This article has completely changed my view on surrogacy

[IGaveSoManySigns]

Archive.ph link due to the original being behind a paywall

<a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/2025.09.04-181120/www.wired.com/story/the-baby-died-whose-fault-is-it-surrogate-pregnancy/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://archive.ph/2025.09.04-181120/www.wired.com/story/the-baby-died-whose-fault-is-it-surrogate-pregnancy/

I cannot believe how crazy the “intended” mother sounds. I used to believe there wasn’t an issue with surrogacy but now I feel it should be banned. Wow!

We don't allow puppies to be taken from their mother's that young. Surrogacy totally ignores what vest for the baby and prioritises the buyers.

Aside from the multitude of reasons why surrogacy is wrong, this case underlines how worrying it is that no checks are made on the suitability of the 'intended' parents to bring up a child.

The woman (Bi) here is clearly unhinged, has another child via surrogacy to care for, has gone through 6 live in nannies in a short period and continues her venomous campaign against a woman who could have lost her life in her attempt to produce the son-to-order (nothing was left to chance!). As it's in the US where money is everything and basic humanity comes way down the list, no doubt she'll plough on rather than be locked up.

Unfortunately, adoption in the US frequently lacks proper checks and money changes hands too.

We absolutely do. Taking animals away from a mother and attaching them to another who can provide food for them is common practice. The young can’t tell the difference. My dogs mother had a litter of 11. She couldn’t feed them so two were give to another bitch who had also had pups, but only had 6. Those puppies thrived. It is done a lot with calves and lambs too.

On a personal level these kinds of posts really piss me off because my baby was taken off me and put in NNICU where she was cared for by a series of very dedicated nurses. The suggestion she was damaged by a lack of early bonding is highly offensive.

Bi is going to end up bankrupt. She has openly admitted she’s only doing it to ruin Smith, she can’t keep paying lawyers fees and at least one is about to sue her for the fees she’s not paid. It’s crazy.

Saving a babies life in a NNICU unit or placing 2 starving puppies in a life saving situation is a false equivalence to intentionally removing a baby from all it's known and a healthy safe mother to please the needs of others adults. I hope you and your baby are thriving and happy.

The reason matters not. It is ether trauma or it isn’t. There is not a jot of evidence that this kind of separation early has any effect on a baby (or any other mammal). Any suggestion that there is is an emotional response and is harmful to those of us who have been through a very traumatic time and don’t need any more guilt piled on us.

No baby can consent to being born. Ridiculous statement.

@BoredZeldalook up the information and research around the primal wound.

Yep. 💯 it should be banned. It’s truly awful.

...... I'm sorry for your experience but I'm afraid you are very, very wrong and reacting from a place of (understandable) emotion.

There is growing evidence that permanently separating a baby from his or her mother causes in some cases life long attachment issues. It's very easy to look up. If you doubt it, read The Primal Wound.

I really am sorry about the shorter term separation that you had for vital medical reasons when your baby was born. But the claim that a baby has no emotional response to permanent separation from their mother cannot be allowed to stand unchallenged because it's deeply incorrect and, and I mean this gently, if you feel guilty about your necessary medical separation from your child then please find therapy. It would be better not to extrapolate sweeping and inaccurate judgements about all other babies from your own situation.

I've never needed to read an article to have my views on surrogacy account for ethical as well as medical issues. Surrogacy is exploitation of women, generally women from the global South or poor eastern European areas, to serve rich Westerners.

It's not a "human rights" issue for gay men; lots of people have life circumstances which don't allow then to have DC.

Bottom line: women are not empty vessels there to provide children for other people.

As someone who also had to be (temporarily) separated from their young child soon after birth I am sorry but you are wrong. I am not saying that children who spend time in NICU are doomed to emotional damage (my baby grew into a completely happy child/teen). But incubating babies etc is done for their own good, and only when it's necessary. And then, parents are supposed to be given the time to be near their child, if at all possible hold them even if only briefly. Decent hospitals will put loads of effort into facilitating it as much as possible even if "as much as possible" is not that much. It's not just for the parents benefit. Likewise, when mothers suffer postnatal (mental) health issues where possible they will keep the baby with the mother or facilitate visits. That isn't always possible - and sometimes in life it's about choosing the least worst option.

Intentionally planning to remove a baby from its birth mother is completely different (even though I can emphasise with mother's who desperately want their own child but can't have them). I

I knew a woman who was a surrogate twice back in the 80s. She had been in a documentary at the time as it was a relatively new phenomenon. The whole story was painted at a lovely, altruistic act by a kind stranger with a grateful recipient of two healthy babies, and everyone was playing happy families

I bet she was like one of those articles in "Take A Break" where the surrogate trills I'm not the baby's mother , I;m just a BabySitter for 9 months, making it sound like it's no more arduous than an appendectomy .

