Gay men and surrogacy - the new “be kind”?

Just shaming their parents and the way they were conceived.🙄

Just shaming their parents and the way they were conceived.🙄

@NotBadConsidering it’s interesting that we’ve both seen complete lack of regard for the surrogate, once the couple have the baby in their hands. With one couple, I asked them if they wanted me to arrange (and they pay) for a private car and driver to take the surrogate and her five year old daughter back to Ukraine. I was told, no need, there was a bus she could get to Kyiv and then she could get another bus to her home town. A car and driver would have been much more comfortable (the woman had had a C section), and would have taken several
hours less, as they could have driven directly to her home town. But having spent over £50K on getting the baby, they didn’t want to spend a few hundred Euros on a car and driver.

No one here is shaming children. Jesus Christ 🤦‍♀️

I think pp meant nuclear family as in two parents raising their children - the point wasn’t about the involvement or not about extended family.

Children are traditionally raised by their parents as part of an extended family within a wider community.

You admit that traditionally children have always been raised by the two parents that made them.

PPs claim Adoption agencies actually did studies and found gay couples made better parents than average.. I find extremely questionable and, no shade on gay parents, but unlikely.

I’m not offering a converse opinion as I have no idea but I find the claim that a same sex couples are better parents than heterosexual couples extremely bold and unlikely to be backed by actual data.

Aren't the surrogacy agencies supposed to cover the 'what ifs" when they take someone onto their books? Aren't they have meant to have completed their own family before being accepted?
Plus wealthy women may well carry a baby for a sibling/close friend. A celebrity not so much, because being a celeb leads to public scrutiny which would mean outing the recipient and them not having a private life etc (I'm not a surrogacy supporter btw)

I don't necessarily agree wholeheartedly with surrogacy but some of the arguments here are tenuous and not well thought out. It seems to be surrogacy = bad because of x y z, but x y z is OK to be overlooked or allowed in other cases.

If separating a mother and child why is adoption any better? Adoption from birth surely leads to the exact same trauma?

Also, suggesting 'adoption' as a cover-all for an easy way to make a family is naive and tone deaf. The go-to answer for people unable to convince a child of their own should NOT be adoption, certainly not as a booby prize or as a second choice. Adoption is incredibly rewarding but it's not a consolation prize - these children have most likely endured trauma, physical or emotional and parents choosing it should be doing it for the right reasons with their eyes wide open, not a quick route to matching Christmas pajama group shots and happy-ever-afters.

If donor egg and one of the commissioning parent's sperm is used then the whole 'biological' argument crumbles a bit.

So you support human trafficking? That’s a bit er…. Awful. Or are you saying it’s different if it’s a baby?

I don’t feel sorry for them. I feel sorry for the innocent babied who are victims of human trafficking. Why is ok to sell a newborn but not say… a five year old or a 10 year old?

The law commission had a consultation about making surrogacy easier. They did not want to hear from anyone who wanted it to be illegal, they only wanted to know how to 'improve' it (for purchasers).

https://lawcom.gov.uk/project/surrogacy/

This is top down, this is not the government responding to a public wanting surrogacy to be easier for purchasers and for birth mothers to have less rights. They'd already decided surrogacy is a good idea without asking the public.

I think that's the point: you don't know. You have zero idea what conversations are or aren't had. You have no idea why a woman might put themselves forward to be a surrogate. You're assuming difficult conversations don't happen or can never be thorough enough because it supports your narrative but you simply don't know.

I'm not denying that there will be situations that are unequal, by the way. And you're probably right that many will go ahead without discussing everything single angle and every single outcome and the exact consequences of each - that probably is true. But assigning all of them unequal and ill-thought through is not reasonable.

And I don't know how anyone can be happy with another person taking these risks for them. Even if the risk is smalll, the outcomes could be catastrophic.

Well in that case no man should feel happy impregnating a woman ever. Even their wife. After all, the risks could be catastrophic.

I believe my position is far more grounded in reality than a facile 'isn't it a lovely thing to do'.

I don't think it's a 'lovely thing to do'. I haven't said that at all. I'm just countering the lazy narrative that it's always oppressive, that it's always about men taking ownership of women's bodies and it's always a power issue between the rich west and poor developing countries.

