Im becoming a surrogate, AMA

[HotPotatoBlessMySoul]

Just had first transfer in hopes of becoming a surrogate for a friend.
Ask away.

*too

And for those who are so concerned about pp's husband and children should she suffer a horrible birth injury, what do you think about fathers who head out on a tour of Afghanistan or wherever?

@ahenderson270

I agree with everything you say in your post above (but could not put it as eloquently)

Posters cannot have it both ways - ie on the one hand a surrogacy contract is unenforceable whilst simultaneously saying OP is being ‘forced’ into termination if the foetus has Downs etc!

Concern about surrogacy (which involves birth of a baby whose emotional well-being it’s valid to ask about, and which requires the most physically and mentally risky processes many women go through- pregnancy, labour/CS birth and the post partum time, and often leaves the woman with long term health effects) is NOT logically ‘the same’ as being anti-women’s choice on abortion.

A more logical false parallel to draw, if anyone feels the need to do so, would be to claim people who are worried about child and women’s welfare in surrogacy are in some way ‘anti-pregnancy’ or ‘anti-birth’: but of course that’s a much more easily spotted false parallel.

Abortion obviously results in no child. Logically, having an a wanted, safe, legal abortion is always going to be at a physically and mentally lower risk to the woman than having a pregnancy to term, labour and birth (or CS birth) and going through the post partum period.

Politically, women I know of with concerns about surrogacy are often the same women who campaign for women’s rights to a safe legal abortion in the UK including Northern Ireland and also in Ireland, in the US states where it’s virtually impossible to get an abortion and i. the many countries in mainland Europe, Asia and Africa where access to abortion is restricted or unavailable for affordability, safety, cultural or legal reasons.

Obviously it’s possible for anyone to be ‘against’ two things at the same time... but it’s very clear to me that asking questions about surrogacy doesn’t automatically make that person ‘anti-abortion’. And it does seem almost as if saying that might be a bit of a way to ignore the concerns raised by kind of creating a false set of assumptions around the people asking questions. Not very ‘in the spirit’ of AMA or any genuine discussion.

@FeminismandWomensFights was that aimed at me? It doesn't seem to directly engage with any of my points

Posters cannot have it both ways - ie on the one hand a surrogacy contract is unenforceable whilst simultaneously saying OP is being ‘forced’ into termination if the foetus has Downs etc!

If you look at posts above, it wouldn’t be legal to ‘force’ any woman into a termination in the UK. Moral pressure on her to do so would also be wrong. I’m not sure what the confusion is?

Fern - do show some examples of anti-abortion posts. Expressing disquiet over someone having control over a woman's pregnancy and being anti-abortion are not remotely the same thing.

If you look at posts above, it wouldn’t be legal to ‘force’ any woman into a termination in the UK

Well quite, it's her choice to have a termination or not and her reasoning is no one else's business but her's

It seems we agree on that much at least

@Clymene

This is a foetus that will be jettisoned from the womb if it becomes unwanted stock.

(Not a quote from you, I realise)

I agree with you that is emotive language. But there is a huge difference between choosing to terminate your pregnancy because you want to and because someone else wants you to.

And this is a baby made to order. Creating a baby to sell has got to be wrong, in the same way that selling a child or adult is wrong.

Reposting this brilliant post regarding the concept of 'choice':

*thecatfromjapan

We've gone completely mad over the 'magic' of the word 'choice'.

'Choice' isn't an either/or: in capitalism, it's a sliding scale. 'Choice' is shaded by compulsion and coercion more times than not - explicit, overt, implicit, hidden, fiscal, societal ...

'It was her choice' is one of the most vacuous phrases to be wheeled out in contemporary politics. It's intended as a hammer to bring thinking on a political issue to a close, to assert finality and closure forcefully.

But it's meaningless.

If you truly believe in politics - in the idea that distributions of power are available to analysis and critique, and the implicit, concomitant, belief that such distributions are neither natural nor immutable, and if you further believe in progressive politics (the belief that power distributions can and must change) - it is crazy to foreclose analysis of power distributions through an absolute, non-nuanced ascription of full (not partial, not lacking) 'choice' whenever instances of analysis of people's actions under capitalism/patriarchy/whatever arise.

