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

But the reality is that it isn't done like that, so it shouldn't be done at all.

And even if it was that still disregards the rights and needs of the baby.

Very true, I don't disagree at all. It should be done in a well thought out and sensitive way, that looks out for the safety of the women involved, and obviously wherever that isn't the case it isn't ethical. It should never be something that anyone is forced to do against their will, and it shouldn't be taken lightly by either party.

The nuclear family is not traditional. It was invented during the Industrial Revolution to conceal the harms done when people were forced to leave their villages and move to towns to look for work. Children are traditionally raised by their parents as part of an extended family within a wider community.

I would be concerned about the power dynamics at play, even with so called 'altruistic' surrogacies. Some individuals are people pleasers, families have their own hierarchies, people enter into arrangements without fully understanding the consequences.

I read a very eye opening article about a woman who was a surrogate for a friend and ended up extremely regretful of that decision - due to how she was treated by her friend, the impact on her body, her long term psychological pain in giving up her baby. All of these things are very difficult to talk about openly.

At the very least, prior to any surrogacy arrangement there should be a discussion about what happens if the surrogate is permanent disabled or even dies as a result of the pregnancy. How should that be compensated?

Of course some will suffer. Some babies who stay with their birth mothers suffer too

This argument only holds water if the likely outcomes are equal. This just isn’t true.

If some form of experiment took place and half of babies born were kept with their mothers and half were removed from their mothers, the idea that the amount of harm suffered by both groups would be the same in the long run is preposterous and opposed by all we know about bonding and relationships.

This is important, because even if you think it’s possible for a woman to be genuinely altruistic and be certain they all are, and that it’s possible to protect all parties legally from any negative outcomes of a pregnancy and birth (it isn’t), the impact on the baby still has to be considered.

It is buying and selling people though, it is a transaction. I think some transactions should be illegal, whether money is involved or not. If I'm not allowed to give my cousin, or a stranger in exchange for 'expenses', my three year old, why am I allowed to give them my newborn?

Are we saying that it's ok to do stuff to humans as long as they won't remember it?

Also, surely we should be showing more care to baby humans that baby dogs? No?

True, but when done legally in the UK, true surrogacy isn't about money making. You legally can only pay for reasonable expenses. It's done willingly out of a desire to help someone who desperately wants a baby. Maybe there should be more checks on the would be parents, but that could apply to birth parents too - lots of people have kids because they can, certainly doesn't always mean they should.

If we're talking about those actually buying babies, that's wildly illegal, morally wrong, and poses a whole host of issues.

Also I don't want to dwell on child abuse, which it goes without saying, is the absolute worst of crimes, but a child staying with birth parents obviously doesn't prevent that either. Mothers can be morally corrupt too.

It's also woeful ignorance to compare a human baby to a dog.

Why? We are mammals, as are they.

There are things we have in common and ways in which we differ, but comparative psychology exists and is still relevant. That’s why people say things like ‘dolphins have sex for pleasure’ and ‘gibbons mate for life’- because it’s interesting to compare our behaviour and psychology to that of non-human animals. It can teach us things about ourselves.

My point is, people do not spend their lives damaged and struggling because someone other than the woman who birthed them fed and changed their nappies.

You said ‘people’ which implies all but ok - you didn’t mean that.

How many babies suffering lifelong trauma and separation issues is acceptable in your view? How many new instances of this is it ok to create where without surrogacy there would be none of those instances?

I have seen this in action. A baby being taken from one room with its mother to another room with its intended parents. The baby crying. The mother having to take Dostinex to suppress her milk all while trying to hold it together because she’s not supposed to care about giving up her baby and she’s supposed to be happy for the intended parents. The midwives also struggling to hold it together as they try and comfort both baby crying for its mother, and the mother while the intended parents show absolutely zero concern for the mother because they got what they wanted.

One midwife said she will never do it again and will ask to be allocated to other patients when there’s another case because she found the callousness and insensitivity of the situation too awful.

It is different though. Birth parents have a biological imperative to care for the child (yes I know that's far from foolproof but it exists, we are mammals) and the child is with the sound of the mothers heartbeat that it knows from before birth, the smell of her, all the animal stuff.

Parenting a child who has been removed from everything it knows is extreme parenting. Adopters are given training for that, and post adoption anxiety and depression is still common. It's incredibly hard to even admit you're struggling when this is what you've wanted and worked for, but at least adopters are warned about it and have social workers still there in the early weeks and months. There's no safety net of any kind in surrogacy.

I have adopted. I wanted my children, and I prepared hard. But when they came home, I didn't love them, I didn't know them, we were strangers to each other and they'd been taken from everything they knew and were confused and unsettled on a very basic animal level.

I do not believe that someone who chooses to use a surrogate has any idea of what they are potentially getting into, they have no preparation or support, and lots of people genuinely think they a newborn baby is basically a blank slate who won't remember or be affected by being removed from the birth mother and it'll be just like if they'd birthed the child themselves. It's not true, and finding that out once you're in it is too late. And that's leaving aside totally the lack of background checks into purchasers in terms of criminal records, stability etc, purely assuming that they're ordinary well meaning stable people, it's still a massive gamble with extremely high stakes and for what? It's not worth the risk to the person that should come first, which is the child.

