The first step towards an international instrument to abolish surrogacy.

Surprised to find myself a European conservative but here we are.

A family member was extolling how marvellous it was her friend met a gay couple with a baby from a surrogate in Columbia at a wedding recently. I found it appalling not cause for celebration.

But is it the side effects that make something exploitative, or the act itself?

I think in the context of how bad maternity care is in the UK right now I'm very against anything that dismisses what women go through to carry and birth babies. It should be respected as the serious business it is.

Babies deserve not to be sold, whether that is for cold hard cash or for the warm feels and ‘expenses’ of the altruistic surrogate. Each baby is a person who deserves to know their mother, not to know that their genetic material was ‘donated’ like a bag of blood.

I find it terrifying that there are women out there who can carry a baby and disassociate so much that they can hand it over to someone else after birth, their natural instinct should be to protect it, and after the dreadful case in the news recently of the adopters who abused and murdered the poor baby they’d adopted I’d hope potential surrogates will give a second thought to what may happen to the child they sell.

It is very sad that some people are infertile, but just because we can do something doesn’t mean that we should.

https://brilliantbeginnings.co.uk/how-much-can-a-uk-surrogate-get-paid/

Expenses for altruistic surrogates are not clear cut in the UK and if a woman on a low income could make an extra £15,000 on average I imagine it may sway them.

There's so much more to it than the birth.
The woman grows and nourishes the baby, theres microchimerism, the baby is exposed to the same hormones if she's stressed, anxious, excited... It knows her heartbeat and voice, body temperature. Her body will produce milk ready for the baby. There's such a lot to pregnancy it really undermines it to just behave as though the woman's body is just a storage container, which is what a lot of surrogacy agencies like to pretend.

I am not saying carrying and birthing a child is the only way to become a mother.

(As a side note, if the egg is not the surrogate's the risk to them is increased further.)

I would say surrogacy is exploitative for women because of the physical effects of pregnancy on a woman to actually grow a baby. Or are we talking about egg donors vs sperms donors?

You are certified childish.

I really don't give a flying fuck whether you think I have an argument.

I got involved to demonstrate why the argument you were making was without merit.

I succeeded.

My work here is done.

So, you don’t. Or you’d make it.

I do, but I'm not wasting it on you.

So you don’t actually have any sort of constructive argument?

The armed forces use evidence based - scientific - methods to determine suitability for roles based on age.

I haven't answered your question because it's daft bordering on childish and in the same vein as claiming a 36 year old man = young sperm donor because average life expectancy is 80.

Are the armed forces the gold standard for age?

I don’t see your answer to my question- why is it exploitative when it’s women, but not when it’s men?

Your argument is without merit.

In the grand scheme of sperm donation 36 is not young. It's in the upper half of the range.

In the grand scheme of men in general 36 is not young. A 36 year old man would be too old for many roles in the armed forces.

Malthus was wrong for the reasons you state but not because of them. He was living at the crux of the agrarian and industrial revolutions in Britain but did not understand the potential for improvement in human lives caused by the industrial revolution. The agrarian revolution had already increased crop yields and freed up labour (people) to work in the new factories where conditions (although appalling in hindsight) were much better than those working in agriculture or as e.g. independent weavers, when there was no end to labour i.e. an independent weaver and his family would work 7 days a week and as long as the light lasted (18 hours in summer) as would agricultural workers. Factories ran shifts and the hours of work were set - most factory workers had Sunday (or part of it) off.
Malthus was blinded by exponential mathematics in population and assumed that food production was not exponential, without seeing what was around him: improving agriculture and a shift from the majority working at subsistence level to a future of many working above that level.
We also do not see the implications of advances and changes now happening (some of which are invidious to us, as it happens) and wring our hands at 'over population' as Malthus did.
Those who believe Malthus' mathematics should beware. Lowering the birth rate (as has happened in advanced Western societies and is happening as others become more prosperous - another thing that did not impinge on Malthus' maths) means lowering the productive base of our societies. So the old and the ill must work longer because we will not have a wide base of the young and able to support us. A grim prospect which will cause the collapse of our civilization.
And yes, surrogacy is evil, it is one of the things that can be called modern slavery (no different from the old slavery afaik) with both mothers and children bought and sold.

You said they’re not young. I would argue, in the grand scheme of things, they are.

Are you daft? What does life expectancy have to do with this?

You can only donate sperm until you are 45.

With a life expectancy of 80 I’d say it’s fairly young!

why is it exploitation when it’s women, but not men?

You have no idea what you're talking about.

The average age of a sperm donor is 36 in the UK. That is not young.

I am aware. I don't approve seeing 'altruistic' surrogacy as an open door to allow in the exploitative buy a baby sort on spurious altruistic grounds. This is child cruelty above all else that it is i.e. human trafficking (slavery). Their is no right to have children.

Able to, but unwilling.

Unable to have a baby then

Not the altruistic ones, no. You can join an agency to be a surrogate in the Uk. As you can't do paid work usually someone is supporting them whilst pregnant. As they have always had babies themselves, they probably have a partner supporting them.

How is it not?

Paying often hard up young men to donate their genetic material is exploitative.

Why not?