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

It’s like some fantasy version of surrogacy, where the birth mother has full agency over decisions, has all the rights, and the impact on the baby doesn’t matter because the mother is choosing not to want the baby.

This is the exact opposite of 99.99% of surrogacy arrangements that occur.

So on the traumatic separation, there is obviously a difference between a child being forcibly removed from a mother who does not wish her to be taken away and is incredibly distressed as a result in terms of the trauma and stress involved for both the mother and the baby; and a baby being removed from a mother who is calm and voluntarily choosing to relinquish parental responsibility, done in a managed way.

If a child is born and immediately removed from the mother, there is no difference. If the mother is distressed and doesn't want the baby to be taken, the baby is not aware if this if it is immediately taken away.

Fundamentally surrogacy is an exercise in making decisions around one's own fertility. A woman gets to decide whether she wishes to be impregnated or not, a man decides if he wishes to impregnate a woman or not, and an egg donor decides if she wishes to be an egg donor or not. These are all decisions where the starting point should favour liberty over one's body. It is on those arguing to interfere with that autonomy that need to demonstrate that there is a justification for such a state interference in personal freedom over our own bodies.

I notice that there is no consideration of the child in any of this talk of liberty and freedom. So the child is just a by-product of people exercising their freedoms. Interesting.

All of this is a fantasy constructed to say that humans are perfectly independent except for contractural relationships. I suppose it should not be a surprise this ideology comes from the US, a country which believes the relations of the citizens to each other and the government and the law are a kind of abstract contractual arrangement.

In reality motherhood and fatherhood are fundamentally material biological relations that exist whether or not the people involved "agree". The state doesn't impose parenthood on anyway, any more than they impose gravity on anyone.

And most importantly in this context, the relation of the infant to the birth mother isn't some kind of abstract relation based on consent, it's a material reality based on flesh and chemistry; the mother infant dyad and fourth trimester are real and important things as anyone who has had a child knows.

"consent" has fuck all to do with it and trying to create a society where that is all there is to such important human relationships is morally reprehensible.

I really hope people who believe this shit are not condemning fathers who don't bother to pay for or be involved with their offspring.

So if it’s about “liberty over one’s body”
What’s the difference between selling babies and eggs and selling organs?

Both have health risks, both are non-renewable resources, even though livers regenerate you can’t sell part of yours.

So on the traumatic separation, there is obviously a difference between a child being forcibly removed from a mother who does not wish her to be taken away and is incredibly distressed as a result in terms of the trauma and stress involved for both the mother and the baby; and a baby being removed from a mother who is calm and voluntarily choosing to relinquish parental responsibility, done in a managed way.

On bonding moments - I'm referring to bonding moments with the people who will be their parents on a long term basis. This was not possible for cases of forced adoption, it is with surrogacy.

I also don't agree with your framing.

Fundamentally surrogacy is an exercise in making decisions around one's own fertility. A woman gets to decide whether she wishes to be impregnated or not, a man decides if he wishes to impregnate a woman or not, and an egg donor decides if she wishes to be an egg donor or not. These are all decisions where the starting point should favour liberty over one's body. It is on those arguing to interfere with that autonomy that need to demonstrate that there is a justification for such a state interference in personal freedom over our own bodies.

So you think the importance of the mother to the baby’s welfare ceases to exist if she doesn’t want to consider herself important?

The reason it should end as soon as the baby is born is because that is what the birth mother wants.

I'm sure I've read of cases where the mother has changed her mind after giving birth. Shouldn't she be given a short period at least to decide if that's still what she wants after the child is born? Taking the child off her immediately deprives her of that choice.

The actual numbers aren't the point really.

The point is that the state cannot and should not foist parenthood on someone who doesn't want it.

a traumatic separation at birth

You recognise this in the case of a woman forced to give up her child for adoption, but not in the case of a child taken from the woman who has given birth to them and handed over to strangers. Can you explain how these scenarios are different? Why is one traumatic and not the other? Surely they are the same thing.

