‘We need to talk about how difficult it is’: why one couple are pinning surrogacy hopes on Mexico

Boo hoo can’t use women’s bodies, boo hoo.

I know someone who was a surrogate twice and she definitely had some form of mental illness. One was someone she knew but the second (and unsuccessful third time) was with strangers on Facebook against her husbands wishes. Broke up her marriage, I can’t imagine the effect on her daughters.

I can't even get my head around that as being acceptable.

Can you imagine, your sister agrees to carry a baby for you and then dies in childbirth or suffers a serious birth injury? You'd never forgive yourself, your family would likely never forgive you.

Or you divorce or have some other relationship issue / your partner turns out to be an awful human being, and your sister feels like your child - who may be hers biologically - would have been better off with her? It would just cause so much resentment and destroy your family relationships. There's so much that could go wrong.

I remember during covid when couples were unable to get flights or enter countries to collect their purchase baby. The babies were all lined up in cots being cared for in "dormitory" style nurseries. Of course the emphasis was on how distressing it was for the commissioning parents, with not a mention that the babies were being cared for in the most basic way possible with no primary sole carer to hug/love/nurture them.

On another thread, ClimbEveryStair wrote:
Today 11:34
I was idling wondering why commercial surrogacy is allowed in so many countries whereas commercial selling of organs such as kidney/piece of liver is not but of course the answer is it’s only women’s health that is negatively impacted by surrogacy.

It expresses what I was never able to clarify in my head. Altruistic surrogacy might be considered and regulated like altruistic organ donation (even stricter in my opinion, as the best interest of the baby is central, while we don't need to consider the best interest of a liver or kidney).

Yes, it was so pitiful and dreadful to see rows of tiny babies in baskets, all unclaimed.

Whatever the age or sex of the people doing it, ‘commissioned children’ is a phrase which simply shouldn’t exist.

Yes. Nobody came to collect the babies. Absolutely repulsive to treat a baby like an item.

You can’t conceive naturally/ you’re gay/ you’re single and desperate for a baby/whatever: tough shit. Adopt. Foster. Plenty of unwanted children in the world.

That sounds very positive @MyrtleLion

That does sound better than surrogacy.

That has not been the case with my friend. Their kids live with their mums and see their dads on weekends and holidays. Very normal stuff.

That’s good as long as the Dads don’t start wanting to control everything and make the children have split up lives.

Trouble is, one of them is the biological father and the courts are expected to prioritise genetic connections when deciding who should bring up a child. And the child will have been living with the genetic dad and his partner for some time before it goes to court. And then there is the issue that baby would go into care if not allowed to stay with the birth dad. Going to live with complete strangers is not ideal either, then off to another set of complete strangers for adoption.

The courts won't do it. They sometimes get cross about surrigacy arrangements - there have been a couple of cases where people in their 70s have commissioned children for example and the situation was clearly ridiculous, but still the child was alloqed to stay put because of the alternatives.

A gay friend of mine and his husband have had three children with two lesbian couples. Their children are parented by three couples in the same way that divorced parents and blended families work.

I don’t understand why more gay couples don’t do this, rather than use a surrogate. The babies stayed with their mothers from birth, and they have had great relationships with their dads. I think the youngest is now 18 and it has really worked.

It's interesting that so much reporting and discussion about surrogacy is about gay men.

In Ireland, the discourse around surrogacy is almost entirely around the tragedy of infertility for heterosexual couples, how awful it is not to be able to have their own family, how not being able to have a baby is so indescribably painful for a woman that anybody who has not experienced it isn't in a position to criticise...

'Cancer, cystic fibrosis, congenital heart disease, miscarriages and failed IVF are among the reasons Irish couples turn to surrogacy as a last resort.'
Legal rights call for children born through surrogacy

I disagree with surrogacy, with the possible exception of altruistic close relative surrogacy, whether the parents are gay or straight - the same principle applies.

1000%

The whole surrogacy business is awful- profit before people. It won't stop though, will it? Too much money involved.
Exploitation of women and those guys suing the surrogate for not aborting the baby is absolutely abhorrent! A cleft palate for goodness sake.
But then they 'commisioning parents' usually put themselves first.
Me me me as @ScrollingLeaves put it.

One of my girlfriends and her husband have just gone off to mexico to get a surrogate. I feel so disgusted by their decision I'm seriously thinking about just deleting her number from my phone.

Why do people think they are entitled to a baby? None of us are.

Men who rent women's bodies and buy babies should have those babies removed from their custody when they bring their purchase home on the grounds that no one who really thought it was ok to do this can be fit to parent.

I'm sure they assume any objections to their paying a slave trader professional agency to arrange the breeding of a woman for them are entirely hate based and stem from homophobia of course.

The same story from another source.
cbn.com/news/us/same-sex-couple-sues-surrogate-refusing-abort-baby-possible-minor-birth-defect

I have just looked up that case you mentioned of the surrogate baby with a cleft palate.

The men involved are utterly abhorrent. Not only did they try to get the mother to abort the baby, they are suing this poor surrogate mother for 600,000 Canadian dollars effectively for refusing to do so. This is evil entitlement and an example of malevolent male power being harnessed to feed it.

spuc.org.uk/gay-couple-in-canada-sue-surrogate-for-refusing-to-abort-baby-with-cleft-lip/

And the usual talk about how surrogates are unselfish altruistic angels blah blah blah!

It’s very funny how it is always desperately poor women from desperately poor countries who are the only ones who care so much about the plight of rich western gay men being childless that they are willing to put their emotional and physical health on the line so that perfect couples can have a perfect baby ( did anyone else read the awful story the other week about a “commissioning” couple demanding the surrogate had an abortion at 22 weeks because the baby had a small cleft palate? She didn’t.)

Where, I ask myself, are all the financially secure unselfish altruistic angels from the developed world who are happy to let someone use their womb and body to grow a baby for nine months for these needy men after their contribution to the event is a five minute wank into a plastic pot?

Surely being an unselfish altruistic angel surrogate doesn’t depend on the balance of your bank account, wouldn’t you think being an unselfish altruistic walking womb angel is just something many women are happy to do? Doesn’t seem to be. Like I said, funny that.

I think this is the ultimate in entitlement.

Babies deserve a father and a mother who are likely (though not guaranteed) to support them well into adulthood.

Quite clearly being homosexual means you can’t necessarily have a family in the conventional sense, so to then complain that it is difficult is ridiculous.

Having two old dads is not what nature intended for children, that’s why it’s hard. The article is ill-timed given Baby Preston although of course not all gay men are like his dads were.

Babies are not a commodity that you pay for and neither are women. That’s why we have strict rules surrounding surrogacy. To then divert to poor, less well regulated countries who protect their women less well, and complain that this is not straightforward is just wrong.

I'm not even sure about that myself.

However, there is clearly a hierarchy and this is clearly much worse and needs tackling first, totally agree.

“For me, that answer was really refreshing. I’m like, OK, perfect. We’re all in this together. Everyone is getting what they need. There’s no murkiness.”

Me
Me Me Me

’Everyone’ - except the baby.

It is very murky really.