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

Why not? Each to their own. Life is too short.

God, not the tiresome “you must all be right wing” argument. Do you believe it, or is it just more of the usual attempts to scold women into line?
It is possible to think surrogacy is immoral and that women have a need and right to safe spaces and still be a left wing feminist.
Some people seem to think when you vote you just adopt a whole set of opinions which cannot be questioned. While the US seems very tribal in this way, in the UK we still value critical thinking. I can vote Labour and still support SSS and oppose surrogacy you know 🙄.

A baby never consents to being created or born, whatever the circumstances

It really doesn't work anymore does it? Using it as a stick to beat you with for having views that don't align with certain political parties is propagandist authoritarian bullshit.

And equally @GentleMintCat I cannot believe that anyone thinks it's 'enlightened' or somehow progressive to have 3 kids by surrogates.

Either your friends put a woman into a state of high risk pregnancy with triplets or felt empowered to fuck with a woman's health 2/3 times to satisfy their own desires. It's beyond entitled.

You also put such emphasis on the kids being healthy, beautiful and perfect. Aren't they lucky? What if they weren't perfect?
Would they have rejected the babies?
Would that have demanded the surrogate have an abortion?
Because both have happened outside of your surrogacy bubble and your friend's actions contributes to a sanitised veneer which enables & legitimises the whole sorry business of coercive surrogacy, and commercial baby farms.

I'm genuinely pleased to hear the kids are thriving but don't preach to me that my opinions are wildly 'unfathomable' when you won't look any deeper than 'but my friends have pretty children'.

There was that shocking case recently about the gay men couple who were severely sexually abusing their babies. Who is assessing them?

Adopting parents get scrutinised for suitability, but if you can just buy a baby, where are the safeguards?

Well thank you for demonstrating that you have never spent more than 5 seconds thinking about surrogacy.

Yes @EachandEveryone and there was also that Australian couple who purchased twin babies from a Thai woman. They rejected one of the babies because he had Downs syndrome so he had to stay with his mother in Thailand. The other baby- a little girl- went to Australia to live with the couple who had commissioned the birth. It later transpired that the man of the couple who had bought the babies was a sex offender. I don’t know what has happened since then, but those poor children, and their poor mother. I feel particularly sad for the little girl who was taken from her mother and her twin brother to live in a different country and culture, and with a sex offender. When the couple rejected the baby boy, the mother tried to prevent them taking the girl too as she wanted the babies to be together. It’s definitely one of the worst surrogacy stories I’ve seen.

Absolutely not. Carrying my children was a huge part of my bond with them. I can't be the only mother who feels this way.

Same, I loved being pregnant. I’ve just got the one, but it was one of the happiest most contented times of my life.
Also, I can’t imagine for any amount of money, that baby then being taken from my arms. It makes me feel physically sick to think it’s allowed.

I’m thinking that surrogacy cases will probably decrease once it becomes possible to transplant (at least temporarily) wombs, maybe even artificial wombs, when such transplantation becomes cheaper than surrogacy. Just like the surgery to reinstate fallopian tubes stopped developing after IVF developed. Surrogacy will then be needed only in cases when it is dangerous for the woman to carry a baby (eg with blood clotting disorders). Of course, there will be arguments to the contrary, like with IVF (accept your childlessness, adopt etc).

Surrogacy will then be needed only in cases when it is dangerous for the woman to carry a baby (eg with blood clotting disorders)

Surrogacy is NEVER needed and it is much more dangerous for the poor women who are exploited by this trade in human babies, to be pregnant than it is for others.

It sounds like celebrities turn to surrogacy to avoid career breaks and changes to their own bodies. I don't know if a womb transplant would fit this brief.

There aren't any, cause money talks. And anyone who who is uncomfortable around the ethics gets told to STFU, mind your own business or #BeKind. Admittedly we haven't had the last one of this thread yet but it can only be matter of time...

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

An agent may get that but the women would only receive a small fraction of it.

Honestly whatever happened to women empowering women

In what world can you possibly conceive that poor women forced to earn money through renting out her body, risking death and injury, and selling her baby can be considered ‘empowering women’?

I did wonder if that was a bot reply that could appear for any moral dilemma or international crisis.

"My neighbour only feeds her child with McDonalds."

"Why not? Each to their own. Life is too short."

"My husband wants to stay married but have a girlfriend."

"Why not? Each to their own. Life is too short."

"Russia has invaded Ukraine."

"Why not? Each to their own. Life is too short."

I disagree.

transplantation is unlikely to become anything more than scientists “let’s see if we can”.

the host would need to be on a cocktail of antirejection drugs, and would need constant medical care to ensure they aren’t rejecting the organ (and baby). You mention the pregnancy being dangerous- a transplanted uterus will be much riskier than a clotting disorder. It will never be cheaper due to the level of medical care needed.

You’d also need to transplant months if not years prior to a pregnancy to allow healing, which is longer on anti rejection regimes with all the side effects. Then if a pregnancy was successful you couldn’t allow natural labour for risk of rupturing the scar tissue, so it would be likely an earlier than term c-section and removal of the child and transplanted uterus would be needed. That is two major surgeries- I can’t see it in any way being ethical to risk mother and baby.

it won’t stop the celeb culture of using surrogates so they don’t lose their body or next big role. It won’t stop gay men commissioning women’s bodies. And those are the two biggest reasons for commercial surrogacy.

What the hell? How on earth have you so many friends who have bought babies?

Also how the hell can you know whether someone else’s
children are really ‘thriving’ -
or if they are dealing with deep seated attachment issues that will manifest in massive psychological damage down the line? Of course people who buy their children provably have more incentive than anyone to make everything seem rosy on the outside.

The same safeguards that exist for parents producing their own.

Do you have a source that show the numbers behind those who engage the services of a surrogate.

When you’ve carried a child for 9 months and grown it in your body, your hormones prime you to protect that child at all costs. It’s not the same as laying down a few quid.