Celebs having babies via surrogates

[Lardlizard]

Just concerns me a bit that’s all, i do believe you can love a child you adopt and I’m sure in one goes into this lightly

It just makes me worry for the women that are the surrogates

I’d like to know the cut off age for buying and selling human beings? Or is it only babies who don’t have basic human rights?

It's funny how a termination is totally a woman's choice but choosing to be a surrogate is apparently something they must have been forced into.

I think this is a valid point. As is the dodgy ethics of sperm donation. Just because it's easier for men to provide their genetic material than it is women, doesn't make it more moral and one could question the ethics of women and couples purchasing sperm where by deliberate choice a child may not have any opportunity to have a genetic father in their lives, or know anything about their biological family history, or be at increased risk of genetic sexual attraction because the chances of meeting many siblings etc when older. Some sperm donors end up with 20+ children who may or may not know each other.

We've matured as a society enough to perhaps review the ethics of all of these things again.

A surrogate mother may choose to be a surrogate for altruistic reasons. She may accept money but be genuinely happy to take on the (significant) risks associated with pregnancy and childbirth. That is, of course, something that she is capable of deciding

With the exception of poorer women doing it for money, I've seen some of the women who repeatedly agree to be surrogates for strangers 'purely for altruistic reasons' on TV or read about them and it's noticable that they thrive on the attention they get from the desperate couples, who from the moment the pregnancy becomes viable, lavish them them with 9 months of gratitude, expressions of affection, thanks, love, adoration. Take them on coffee dates, attend baby scans, medical appointments, mother and baby classes with them, constantly express what a wonderful gift they're giving, that can never be replaced, what kind, wonderful, amazing people they are, etc as well as the focus they get from doctors and other health professionals.

It's a huge way to get personal validation and attention. For the few I've seen, once the couple acquire the baby and the love bombing stops...well they want to undergo the whole process again for another couple. In the case where they have their own children they talk less enthusiastically about their own pregnancies.

It's not psychologically healthy behaviour. It's an extreme way of getting personal admiration and validation from a set of people (often professional well off people) who wouldn't normally give you the time of day and 'owe you' for life.

They need counselling and if it were any other physically exacting activity questions would be asked. Giving sex to random strangers for personal validation isn't seen as positive is it? But repeatedly getting pregnant and giving a baby is.

In a way maybe money being exchanged prevents the mentally ill from being exploited. Less likely to get loved bombed when its purely transactional.

I consider choosing to do so for a family member closer to being genuinely altruistically motivated.

I saw a photo of a gay couple (I think Tom Daley and husband) wheeling away a newborn surrogate baby with their arms in the air celebrating. It made me feel physically sick that it had just been born and was being wheeled away from its mother. Just my gut reaction.

I know a surrogate in this country who is getting about £12k "expenses". She is over the moon as this is a fortune to her... it seems like a really small amount to me and my family is not high earning... She would never get this much money together through her every day life as she is low paid.

*Only being separated

Have you any idea of the long term trauma that it can cause throughout a persons life, even though they cannot remember the cause?*

No, i don't have any experience of this. I wonder though whether the separation and later identity questioning that some adopted people go through would be eased by being with your genetic parents from birth.

It's not psychologically healthy behaviour. It's an extreme way of getting personal admiration and validation from a set of people (often professional well off people) who wouldn't normally give you the time of day and 'owe you' for life

I completely agree with this. Catelynn and Tyler from Teen Mom spring to mind. Adoption rather surrogacy. The early connection with a wealthy mature couple and the early love bombing made me feel ill. The whole North American set up seems like rich people buying poor peoples babies - with the money going to the agency and the poor people being lauded as selfless - for a time.

I saw a photo of a gay couple (I think Tom Daley and husband) wheeling away a newborn surrogate baby with their arms in the air celebrating. It made me feel physically sick that it had just been born and was being wheeled away from its mother. Just my gut reaction.

That was one of Westlife.

But yes, I had exactly the same reaction. I found it quite sickening.

Do you not see how offensive this thread is?

Just as offensive as targeting young women at universities to inject themselves with loads of synthetic hormones to flog their genetic material to pay their bills. Or pay someone hundreds of thousands to rent their bodies out.

I am not sure how much money she made out of it-she earns about $100,000 a year already.

Parts of California are easily, if not more, expensive to live in than London. It's an expensive state to live in vis a vis taxes, insurance rates, utilities and property prices. You can easily need $1m to buy a decent house in many places there. Ever seen that show 'Flip or Flop'? You'd be staggered by how much they sell tiny bungalows with next to no storage in Orange Country for $600k+. Renting out your uterus could be how you buy a house.

@CatherineOfAragonsPrayerBook you've taken that comment completely out of context. If you read my whole comment together it's probably quite clear that I am anti-surrogacy in almost all (if not all) cases. When I was talking about altruistic reasons, I was thinking more along the lines of family members/close friends. The point I was attempting to make, probably very badly, was that even if the meaningful free choice of the surrogate mother could be guaranteed, I still think that engaging the services of a surrogate is appalling.

But yes, I had exactly the same reaction. I found it quite sickening.

We are all meant to celebrate with them and feel joy for the "new parents" and their newly purchased baby - the media covers the acquisition of these babies unquestionly & celebrates them.

As long as this process is widely celbrated & seen as socially acceptable, then gay couples/celbrities will continue to buy babies, pay women to be their incubators & deprive the child of their human rights (surely right to know your mother is covered under human rights to family life?) - and really who can blame them? I'd say most of them think they are doing a wonderful thing and ALL will talk of how well the surrogate was provided for and how willing she was to be a surrogate etc.

The focus for change needs to be on changing societal attitudes to make people THINK and QUESTION & make it socially unacceptable to buy babies & exploit women in this way.