It's a full-stop in thinking.

If a right-wing authoritarian demanded that we never examine the unfair conditions under which the majority of people labour and live in current society, we'd refuse.

I do not understand, for the life of me, why the Left go happily into alliance with authoritarians and libertarians and ascribe a similar force around the use of the word 'choice'.

So ... on Monday, I will get up and go to work in a job I hate.

Sure, it's a 'choice' - but a limited, circumscribed 'choice'.

It is compelled, and my agency enacted within circumscribed limits.

And, yes, it's a nuanced thing - with many others having worse and better choices.

Why have we given up the idea of nuance and things not being either/or?

It's a completely dysfunctional tendency in modern politics.*

I’ve been thinking about it all and can get on board more with the op making choices over her own body, the part I struggle with is the removal of a mother for the baby from the outset.

And this:

25BickerinBrattle

If I were any good at drawing, I’d create a sketch of a woman on her hands on her knees.

Her belly would be very pregnant and we’d see the foetus inside, and the umbilical cord would stretch from her belly to a couple holding a big wad of cash.

Her breasts would be connected to tubes leading to cans labelled Nestle, and standing behind the cans would be a man with pockets overflowing with cash.

A cock would be in her mouth and another, from behind, in her vagina, and both cocks would be attached to men holding wads of cash

Women are not domesticated animals for the purpose of breedstock or riding.

We are HUMAN. As are the babies we grow in our wombs, as are our breasts, our mouths, our vaginas, and our anuses.

It is not our labour that the marketplace depicted in my drawing is buying — we are not producing goods as makers, via human imagination wedded to the skill of human hands. It is our bodily function itself that is the marketplace, the facts of our bodies, and this is why NO MAN could supply this marketplace with what it’s buying.

Whereas in every other labour marketplace, there is not one job a man could do that somehow somewhere a woman could not.

Only the female body is commodified this way, and that commodification goes all the way back to the domestication of animals, the development of private property, and the needs of men to pass on property to male children and therefore dominate and sell women as slaves or in marriage to birth those children.

All contemporary principles of human rights recoil at the sale of human bodies.

Except, it seems, women’s bodies, and their children.

As it was, so is it now.

A new marketplace term has entered the lexicon: surrogacy farms

To all those posters claiming this is some kind of feminist pile-on and telling us to be kind: I didn’t realise it was only feminists who cared about the mental health of children nor that ignoring children’s emotional needs was ‘kind’?

I have consistently asked the OP about how much consideration she has put into the impact on her existing children’s feelings and mental health. She has not answered any questions on this. Both her and her husband have apparently had counselling but not the children. It’s as if the OP thinks she lives in a bubble where her actions are invisible to her DC. They will know that she is having a baby and they will know that the baby is given away. And OP appears unaware (disinterested?) about the emotional impact this will have on her own DC. Even the pregnancy will impact the amount of care they will be able to receive as the OP will have to rest more and visit hospitals, doctors, etc. None of this is kind to the OPs DC.
And that is all before you consider the impact on the mental health of a child who is created for the sole purpose of depriving it of its mother and siblings. How can OP be so sure that this scenario will be healthy for that child?

I repeat, this is cruel and unnecessary and I hope OP takes this opportunity to change her mind.

The process of voluntary surrogacy in the UK is not very black and white so it's not surprising there are loads of people confused about contracts etc. Surrogacy (in the UK, expenses-only paid) is a huge exercise in showing goodwill on both sides and trust and relationship building. The power dynamic is deliberately in favour of the surrogate, as it should be. She absolutely chooses whether to abort, whether to keep the baby at the end.

The intended parents must demonstrate to her satisfaction that they will act in good faith so that she feels confident taking the risk. The contract is a way for both parties to go through in a structured way all the things that might happen and get on the same page. There aren't right answers- the "team" has to tell each other what they would want so they can trust each other.

