Why is the Guardian promoting surrogacy?

From that older Guardian article linked by @Arran2024 :

What happens when the right to parenthood involves someone else’s body?

Isn't the obvious answer that then you do not have that right?

It seems to me that their entitlement is off the scale.

Happily there don’t seem to have been any further articles on the topic from the guardian, bar a letter making an excellent case to stop surrogacy now

It’s never going to happen because .. well we all know why. The Guardian writes for the professional classes so it’s boosting the profile of surrogacy in potential “baby commissioners”.

Agree with another poster that when Penny the graduate accountant from Surrey gives birth to a baby with the intention of handing it over to Maria who has no job and lives in a favela in Rio then I’ll change my mind on how surrogacy exploits the poorest women (but I won’t hold my breath).

I also wondered why there was a flurry of articles on the subject in the Graun. Couldn’t bring myself to read them them though. The Graun rages me.

Because middle/upper class couples need babies. And the Guardian, despite its protestations, is fairly elitist.

Yes all of this. Additionally adopted children get priority when schools are oversubscribed.

Contrast this with the surrogate child whose story, as far as it is told, is couched in euphemism; growing up with the same trauma but no words to express it, no story to make sense of it, no adults committed to helping them heal.

Thanks for explaining this so well.

The Primal Wound by Nancy Verrier looked at exactly this

And in terms of prostitution - they believe in the man's right to have sex.

The surrogacy industry ignores all the experience of the adoption world. In adoption, the trauma to the child of being removed from birth mum and everything the child has known is wellcaccepted. So are identity issues. Adopters are expected to honour the child's background and often have some form of obgoing contact with birth family. In England there is a fund specifically for the specialist therapy required - there is an understanding that many therapists don't properly get the issues and can make matters worse.

Yet surrogacy is happening and being promoted by a national newspaper as if the baby is a component, an ingredient even, in creating a happy family.

Adoption practice centres the child. Surrogacy put the child last after everyone else has got what they want.

Agree and thank you for raising this point. I imagine that being removed from your mother at birth would be high on the list of Adverse Childhood Experiences that cause longterm emotional trauma.

Darkly cynical/ dystopian but perhaps those professional bodies you mention want to ensure a steady stream of clients for the next few decades.

This article is from a few years ago and features US gay men, but it's an interesting read, as it explains their demands and expectations to be given access to whatever it takes for them to become biological parents.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/oct/01/how-gay-parenthood-through-surrogacy-became-a-battleground

Perhaps the Guardian feels that it ties into gay rights as it is a way for same sex couples to ‘acquire’ a child.
They don’t care about the babies rights, as they don’t when a man ‘breastfeed’s’ a child, and they don’t care about women’s rights as they don’t when a male rapist is put into a female prison.

It will be interesting to see how it pans out for these children. One would hope they’re much wanted, and will be loved by the people who raise them, but it will be curious to see how they compare to the children who were the adoptees in the cohort of forced adoptions .

The Morning Star article is good, but even that doesn't spell out the fact that commissioning a baby to be born and then removed from its mother is essentially deliberately commissioning an act of child abuse.

I find it fascinating / terrifying how little is still understood by the wider public about trauma.

Organisations such as BACP and UKCP ought to be at the forefront of the drive to abolish all surrogacy. Because they KNOW about trauma and abuse. They regulate the counsellors and therapists whose very first questions will be about you or your child's experience of pregnancy, birth and infancy.

I feel like the silence of the organisations who know but keep quiet (for fuck knows what vested interests) is a real factor behind general ignorance. Too many people are swayed by the altruism angle, who would be horrified if they understood more about infancy and trauma.

A balanced piece of journalism could easily report on the phenomenon of buying babies without promoting it.

Both the Guardian and the BBC are completely off their organisational trolleys, especially the Guardian; the whole tone of these articles reek of consumerism and entitlement. That said, it seems to be the mindset of the individuals featured in the articles. Chicken or egg?

Of course.

The ultimate fantasy for some very sick people is owning/buying another human being.

It's been legitimised.

While slavery is often condemned by the very same people pushing surrogacy.

Fuck.

First comment nails it.

Also, they rely on the US audience for their funding. I expect they have been bought by the commercial baby trade.

Rhymes with Tittle Mowin' Phones?

Interesting to read the different opinions on what The Guardian or position is. Considering TRAs call it a “transphobic rag” for having the temerity to publish articles by people like Susanna Rustin and Hannah Barnes, are they doing a good job or a bad job because nobody seems happy?

Cash Cow was a huge disappointment. Alev Scott came to the conclusion, after all her research and selling her own breastmilk, that women should be able to charge for their services and should be able to be paid more.

From selling breastmilk, eggs and babies it was clear that women are a resource and as long as the price is right it’s all A OK.

If this is not met with balance from an alternative view then the BBC or The Guardian (3 pro surrogacy articles since Sunday), are effectively endorsing it.

With a new PM and law reform on the table they support parental rights to the buyers, which means mothers won’t actually be mother under the law, at birth.

The bbc ran a very positive surrogacy news item today on R4