Another celebrity uses a surrogate

[EachandEveryone]

Michelle Williams who I love. Already birthed three babies. Just why? https://people.com/michelle-williams-thanks-surrogate-for-miracle-baby-girl-after-welcoming-fourth-child-11793338

Just because someone technically consented to renting out their womb doesn't make it right. There is a reason it's illegal in some countries

It’s interesting that prostitution laws in the UK- to the best of my knowledge…

it’s illegal to rent someone’s body. It is not illegal to sell your own. presumably because as with surrogacy, selling your body is not a completely free choice. Whereas renting one is.

Wow you really are a bunch of bitches... early menopause or pcso or maybe miscarriages she chose to keep private. Whatever her reasons she is entitled to her privacy and a choice. The surrogate also had a choice. Honestly whatever happened to women empowering women and straightening another woman's crown. You lot would rip it off each other's heads and stamp all over it!!! Stop being so bloody judgy and come back at me when your perfect!!!!

And your view on the baby’s right and need to be with its mother of 9 months is..?

I'm really surprised. Maybe because of the film roles she plays, she comes over as someone who is informed and emotionally intelligent.

I can understand a sister carrying a baby for a sister for example but not as a commercial transaction. There is unavoidable and unforgivable trauma for (birth) mother and baby. The fact that she already has three children just sickens me.

But we have to have an ethics when it comes to having children - many counties have banned surrogacy and I think it should be banned worldwide.

My view is that if a women is deemed mentally and emotionally of being a surrogate then who are we to judge them. Women have children adopted for many many reasons are you going to vilify them too? Unless the details of the agreement are made public then we have zero right to judge any of them and I for one am extremely grateful for women who chose to ne surrogates

So to you it is more important to validate adult entitlement than to meet the primal needs of a newborn child?

@Bwitched1 You were asked a question about the baby’s rights but you’ve answered about the rights of the surrogate. What about the baby’s rights? Babies are people and they have rights.

Women who have opinions and discussions about ethics are ‘bitches’? Blimey.

As for the crown nonsense- what does it even mean? Are you talking about the sisterhood? I certainly am a feminist but being a feminist does not mean agreeing with every thing other women do and say 😂

Who checks the “emotional and mental” state of a surrogate?

nobody. Surrogates don’t have to pass any psychological testing, prove that they know the risks, or show that they are not doing it because they need money so badly it’s their only choice.

nope. It’s literally here’s 100k to have a baby for us.

Who is assessing that surrogates are mentally and emotionally…of being a surrogate?

It's really pointless debating this, anyway. Those with enough cash to splash will buy/pay for what they want. Those that need/want the cash will be surrogates. Nothing we can do about it.

I can't stand her anyway. A few years ago at an award ceremony she gave such a preachy speech pro termination in the US. I can't remember what she said but I remember thinking oh fuck off Michelle you are full of it.

We'll be told to #BeKind next 🙄.

I don’t agree. Laws can be passed to prevent it. Society can be educated to disapprove of it, so that people are deterred from doing it, because it is considered unacceptable/unfashionable/morally wrong.

Is it?

it used to be acceptable to buy adults and older children. That is no longer allowed in any society.

enough people stand up against buying babies then why wouldn’t it change things?

Whatever the mother and her customer have agreed - both may be delighted with the transaction - the BABY is a human who's been turned into a commodity, a thing to be purchased.

And when that's normalised, that turns a society into a culture that accepts people trafficking.

Whatever the circumstances, the baby is always going to be deprived of the one thing they physically need, their mother. Maybe any mother at all.

Then there is the continuing commodification of women's body parts. Like prostitution, a women's worth comes down to what part of her can produce what the customer wants, for a fee.

In some areas such as Ukraine it's a thriving commercial business where women who have no other choice to earn turn to surrogacy, including for British customers. And the baby factory was hit terribly when the Russians invaded.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60824936

I understand the debate around the ethics of surrogacy, especially when it comes to wealthy celebrities using it simply to avoid pregnancy and the implications that come with it. But mocking surrogacy altogether is absurd and so unenlightened. I thought, as a society, we were beyond that already — are we really going to sound like far-right conservatives or religious extremists here?

Some of the most loving and healthy families in my close circle were built with the help of kind and generous surrogates. My gay friends have three wonderful children — and they didn’t pay for it. Another friend, who couldn’t carry a child herself, now has healthy, happy, beautiful twins thanks to an act of pure generosity through surrogacy. These children are wanted, loved, and cherished, and they are thriving. No one could possibly question whether that was 'right' or not.

And what’s the alternative? Denying children the chance to exist and denying families the chance to welcome them? At the end of the day, what matters is that children are raised in families where they are longed for, loved, and cherished.

@GentleMintCat you are treating a child as a commodity. You are still treating the surrogate’s womb as a commodity.

@GentleMintCat I’d be surprised if many of the posters here who are anti-surrogacy are far right or religious extremists. The fact that you might think we ‘sound like’ them is neither here nor there. Those people have very different reasons for objecting to surrogacy, usually based around what is natural or what God wants- none of which has been mentioned here.

As for ‘denying children the right to exist’… are you really going with that? Well don’t worry because you really don’t have to include that in your ethical considerations. A child that does not yet exist doesn’t have any rights or feelings. Its possible future existence depends on a specific sperm and egg meeting at a specific time. We aren’t talking about children who already exist. You can think about the rights and feelings of the potential purchasers of the baby if you want, but I don’t think ‘the right to exist’ is really a thing.

You know what 'sounds like' a far right, religious extremist argument? Awarding rights to a potential person who doesn't actually exist (a disembodied soul?). That's the sort of thing trotted out in religious and US Republican arguments against abortion.

What boxes do we tick for thriving?
‘Smiles a lot’?
‘Does well at school’?

I lived with severe anxiety for years and a lot of those around me had no idea. That’s not unique, many people with anxiety, depression or other struggles seem fine on the outside.

Outward appearances don’t always tell the whole story.

But yet again here we are focusing on the adults. They built their families, completed them, gave love. Admirable maybe, but it doesn’t erase the fact that children were created to be handed over, separated from the only body, voice and heartbeat they’d known for 9 months. Neurobiology keeps showing us that those bonds matter, and breaking them can have lasting effects, sometimes subtle, sometimes profound.

Throwing around bad faith labels like ‘far right ‘ or ‘extremist’ at people who raise these realities doesn’t make them vanish.

Disagree if you want, but adult happiness doesn’t erase the ethical problem at the heart of surrogacy.

Surrogacy is not progressive. It is regressive.

Don't use homophobia as a stick to force surrogacy. It's ugly, coercive and abusive.

Middle class and upper class children don't get referred to social services when perhaps they should because the parents are better at advocating for themselves and hiding abusive behaviour.