For example
how much money paid if a miscarriage or stillbirth (surro should never be out of pocket)
if the IPs want to abort if there are conditions incompatible with life or disabilities discovered in the womb. If a surrogate wouldn't want that, then the surrogacy should not proceed.
Loss of earnings etc should be compensated- again surrogate should never be left out of pocket
How would all parties handle all the worst case scenarios. Child deprived of oxygen at birth. Surrogate dies. You have to go through all this.
How the parents will talk to the child afterwards and the later role the surrogate would like to have.

No contract is enforceable but (just like you shouldn't marry anyone without discussing kids, money, old age) the process is proof of good faith.

The current Parental Order system is designed to reinforce the altruism in "altruistic surrogacy" and prevent it becoming transactional.

If you ban surrogacy entirely there are ethical questions about people's right to choose and to try to have children. If you make it a total legal arrangement with enforceable contracts that also brings huge ethical problems. The current situation is more finely judged, from an ethical and human rights perspective, than it might appear to the casual observer who has thought about it for 2 minutes on a forum.

As someone who grew up without a mother, I'm totally against surrogacy. My mum left when I was 3 and I have no memories of her being a mother to me, only of visiting her and her assuming a role of not being my mother, it was a total mind fuck!

I'm now having therapy for severe anxiety, attachment and abandonment issues which have affected every aspect of my life.

Purposely separating a child from its mother, is child cruelty in my experience.

also "depriving of siblings" - give over. How is knowing you have a half-sister living with her dad and "adoptive" mum, who love her, any different than knowing your dad left your mum and you have a load of other half-siblings somewhere else?

In practice most full surrogates in the UK (using own eggs) work hard to create links between the two families.

And gestational surrogacy- it's so clear that they aren't siblings. Some are different ethnicity, body shape, face... they tend to look like their genetic parents.

And for those who are so concerned about pp's husband and children should she suffer a horrible birth injury, what do you think about fathers who head out on a tour of Afghanistan or wherever?

@FernBritanica. If that father was going on a tour of Afghanistan as a favour so that their lovely friend didn’t have to go, rather than because it was their job and duty, I would think they also were unthinking, selfish and unkind to their DC.

@LizzieSidal that is so awful xxx I'm sorry you were abandoned.

Babies born through surrogacy don't tend to be abandoned by their main caregivers though xx

Surrogacy is being discussed on Victoria Derbyshire today.

It's already absolute bullshit.

If you ban surrogacy entirely there are ethical questions about people's right to choose and to try to have children.

Having children isn't a human right.

Babies born through surrogacy don't tend to be abandoned by their main caregivers though

Except the woman has been providing care with her body, for 9 months.

Also, my dad and then Step mum became my main caregivers. I grew up in an extremely loving home and was very well supported. It doesn't take away the problems generated from being separated from the person who gave birth to me and her pretending it didn't affect me.

Ultimately though it's still the mother's decision, if she chooses to terminate because the fathers no longer want to be involved it's no different from any other woman terminating because her relationship or situation has changed considerably.

Of course it's different! Women don't normally sign contracts (even if they are unenforceable in law) giving their partners or anyone else the right to decide the fate of the child they are carrying. Yet this woman signed a contract allowing 'the fathers' to do just that. So even if the 'contract' has no legal status, it's clear she would feel pressured to meet their demands.

And there had been some horrible bullying of a (possibly pregnant) woman, which I have no idea how you can justify.

Speaking of 'emotive language'... we hae it right there. "Bullying", an emotive term used to shut down discussion. How is the OP being 'bullied'? She actively chose to start an AMA discussion on what she must have known was a highly controversial and sensitive discussion. And since she can choose to leave the discussion at any time - as it appears she already has - she is not being 'bullied'.

If you ban surrogacy entirely there are ethical questions about people's right to choose and to try to have children

Sorry that's nonsense.

There are lots of things we can't 'choose' to do with our bodies - such as sell our organs, go around naked, take certain drugs etc. And none of these activities involve the creation of an innocent baby who will be separated from its mother at birth.

As for to 'try to have children', of course you can. But that doesn't give you the right to use another woman's body and separate a child from its mother just so you get your 'own' baby.

Most Western countries ban surrogacy entirely. Do Germany or Finland have less respect for human rights than the UK, or indeed, the US, where in certain states it's legal to buy children?