Surrogacy article in The Guardian

[LauraIAm]

Here’s the article: www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/oct/01/how-gay-parenthood-through-surrogacy-became-a-battleground

I know Mumsnet is very anti surrogacy and I think I am too though I greatly sympathise with people with fertility problems. I just wondered what people’s thoughts were about some of the points here, particularly 1) why is it not ok to use a consenting surrogate because she might suffer physical harm when it is ok for consenting people to be firefighters, and 2) adopting is volunteering not parenting. I think the answer is 1 because it’s essential to have firefighters but not for gay men to have biological children and 2 no it’s not. (Btw I am a long time user, naice ham etc, just changed my name as it was a joke about the royals.)

I read it this morning. The point about firefighters was decent but ultimately false equivalency. We don’t allow people to sell body parts (kidneys, limbs) and we shouldn’t allow them to sell children or rent bodies. Simple as.

I thought his comment about adoption being like “volunteering” was massively offensive to adoptive parents.

Overall a relatively balanced article considering it’s the Guardian.

I’m in favour of ethical surrogacy. With all freedoms and choices come risks. When women were fighting to own property and have their own money, much the same arguments were made about how we poor womenz needed to be protected from fortune hunters or from being exploited by coercive advertising such that they’d accidentally spend all their money on shoes and perfume. When women were fighting to join the armed forces, much the same arguments were trotted out again about poor womenz being exploited by senior male officers and sergeants, about the dangers of rape if a POW captured by the enemy. Even the fight for abortion the argument was made this should not be legalised because then men could exploit women for unprotected sex on demand, forcing women into abortions.

So, I think it’s every woman’s choice and she should have that freedom. We can mitigate risk and do everything we can to filter out exploitation.

And the organ analogy doesn’t work, because we do allow women to donate organs, even their uterus if they wanted to. Several women have donated their ovaries, uterus and cervix to women born without these organs so they can have a chance of becoming mothers. If you can give away the power to create life, then there is nothing wrong with being a surrogate imho.