Of course some will suffer. Some babies who stay with their birth mothers suffer too. It might be hard for some to understand why a birth mother would give you away, even if to a loving family. It's also hard to understand why a mother, perhaps because she's against abortion, kept you if you were unwanted.

But to be clear, surrogacy isn't buying and selling people, that's an oversimplification, and it is illegal in the UK to pay someone to be a surrogate. A lot of surrogates are willing family members who want to help. In my view that is legal and is their choice and their right, regardless of how any of us might feel about it.

That’s a fair point but it does create the scenario where paedophiles can buy a baby (or babies) and there is no mother in existence to even attempt to protect the child.

Obviously we know that some women are in relationships with abusers and have a baby. Then it is up to the mother and authorised to try and protect the baby from the abuser. A mothers instinct to protect their baby can be strong. However, that is a bad situation and quite hard to prevent.

With surrogacy we are deliberately creating a situation where a man can buy a baby and know that there is no mother involved to hamper his intentions.

This scenario will has already happened more than once where a baby (or babies) has been bought either by a single man or a male couple and horrifically sexually abused. In a normal world we would look at those horrific situations and take whatever steps possible to prevent it happening again but what price is the safety of a ‘few’ children when there’s $millions to be made?

“We should not buy or sell people.”

Seven words. Says it all.

Well that’s a surrogacy advert from the woman’s point of view. Anyone care to write one from the hours old baby’s side?

Where exactly have I said that all babies separated from their mothers at birth are absolutely fantastic? I simply said not all grow up damaged by that. The same way that not all grow up absolutely fine with it.

Not everything is black or white. I'm not here claiming to be an expert, it's a forum where we discuss opinions. My opinion is that just because surrogacy means that babies are separated from the woman who birthed them, doesn't mean to say they will suffer because of that. It doesn't mean they won't either. But it also doesn't mean children who do stay with their birth mothers don't regularly suffer either. The main factor is that they're cared for and loved by whoever raises them. And so I don't think that alone is an argument against surrogacy.

Whether surrogacy is right or not, for me, is more about potential exploitation of the women involved. And if it's all done in accordance with UK law, then that shouldn't be an issue.

"My point is, people do not spend their lives damaged and struggling because someone other than the woman who birthed them fed and changed their nappies."

Some don't. Some do. We can't know which, so best to avoid where at all possible.

The point is that we should not buy and sell people.

To me, that's no different in terms of the child's safety than any parents having a child for the first time

But that’s what the court process for removing a child proves. It’s only in cases where it can be absolutely proven a baby will suffer significant harm to be left with its mother that judges rule for their removal. So even if a mother is awful, but not truly, truly awful, all steps are made to keep the baby with her.

Yes, I agree that we don’t know what people are going to be like when they take their newborns home. Yes, there’s a degree of societal trust that the baby will be cared for. But on balance, the majority of babies will be best off with their mothers, and to deliberately create a situation where that doesn’t happen and justify it is to suggest that this balance doesn’t exist.

Yes, imo surrogacy is wrong, regardless of the sexual orientation of the parents purchasing the baby.

I have seen one article about the experience of an older surrogate child and it wasn’t good as you’d expect. For the child it is the same effect as adoption and we have many accounts from adults taken from their mother in the days of more common forced adoptions from unmarried mothers and many of them have suffered.

Sadly, because this is a multi million pound industry, in the same way that evidence of harm of transing children and young people is suppressed, evidence of harm to surrogate children will be suppressed. Human beings are becoming a commodity to be exploited for profit by the medical industry.

My partner and I are suffering fertility issues, but I would never ever consider surrogacy. I feel it’s far too traumatic and selfish.

I fully understand and recognise what you're saying, and I'm not trying to claim surrogacy is fine and dandy as it is. I have already said I can see how it could be exploitative. There likely does need to be further legal guidelines and procedure in place around it.

But with adoption were talking about taking a child from a place of safety under care, so all the steps in place which you have discussed are to ensure the child will remain safe with the new family.

With surrogacy those lines are a bit blurred. We're going from potentially a birth mother who we have no idea how safe and stable her situation is, to a childless couple who are equally an unknown. To me, that's no different in terms of the child's safety than any parents having a child for the first time. Other than a quick pop in from the health visitor, there's nothing to ensure biological parents are adequate.

i don’t know what’s wrong with adoption - surrogacy shouldn’t exist where we have adoption

A rather fundamental difference with your situation is that the separation from your mother was only 3-4 weeks. Then you were reunited, and presumably she visited you in NICU?

That is not the same as a child removed from its mother at birth permanently.

I don’t feel it’s homophobic to feel that surrogacy is wrong for homosexual couples. I feel it’s wrong even for heterosexual couples, especially in this day and age where we are pretty overpopulated and have climate crisis issues.

I am not here to deny homosexual couples the right to having a family, but I am here for advocating against surrogacy for all. That is my opinion. That is free speech. I am here to advocate for the child in these circumstances.

it would be interesting to access research related to both adults and children who were born from surrogate mothers — I wonder how THEY feel about it. I am interested in their personal experiences growing up. Growing up in a world where they are not with their biological mother perhaps. I can’t imagine that. I wouldn’t want to do that to a human willingly.