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

You can’t say that.

you have no idea of her circumstances. She may have been desperate for the money. Remember in the us medical debt can cause bankruptcy.

maybe a sick husband, child or parent where she can’t earn and needs to be at home. Or an abusive husband who won’t work and persuades her this is “easy money”.

she may be a student who can’t afford the debt- it’s not like the uk where you pay it back once you’re earning. It’s a loan and you pay it back regardless.

same as prostitution. You can say it’s completely their choice but is it really? Or is it women so desperate for money or coerced by other people to do it for the money.

apparently in the US it’s common to trawl university campuses for young women to recruit them into egg donorship. Not much further to recruit them to surrogacy. When you have hundreds of thousands students debt it’s less of a choice.

you’ve no idea. And it’s likely not a totally free choice- if it were you’d have Michelle’s rich/celebrity friends offering to carry her child. Funnily enough they aren’t.

Its impossible to accident have a surrogate baby.

Every surrogate baby is a choice.

She wasn't satisfied with three children and wanted the status fourth baby, so exploited and risked another woman's body to do that.

The point is it doesn't matter why she has chosen that route, as there is nothing that should entitle you to buy a baby

again, you’re considering an adult perspective.

all the baby knows though is they’re taken away from the sounds, smells, voices and heartbeat that is all they’ve ever known.

that baby does not know it has been gestated.

it’s been shown that babies recognise their mothers very soon after birth. Taking them away from their comfort and handing them to a completely foreign environment is not beneficial to the baby.

Parents who use a surrogate say that DNA is everything.

Parents who use donor conception say that carrying and bonding with the baby before birth is most important.

Parents who adopt from birth say that raising the child as your own is all that matters.

No one can predict what the child might grow up to believe. If they end up with the opposite view to their parents, this can be devastating.

FWIW parents I know who've adopted through the system in this country usually seem very realistic about the challenges that they and their child will likely face, and don't try to dismiss this with a "love conquers all" bulldozer (that's not to say for one minute that they don't love their kids)

I think that commercial surragacy is wrong in the vast majority of cases. I completely understand how desperate people can become when they struggle to conceive however that does not give them the right to take advantage of another human being.

Just because we want something doesn’t mean we should have it.

What circumstances would you say it’s ok then?

if it’s only wrong in the “vast majority” what are the minority times when it’s right?

commercial surrogacy is always wrong.

It horrifies me but I am not overly surprised as extremes of wealth and fame seem to distort moral values. I won’t see it as a choice for the surrogate until we see all of the healthy, educated, wealthy women choosing to be surrogates. Of course, we won’t see that.

I am adopted and I also gave up a child for adoption - being adopted is a ‘risk factor’ for this. It’s more common in adoptees which I believe says more about the trauma, fears of failing or disappointing or fears/inability to bond with the unborn baby. The pattern is repeated all through America and the mis match between the celebration of the adoptive parents and the burden of the birth mother is horrible. More and more seemingly ‘happy’ birth mothers grow up to name and see their own pain and loss.

Healthy societies and wealthy women wouldn’t chose this for women or babies. Neither are commodities.

If you allow or support surrogacy then you open up a (slave) market for Mothers and babies to be bought and sold.
You destroy a child's life - who will never know their Mother or family or history.
You diminish the importance of Mothers and the Mother and child bond.
You break society, family structures and ancestry.
You reward the selfish, the rich and those with nefarious intent.
You pave the way forward for women to be treated like cattle; like the baby farms discovered in China and Africa recently.

All those babies having to spend days/weeks in special care not being able to be held are screwed for life then.

You was lucky to be adopted a lot of children are stuck in the care system angry. I have heard a situation where the child was disowned by her adoptive dad because of her poisonous adoptive mother (Long story). I also know of caring adoptive parents who put both their children in private education or who bring them up in a caring environment. Kim Kardashian used a surrogate to have her last child. I don't have any issues with people having loved children into the world.

Anyone involved in surrogacy should not be allowed near children.
It is never right, or understandable.

It's child trafficking.

