belief that equity is in fact concretely achievable in every case.

Possibly. Though maybe it would be seen more like blood donation, or even organ donation. Something people ought to do but they can't be forced by law. Realistically what you might see is a lot of moral pressure, like with organ donation in popular culture.

Adam. Rest his soul.

Sorry I misremembered. The boy wore orange shorts.

I know that we have the NHS to make equal health for everyone a worthy goal, adaptations so that people can have an equal quality of life regardless of disability, but it only works up to a point.

We shouldn’t allow this sense or ‘equal health/equal relationship’ go as far as sacrificing one for the other, because there really are no limits to people’s self interest when they want something. I wonder what the person who commissioned the sacrifice of the boy trafficked from Nigeria “in the red shorts” had going on that they would engage in such an evil and illegal ritual. Had they or a loved one got a terminal illness? Were they infertile? What did they want so badly that they’d do such a terrible thing, believing it would help?

There needs to be a big pause on this sense of equal entitlement to a parent-child relationship. People are being treated like objects.

I remember when it used to be a fairly regular occurrence that women would snatch babies from maternity wards, then would come forward and hand herself in a few days later when she came to her senses.

People always viewed these women sympathetically, as driven mad by her own frustrated maternal instincts. I can get the mind set. It seems so harsh and unfair that all these people around you are having babies, they look like they don’t fully appreciate it, and they seem like crap parents to boot. Someone like that could get into the state of mind where they think they’d be a much better, more deserving parent. It would seem so ‘unjust’ and ‘unfair’. In the same way as it feels when a loved one is diagnosed with a terminal illness.

This feeling that health, relationships, families, etc, should be meted out fairly, is an instinctive one that makes no sense in reality. It’s why I always found that lyric “If there’s any justice in the world, I would be with you, you would be my girl” uncomfortable and irritating.

The problem is when that ‘feeling’ of there being some entitlement to everyone getting their ‘fair share’ of human health and relationships is given free reign and legal backing, you get all sorts of horrors. You see it in prostitution, men having the feeling that it’s only fair that they should be just as able to have sex with a sixteen year old girl as the boy she actually fancies.

Reality is harsh. Not everyone is equally fancied, not everyone has equal health, not everyone is equally fertile, not all sexual orientations can create a family together.

It is definitely buying babies and doesn’t and can’t compare with adoption at all.
As the least worst option, adoption is all about the child, not the adopters.
Surrogacy is the complete opposite
As a side note, is that the commissioning mother in the DM link? Why is she in a hospital bed? With ID bracelet?

Yes. Reality is harsh.

Some people are more fortunate than others.

We can intervene politically to make things as fair as possible, but there’s no getting away from it.

The entitlement and bloody-minded certainty that every one has a ‘right’ to equal fortune (on the left) or the ‘right’ to choose to buy/sell whatever we want (on the right) is getting us into dystopian territory.

I, too, have found that the positioning of surrogacy as a means for some people to obtain ‘fertility equity’ ie. to have a family on demand and tailored to their demand, to be a concern.

Fertility Equality gets thrown around falsely in my opinion. Fertility equality would be more aligned with giving each person the ability to use their own reproductive organs to produce healthy gametes to contribute to a family. I don’t believe it should be to give one human the use of another human’s body to gestate that family in a surrogacy arrangement. Use of a surrogacy arrangement is ‘equity’ to me, yet it is label equality by some people.

And considering the potential price of making that accommodation to achieve ‘equity’ is so high, it has to be said that sometimes an equitable solution is not possible.

So, following that logic, if no women volunteer, the state would be required to demand women give their bodies in fulfillment of that right.

Like the draft. Instead of going to war, you go to IVF clinics.

I get that it means there's no easy way to conceive for some couples- isn't that life?

The thing is, if people believe there is a political obligation to create equity, then it's not just life. The state, in order to be just, to fix or compensate people for problems like infertility or even (especially) being unable to conceive due to being in a same-sex relationship.

It's very tied in with the politics of equity.

I find it so wrong. In adoption the primal trauma of separating a child from his or her mother is well known and in the UK adopted children have support in knowing about their birth mother (eg letterbox, information about her in.life story books).

Surrogacy? Nada zip zilch the dyad is just ignored and never referred to.

I'm very intrigued by how keen people are to push choice for women when it benefits men.
Eg sex work is an empowering choice - which men benefit from
Surrogacy too now is empowering.... for wealthy men or gay men to get children....

I just can't comprehend the idea of getting someone to take such a massive risk so you can have a baby with no inconvenience. Pregnancy can kill, it can leave you with life changing injuries and pregnancy that involves someone else's egg is even higher risk. Some people on this thread have made out like the surrogate mother isn't even involved because its not her genetic egg... how does that work if there's a disagreement and she's perceived as having something belonging to someone else inside her? There's too much potential for disaster and exploitation, that's why most civilised countries ban it.

I get that it means there's no easy way to conceive for some couples- isn't that life? That heartbreaking, unfair things happen that can't be easily fixed? If it was really a choice, wouldn't we see a fair balance of wealthy women being surrogates too?

Weirdly enough, people in the UK can return with a baby they didn’t leave with and there seems to be no issue of citizenship or child-trafficking confronting them at passport control. Lots of celebrities do. Buying babies in India used to be popular (cheap) then Ukraine, the USA seems to be preferred for those who can afford it.

@NotBadConsidering I suspected so, but hopefully not for parents from the UK? I assumed that we had laws against that, even if the law is actually primarily to prevent migration

Oof.

On a related note, if I was in midwifery or nursing, I'd be furious at these people who make the job look like one big musical lark.

You’re not describing an extreme scenario; the vast majority of world wide surrogacy is intercontinental.