Normalising buying babies

I wanted to just say that I am finding moving hearing from the adoptive parents on this thread. It’s such an amazing thing to do - two simultaneous, enormous, selfless tasks - raising a child, whilst also managing and healing their wounds. It must be so challenging and you speak with such compassion for the children. It’s absolutely worlds away from the way surrogacy advocates speak about the children being ‘commissioned’. Hats off to you.

See I think choice feminism is bullshit and I'm not in the least illiberal.

Yes is seems oddly pedantic. Through Etsy I have ‘commissioned’ items, but at the end of the day I just wanted to buy them and if I could have got them off the peg I would have, to save any delay.

Commissioning is basically agreeing to buy something before it is made, in advance.

@BridgetD In California she is not the mother. The intended parents are the legal parents of the baby. They do a huge amount of screening for surrogates to make sure that scenario doesn't play out but if it did the surrogate would have no legal recourse in California. Alice's baby is her and her husband genetically.

Sorry - I see that has already been shared!

Alice Naylor-Leyland shares new photos of her newborn https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-13337199/Princess-Beatrices-pal-Alice-Naylor-Leyland.html?ito=nativesharee_article-nativemenubutton

Sorry about the DM link but this illustrates so much about what is wrong with surrogacy.

I've not seen this but it sounds horribly reminiscent of the wives in the Handmaid's Tale pretending to give birth surrounded by others chanting 'breathe, breathe' while in another room the handmaid is actgiving birth. 😬🤯

In the UK (at the moment anyway) the birth mother is the mother legally until she willingly gives up PR. If the commissioning father is also the biological father he can also get PR but they can't take the baby without the birth mother's consent.
In the US in some states the birth mother has no rights to change her mind at all.

No, why would it be?

Babies bought from a surrogate are "commissioned".

They are indeed. It seems some people wish to deny the transactive nature of the arrangement. The language is all about downplaying that and hiding it all in emotion.

when the arrangement is stripped of the obscuring language, it makes some people very uncomfortable.

It always comes down to that transaction though. That exploitation of human beings to get what someone wants.

Surrogate babies are not commissioned.
Just like people with no fertility issues who decided to have - go ahead and make an embryo and carry a baby - that baby is planned (nor commissioned)

Babies bought from a surrogate are "commissioned".

What would happen if the surrogate mother wants to keep the baby? Even with every intention of handing the baby over when he/she is born, I can absolutely see how the woman after giving birth can change her mind.

Assuming the baby in the OP doesn't use the birth mother's eggs, how would this work? I'm sure US laws are different, but my brain is struggling to understand how the baby could be taken from a woman who has given birth when she wants to keep it. Surely she's legally the baby's mother? (Not suggesting that happened here, but I'm sure it does happen!)

Completely agree!

Adoption finds a family for a child who has none (or none who can raise them).

Surrogacy buys a baby for an adult. Vastly different.

Just because someone wants one doesn't mean they should get one.
Trading in human life is not right.

No, it's really sad that he seems to be the only world leader (which he is in terms of leading the Catholic Church) who is telling about this issue.

I'm not remotely interested in religion/organised religion myself, let alone Catholicism (which as you remind us isn't without massive multiple horrific abuses).

And as a feminist I can't believe I agree with a Pope on very many things, but on this particular stance I do.

Rules and best practice for adoption has changed so mych over the last decades, because it's done with the best interests of the child at the center, and more and more is understood about the issues adoption creates. It's why international adoption is now considered extremely problematic and to be avoided if possible.

If surrogacy was subjected to the same child centered thinking, it would be illegal. Which is why it always focuses on the parents and surrogate and ignores the child as much as it can get away with.

Are you seriously trying to argue we can't make ethical judgements about things women or gay men do?

What is the basis for that?How does it even make sense?

If something is unethical, the fact that some women or some gay men might want to do it doesn't mean everyone should be ok about it.

So we are going to use the Pope as moral compass? Same Pope whose church turned blind eye to child abuse by the priests for years?

Curiouser and curiouser

IVF opened a Pandora's Box. The Pope then was opposed to it, as I was. The current Pope wants to ban surrogacy. I do too.

Absolutely. Surrogacy should be banned. In all circumstances.

It's human trafficking. No-one has the right to be a parent. I honestly don't think I could be friends with someone who commissioned a child.

Totally agree with @lovelysoap

My adopted child is too little to even say the word 'Mummy' but when they do it's going to break my heart because I'm not the one who should be called that by them.
It's disgusting to sever that bond unless it absolutely has to be for the safety of the child.

I know primary school aged children in wonderful adoptive families who are absolutely obsessed with knowing and meeting their birth parents, I can't imagine what they are going to be feeling as they navigate their teenage/young adults/becoming parents years.

I don't understand how this issue (in the context of surrogacy) can be swept under the rug so conveniently.

I'm an adoptive parent and I'm a bit pissed off with 1plus1equalswindow clumsy wording. Adoption is a solution to a need, the child's need, not mine as an adoptive parent. Outcomes for adopted children are so much better than for those children who remain in care. If you died and there was no one in your family who could look after your child would you prefer they were adopted permanently to one family or at the mercy of multiple foster placements/residential homes for their childhood? Then spat out at 18?
Yes of course there are shit adoptive parents, no system for assessing people can be foolproof, but I would never allow any child I knew to go into the care system now I know a bit more about it and how often children end up getting moved from FC to FC. They say this doesn't happen anymore, but I now know differently.
Some children will always unfortunately need to be removed from some birth parents for neglect or abuse and adoption is one of the outcomes for this group of children. Nowadays adopted children are very much entitled to know their history from day dot and to be able to maintain indirect/direct contact with birth family members inc parents throughout their childhoods into adulthood where they then can make their own decisions regarding the relationship they want with their birth family.

Adoption & Surrogacy (at least in the UK in 2024) should not be lumped together.

I will need to support my adoptive child's identity and connection with their birth parents as they reach the appropriate age. We will do letterbox contact throughout their childhood with the birth parents.
This is drummed into any adoptive parent, the need to know our roots and identity is such an important one.
Maybe rich kids who were born via surrogacy will get loads of therapy and an easy ride through life so maybe this won't raise its ugly head, it feels society is getting so damaged anyway, what one more thing?

But yes I agree that surrogacy is human trafficking. If you have a sister or best friend that would do that for you, then that's much more acceptable to me, especially as that mother will be in the child's life forever, and will share DNA if they are a family member, but anything else is abhorrent to me. Gay couple? Same moral code applies, you don't get a free pass.

I'm pleased the Pope is taking a stand on this, no other leaders seem to be.

Surrogate babies are not commissioned.
Just like people with no fertility issues who decided to have - go ahead and make an embryo and carry a baby - that baby is planned (nor commissioned)

Same with surrogacy. Woman (or a family) decides to have a baby. She very sadly runs into a medical issue that prevents pregnancy in the usual way. Science helps solve that medical issue. But in principle - a woman (or family) decide to have a baby - and take steps to make it happen.

So - comparing surrogacy with puppy breeding is disingenuous. Surrogates do not get pregnant and put their babies for sale online en masse…
Surrogate selection is a long process - not unlike the process of selecting an adoptive parent.

Also - comparing egg donation to organ donation is completely wrong. We do not regrow organs. We have a large supply of eggs. Egg Donation is a lot closer to blood donation - although, of course, a much harder proceas to go theou to.

I hate it when adoption is compared to surrogacy. In the UK, kids up for adoption are already here and it’s either adoption or a life in the care system - they are not commissioned. Adoption in the uk is described as ‘the LEAST WORSE option’.