Third, as a newborn the woman obviously did not experience immediate warm caregiving from a permanent caregiver. She spent ten days with her birth mother who knew she would be given up, was placed on the opposite side of the room etc. Surrogacy does not entail depriving a child of bonding moments in the minutes and hours and days after birth.

If you read some of the other testimonies from the mothers and children who were victims of this cruel practice, you'll see that their experiences weren't all identical. Some mothers had their babies taken away immediately after birth, others spent a few weeks with them, so they bonded with their natural mother. Two very different experiences described here.

committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/9954/html/

And a lot more here.

The violation of Family Life: Adoption of Children of Unmarried Women 1949–1976

When you talk about 'bonding moments' is that with the mother who has given birth or the purchasers?

But it is quite a leap to go from that position to thinking surrogacy should be banned because of its impact on the welfare of children.

Surrogacy is a relatively new practice. It really only started on a large scale after forced adoptions were stopped and IVF became available. What were (are) the arguments for its introduction on a large scale? What are the arguments for creating children with the intent of taking them away from their mother at birth? By talking about 'banning' you're suggesting that this is a normal, conventional practice, and there should be a good reason for stopping it. I would suggest that the reverse is true, that there should be a good reason for allowing it to happen.

I'm not avoiding the issue at all. You asked me who I thought was more important to a baby's welfare and I explained to you: the parents who actually raise a child day in day out are.

I've also answered your question.

The reason it should end as soon as the baby is born is because that is what the birth mother wants. And we do not, and should not, compel parental responsibility in those who want to relinquish it.

That is a matter of personal freedom for adults - compelling someone to be a parent even when they do not wish to be is unconscionable. But it is also a matter of child welfare - a child is almost never better off being raised by a parent who does not want to be a parent.

Also surrogate born children are related to their intended parents, they know where they come from. They're not just whisked off and given to strangers like in forced adoption. It is completely different.

Neither of these two things are necessarily true.

Babies have been born via surrogacy from donor eggs and donor sperm.

And absolutely the babies are moved into the room of the intended parents away from the birth mother, often within hours. I have seen it happen. Then there was the infamous video of the Irish male couple wheeling their baby away. Someone will have the link I’m sure.

Ok you’re avoiding the issue so I’ll ask it in a different way. If you think the person who gave birth to the baby is the baby’s mother, why do you think that relationship should end as soon as the baby is born?

There is a big difference between one person and 22 people, and there is also a big difference in a single quote from that one persona and a 20 year long study conducted by professionals.

@PlanetJanette has done a great job of describing the difference between forced adoption and surrogacy in terms of the immediate after birth experience of a child. Also surrogate born children are related to their intended parents, they know where they come from. They're not just whisked off and given to strangers like in forced adoption. It is completely different.

What element of their welfare? Their physical safety? Their health? Emotional wellbeing? Progress into emotionally stable adulthood?

In short, I think the parents who matter most to any child will first and foremost be the parents who are raising them day in, day out. They are the ones who build a sense of self-esteem, of identity, of independence as a child grows. They are the ones who shape values. They are the ones a child looks to to know they are secure and can therefore explore the world.

Biological parents - including a gestational mother, but also an egg donor - are also of course important to a child's story and therefore their welfare. Openness about their story, they origin and their identity is pretty important as part of that.

There are some things that a biological mother can do that are beneficial for a baby's health, like early breastfeeding. But that is obviously not a compulsory part of motherhood and lack of that early breastfeeding is not some safeguarding fail.

A quick look at that shows a number of differences.

The woman giving evidence talks a lot about lack of genetic connection to her parents - not looking, acting etc like her family. But of course that genetic link does exist in cases of surrogacy.

Second, the woman's experience was brought about by forced adoption. Heinous in its own right, but also likely to have meant both a traumatic and stressful pregnancy, and a traumatic separation at birth. Both of which will have interfered with the woman's development in utero and immediately after birth.

Third, as a newborn the woman obviously did not experience immediate warm caregiving from a permanent caregiver. She spent ten days with her birth mother who knew she would be given up, was placed on the opposite side of the room etc. Surrogacy does not entail depriving a child of bonding moments in the minutes and hours and days after birth.