Money gives power - yes of course that's true in almost any situation you care to mention. The alternative is communism. People who want money make different choices than those who don't - such is the way of the world but it doesn't automatically equal exploitation.

What irritates me is that you seem to think that women have no agency and are simpletons, not able to make decisions about their own bodies.

I know there are absolutely cases where vulnerable women from very poor countries are used in these scenarios and feel they have no choice. But that's not the case for all and it seems you're suggesting that those who choose to go through surrogacy for purely financial or altruistic reasons are somehow not able to make their own decisions, like they're children who don't know what's good for them? Why do you feel sorry for them, like they've been tricked into something and don't understand what they're doing?

Why let a bit of evidence get in the way of the demands of some rich people?

"You simply don't know..."

"You have no idea why a woman might put themselves forward"

Er, why are we pretending that this isn't a decades old well researched and evidence based area of ethical debate?! Or do all the voices of surrogate women who have shared their lived experience not count?!

I also love how you're absolutely downplaying how surragacy has become another rung of modern slavery. Just like sex workers, the majority of surrogates across the world aren't some 'middle class feminist hero' exercising their bodily autonomy as you're trying so hard to claim. They're women from very disadvantaged backgrounds, preyed upon and exploited, then discarded when they're no longer a productive incubator. I don't give a flying f*ck if there's a handful of surrogates who feel they haven't been exploited. Because the reality is MOST ARE.

Even if laws closed loopholes that allow surrogacy from other countries that allow such obvious exploitation, is this any better?! :

https://futurism.com/venture-capital-surrogate-mother?fbclid=IwY2xjawMpOMhleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHjpOrbFCVRIcDxUQi5nU60YG-b8ilq0uQN5S6JHQqWVid_XQ8P1AJ1WUhSqV_aem_JftLnnSYW3m_tyXj390QaA

I think that's the point: you don't know. You have zero idea what conversations are or aren't had. You have no idea why a woman might put themselves forward to be a surrogate. You're assuming difficult conversations don't happen or can never be thorough enough because it supports your narrative but you simply don't know.

I'm not denying that there will be situations that are unequal, by the way. And you're probably right that many will go ahead without discussing everything single angle and every single outcome and the exact consequences of each - that probably is true. But assigning all of them unequal and ill-thought through is not reasonable.

And I don't know how anyone can be happy with another person taking these risks for them. Even if the risk is smalll, the outcomes could be catastrophic.

Well in that case no man should feel happy impregnating a woman ever. Even their wife. After all, the risks could be catastrophic.

I believe my position is far more grounded in reality than a facile 'isn't it a lovely thing to do'.

I don't think it's a 'lovely thing to do'. I haven't said that at all. I'm just countering the lazy narrative that it's always oppressive, that it's always about men taking ownership of women's bodies and it's always a power issue between the rich west and poor developing countries.

Why do you insist the power dynamic is always unequal? You're putting a slant on it that simply isn't there.

I've never seen or heard of a surrogacy case where a wealthy celebrity or even just well off woman is offering herself up as a surrogate for a not so wealthy stranger. Money gives power in this situation (like so many others) and makes it unequal in my view.

I think that's the point: you don't know. You have zero idea what conversations are or aren't had. You have no idea why a woman might put themselves forward to be a surrogate. You're assuming difficult conversations don't happen or can never be thorough enough because it supports your narrative but you simply don't know.

I'm not denying that there will be situations that are unequal, by the way. And you're probably right that many will go ahead without discussing everything single angle and every single outcome and the exact consequences of each - that probably is true. But assigning all of them unequal and ill-thought through is not reasonable.

And I don't know how anyone can be happy with another person taking these risks for them. Even if the risk is smalll, the outcomes could be catastrophic.

Well in that case no man should feel happy impregnating a woman ever. Even their wife. After all, the risks could be catastrophic.

I believe my position is far more grounded in reality than a facile 'isn't it a lovely thing to do'.

I don't think it's a 'lovely thing to do'. I haven't said that at all. I'm just countering the lazy narrative that it's always oppressive, that it's always about men taking ownership of women's bodies and it's always a power issue between the rich west and poor developing countries.

We could make it illegal, but it's not. Come back to me when that changes and you have a point.

We could make it illegal, but it's not. Come back to me when that changes and you have a point.

We could make it illegal, but it's not. Come back to me when that changes and you have a point.