Just because some adult wants something, even if they really want it, doesn't mean they should be able to have it.

You really have to be a complete monster to have anything to do with surrogacy.

Buying, transporting to their new owners, and selling human beings is called the slave trade.
That is all surrogacy is.

There have even been cases where people change their mind, as if they were buying a handbag then decided they didn't fancy it after all.
Couples who split up then neither of them want to take on the baby to order so abandon it.
People try to return 'defective goods' if they find out that child has developmental delays.
Paedophiles have commissioned surrogate babies so they can have sex with them.
There is nothing good about this practice and it should be illegal everywhere.

The difference is one is necessity for the good of the child. The harm of not being in special care is greater than the harm of not being full time with mum- but she and dad can often still see, talk to and touch the baby. Kangaroo care has been shown to improve outcome.

the other is inflicted deliberately by adults who think their needs are more important than any potential harm to a baby.

Actually, I mean I’m not saying I know the laws in her state, but actually, the government ARE forcing people to use their stored embryos (presuming that’s what she used). I’m not saying this is her situation, but it’s interesting to think about that in terms of how women are going to go ahead with carrying despite dangers to their health, or donate the embryos in storage, or desperately clamour for the ”affordable” use of other women’s bodies.

Ive been trying to have a child for 5 years including mcs and multiple failed ivf, my sister said she would happily surrogate for me, though carrying is not my issue. I get that rich nations using surrogates in poorer nations and their sense of ownership over another human is ethically abhorrent, but I personally believe that surrogacy in a non transactional circumstance is kind of beautifully generous act. I don’t think it’s black and white for ethics here.

A newborn baby already knows their mother – they know her voice, her smell and her heartbeat. This isn't an emotional, whimsical notion – it's an animal, instinctive recognition that is evolutionarily useful for young mammals (and humans are mammals, obviously), which can help in their survival.

To then be permanently separated from the source of all that familiarity (however that separation comes about) is a loss for the baby, even if it's one they can't express in words or store conscious memories of at that early stage of life.

Of course that doesn't mean that strong, loving bonds can't be formed with a subsequent maternal figure. But the fact remains that that baby's life began with a huge loss.

@Falseknock from another adoptee, I rather think adopted children and surrogate children are not lucky at all. They have been taken from birth parents for a range of reasons and already treated as chattel at the start of their lives. It may sometimes be the best available outcome but it’s not a lucky start for the children. I think I you used private schooling as an example of a good adoptive outcome? I don’t think familial wealth, and whether it is spent on schooling, is a measure for whether a family has supported an adoptee successfully. A surrogate born to the Kardashians - I am not sure if you meant this as a problem or a benefit? A greedy over entitled endlessly dramatic and self obsessed family probably is certainly the very sort I expect to see on the purchase g side of surrogacy.

Hmm, my sister offered to be a surrogate for me and she’s a consultant paediatric dr with 4 perfect children of her own. My friend’s sister also offered to be surrogate for her own sister, that family has two drs and two teachers. Another friend has a child with his husband through a surrogate who literally approached them about carrying their child before they’d even considered being fathers. She said that she didn’t want any more children of her own but had loved pregnancy and had always considered surrogacy. Now those families live near each other, the kids know one another. I would say in each of these circumstances, a healthy, varyingly wealthy woman offered something of generosity and care completely without coercion or transaction.

surragacy is human trafficking and is recognised by the EU as such
https://www.fafce.org/press-release-i-surrogacy-included-in-the-list-of-offences-for-human-trafficking/

She bought a baby. Let's not pretend this is ok.

@HumanRightsAreHumanRights jeez, So like… in your opinion, those triplets in “friends” (the tv show, maybe you’ve seen it maybe not) are trafficked children? Their (fictional) experiences equate to children trafficked from war torn countries for unthinkable purposes? Those episodes should probably be banned from being aired. I mean, there’s homophobia and misogyny in the series which was normalised at the time, I hadn’t realised they had promoted slavery via Pheobe. That’s terrible.

Surrogacy is illegal in Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland and Sweden.