Other women, poor women, usually put their lives in danger to carry other people babies

I doubt many surrogates are ever in physical danger. Moral rights and wrongs aside, if a person is wealthy enough to pay a surrogate I imagine that surrogate gets the same level of ante natal care that you or I would expect, if not better.

These days, unless you are incredibly unlucky, giving birth is not an especially dangerous process. I don’t see why they should necessarily consider danger/risk in making the decision to be a surrogate any more than any of us do when we decide to have a baby.

I disagree @Allideasandnoaction

It depends how you define “physical danger”. Although giving birth doesn’t carry much risk of death, it does carry the significant risk of lifelong physical damage. You’re very unlikely to find women totally unscathed by pregnancy and birth, be it minor cosmetic things like stretch marks, to abdominal muscle damage, pelvic floor damage (tears, prolapses, incontinence) to chronic pain conditions brought on by SPD.

allideas

I agree death is thankfully rare among women with access to ante natal care, but the risk to a woman’s health such as incontinence, prolapse, nerve damage etc is sadly anything but rare.

Some people have to use a surrogate to have a child in any scenario. Acting as if anyone who uses a surrogate is despicable and exploiting others is actually really unfair.

Nobody has to use a surrogate.

No, they could choose not to have a child.

As in my previous post, in order to have biological child, some people have to use a surrogate ...

Again, no one HAS to use a surrogate. They can choose not to exploit the misguided goodwill of a woman (or rent a woman).

I think a lot of it is down to this Hollywood expectation to have this amazing body and be a sex symbol and motherhood isn’t part of that, so people like Cameron Diaz are waiting until the ‘peak’ of their sexy leading lady days are over at 47-50 yrs old and then wanting kids but of course it’s much harder to do naturally...

I do think it’s changing though. Younger celebs are having babies whichbthey dress in cute outfits, photograph in exotic places and which are just adding to theIr image and ‘Insta appeal’

Some people have to use a surrogate to have a child in any scenario. Acting as if anyone who uses a surrogate is despicable and exploiting others is actually really unfair.

The thing is, even in 2020 in the richest nations on Earth, it is still risky to go through pregnancy and childbirth. There is a very real possibility that a woman will experience health issues, birth injuries or worse. Some of these things can be life threatening, or the effects can last a lifetime. Anybody using a surrogate is allowing another woman to risk her health in this way in order to produce a biological child for them. Whether or not the surrogate feels genuinely happy to provide that service (and I'm not sure how the biological parent/s can guarantee that to be the case) there is no way to remove those risks. The biological parents are still allowing that risk to be taken by another person, for their gain. I don't think it's difficult to understand why some people find this abhorrent.

Well tatty some people need a kidney transplant to stay alive and yet it isn't legal to buy kidneys, despite the prospect of death being somewhat more distressing than infertility. Quite rightly we recognise the risk of exploitation.

And on the other side of the problem, a bought kidney doesn't grow up into an adult human with all the issues that come with being separated from their birth mother.

Dsd's mother can't, rather than won't parent. Regardless of the fact that I'm her mother in the true meaning of the word, and dsd coping brilliantly with everything life has thrown at her, that broken relationship has caused complex issues and discussions for her.

I can't imagine how she'd have felt if at any point we'd had to explain we'd paid her mother and deliberately severed their relationship.
'Yes darling, I didn't want to destroy my figure/ wouldn't love you as my child unless you were conceived for my benefit/ my need for a child is more important than your relationship with your mother' Really not explanations any person with a scrap of humanity could ever offer to the child/ adult that wants reassurance and answers.

It's no better than the forced adoptions of dc from unmarried mums, we've just added gay males to the list of excuses. And at least with the forced adoptions the adoptive parents themselves hadn't engineered the pregnancy.

Hmm some interesting points raised here.

I'm not sure how I feel about the argument that its damaging for the child to sever the relationship with the surrogate though. I can 100% see how it could be a risk to the woman and I need to do some more thinking about that but I'm not sure I understand how a surrogate handing over a child to its biological parents its harmful to the child?

I think part of the problem is assuming that the surrogate isn’t biologically related to the baby. I would imagine that the surrogate mother is the baby’s biological mother more often than not.

It’s easier to think of surrogacy as happiness and rainbows as long as the surrogate isn’t handing own her own baby, isn’t it?

And if the surrogate mother isn’t the baby’s biological mother, that means that the parents have deliberately chosen that: to remove the surrogate mother’s “claim” to the baby. To make the whole transaction safer for the parents (for want of a better word). It must be profoundly confusing for the child to know that their biological mother didn’t birth them (her role ended at the point of egg retrieval) and the woman who birthed them was merely a vessel of no blood relation to them. I find it all so calculated and clinical.

Tatty you only need to do very superficial research into adult adopted dc to understand. Dc adopted at birth and raised by loving adoptive parents rarely seem to be of the opinion it was harmless.

I am 100% against surrogacy.

I used to think it was fine, so long as all parties were in agreement.

I do not think that now, for the same reasons so many people have eloquently expressed on this thread.

As for KK would have put her life in danger if she tried to have another baby herself - she already had two children. Was there any reason to exploit another woman and use her as a broodmare to have another child?

I also used to think that I could be a surrogate once I'd had my own children. I'm not a good pregnant woman but my babies are born very healthy. I don't think I could do that now. Spend 9 months growing a life in my womb only to hand it over? I don't think I could. I would only consider it for my sister.

@GrumpyHoonMain are you seriously saying that in America, land of a week's worth of annual leave, less than $3 minimum wage for service staff, no legal requirement for maternity leave, that Surrogacy is a proper business in many countries and comes with employee benefits????