There are just so many differences here.

But yes, there are some issues that are still relevant. The approach to life story work, openness about adoption and circumstances etc has changed completely. I agree that children conceived through surrogacy should also have a supportive environment to explore their origins, their background and their identity.

But it is quite a leap to go from that position to thinking surrogacy should be banned because of its impact on the welfare of children.

these things don't happen right at birth most of the time

This research says that being adopted at birth doesn’t mean better outcomes for the kids.

The emotional state of the parent is not necessarily relevant to the child’s feeling of rejection or separation. There is no substantial difference between surrogacy and adoption from the view of the child.

From the study below:
Researchers reported that adopted individuals are overrepresented in mental health settings and manifest higher levels of adjustment problems compared to their non-adopted peers (Askeland, et al., 2017; Holmgren, et al., 2020; Juffer & van IJzendoorn, 2005). In the past, most researchers attributed greater developmental and mental health risks for adopted individuals primarily to the vulnerabilities and adversities they experienced prior to adoption (e.g., genetics, prenatal complications, neglect, abuse, multiple foster care placements, orphanage life). More recently, the role of post-adoption family-based experiences and other contextual factors, as well as reports on the lived experiences of being adopted by adolescents and adults, have added to our understanding of the connection between adoption and psychological adjustment, including, for some, the experience of adoption as an emotional trauma.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8926933/

This is promoted as the only long term study into the well being of surrogate children but it has a tiny sample sizes and focuses on how the children get on with the parents, not on how they are doing emotionally. It also hasn't reached adulthood yet. It is hardly convincing. And this is the best they have?!!

That barely happens though, at least not in the UK. Where women have the resources to parent and there is no stigma to being a single parent, they keep their babies - the number of children voluntarily relinquished here is tiny and usually from women from cultures where it is not acceptable to have a child outside marriage.

So surrogacy is different. And it is partly the lack of newborn babies to adopt here that drives people to use surrogacy.

The sample size was 22 surrogate families. That's not far off what you were blithely dismissing as anecdote up thread.

There are several decades worth of research on thousands of children removed from their birth mothers and placed with a loving family at or soon after birth, in old style adoption, and the effect that had on those children.

And yet the twenty year long research on donor conceived and surrogacy born children I linked up thread, which is not an imagined comparison between surrogacy and adoption, it is an actual study performed on actual surrogate children did not find this to be the case. Their psychological wellbeing was not differentiable from naturally conceived/traditionally born people.

The current consultation wants to make it that the mother has no PR from the birth and if she changes her mind she has go to court and apply for a parental order within 6 weeks. You can give your opinions here:

https://surrogacyconcern.uk/take-action-email-the-parliamentary-office-for-science-and-technology-post-and-contribute-to-their-consultation-on-surrogacy-reform-by-5th-october-2025/

Edited to add the law commission guidance which includes this recommendation: "We recommend reform to parental orders, include allowing the court to make a parental order where the surrogate does not consent"

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

Ok, important for the welfare of the baby. You say the person who gives birth to the baby is its mother. You acknowledge that the baby is removed from its mother. Where do you place that woman in terms of importance, in relation to the other people you call the baby’s mother, for the welfare of the baby?

@TheodoreisntBeth i think about that analogy a lot.

There are some clear differences though - most specifically the child will have a genetic connection to one of their parents. The sense of not knowing where someone comes from is lessened if someone does have a parent they are biologically related to one of their parents.

But in general I agree that children should know about and learn about their background and parentage. I actually disagree about the depictions of gay couples here - in my experience they are far more likely to and comfortable with discussing their child’s mother precisely because the pretence of the child being the biological child of them both does not exist and does not need to be upheld. Straight couples often have a desire to present the appearance of being a ‘normal’ family. Gay parents don’t have that option so it is baked in that part of parenting as a gay parent is that you need to engage with your child about how you came to be their parent. It’s not really optional.