The placenta is the bio parents dna.

Don't some of the new cells built during pregnancy transfer back through the placenta to the mother. Therefore would the surrogate end up having some of the bio parents dna circulating in her system???? All very strange. What if a surrogate does this any times, what effect does the new dna have on her system. I guess the body can tolerate this as women can have children with many different men, and that doesn't cause dna issues.

In this instance the bio parents placenta dna nearly killed both surrogates and caused the still birth of one baby. Bi polar bio mother is on a revenge crusade against the surrogate of the stillborn child.

That surrogate should sue the company that connected her to the bio mother, they put her in serious jeopardy by facilitating all of this.

The whole thing is disgusting. The welfare of the surrogate existing son, was not given sufficient consideration. Who looked after him, while his mother was in hospital.

Bio bi polar mother is also not quite as wealthy as she seemed, her wealth seems to be locked into shares she cannot sell, illiquid wealth. The surrogacy company should have to incorporate health care costs into the price. This all needs to be legislated for.

Well summarized but you forgot to mention the commissioning mother getting the first surrogate's heart insurance canceled leaving her with massive bills

Sorry, if you did something to save your baby's life why do you feel guilty? And your feeling guilty is not a good reason not to seek the best for babies

This might be the worst thing I have ever read. That poor girl, the surrogate, and what she has been and is still going through, all the actions of the intended parent. Out-and-out lies, breach of contract, threats, sending a photo of the stillborn child to the surrogate's 7-year-old son, harassment, fraud charges, job loss.... The list is incredibly and obscenely wrong!

The intended parent has a serious mental illness, but being bipolar in no way excuses her malicious and vindictive, mostly effective efforts to destroy this unfortunate young woman's life. I hope the legal system can put a final stop to this, but the damage has been done.

@IGaveSoManySigns, thanks for sharing this.

Again. There is not a jot of evidence that the separation does harm.

Oh dear me. You really have no idea, do you. Try to educate yourself about women who experience premature birth before you make such pithy statements.

Yes, all these things are done, and it has been shown this is all about reducing harm to the mother. You will also find the babies who are given things like skin to skin by their father, or nursing staff show exactly the same physiological response, which is why units encourage it.

As long as a baby is given an alternative “warm body”, it makes no difference to them who it is.

Many women are coerced into doing it by their fathers or husbands, who then take the money. There are women with learning disabilities who are signing up not understanding what they are doing - they may think they will get to see the child for example.

People often think surrogacy for a family member is ok but family can be the worst for coercion - especially of its young women. Sisters may look happy to provide a baby for a sister or gay brother, but how much of that was due to family pressure?

Then the impact on the baby - removed at birth, never seeing birth mum again. Often a separate egg donor has been used, who they will never know either. In the UK you can get info on donor and surrogate at 18, but if your surrogacy was done overseas, chances are you will never know.

We don't remove babies at birth in adoption in the UK because we understand the impact on the baby - but this is ignored in surrogacy. These surrogate born children will probably not be allowed any space to grieve their losses or work out identity issues - like children adopted in the olden days they will be expected to accept it/be grateful.

And then there is the lack of checks on purchasers. Single men are buying babies, no questions asked.

Purchasing fathers are usually the biological father so are entitled to be the parent in most cases. Since the alternative would be taking the child into care, most purchasers do get what they want.

There have been cases in the UK of people in their 70s having babies by surrogate. In one case the "mother" had a stroke and was in a care home, then she died, but the child called her "mum" and was taken to visit her. Are elderly people having children to look after them?

Purchasers change their minds and abandon unwanted babies or get the surrogate to abort. They put outrageous demands on the surrogates, like no pain relief in labour or complicated dietary rules, which they themselves would never tolerate.

And so on...I could write a book on this!

The only evidence is that a lack of any attachment is harmful. I do believe babies adopted at birth can flourish, and I think this conversation does risk veering into “well you’re not a REAL mum” territory. However, my stance on surrogacy has well and truly changed.

You're deliberately closing your eyes.

I'm sorry for your very clearly overwhelming experience but spreading falsehoods like this is wrong and damaging.

It is profoundly immoral to carry out experiments to follow up the effects on babies of removing them from the mother in order to see the effects, but the increasing body of evidence is that in many many cases there is a very profound effect. Not all, but many.

Closing your eyes to this to salve your own wounded feelings is simply pushing your pain onto others.

@IGaveSoManySigns It has nothing to do with 'you're not a real mum'. It has to do with the complex and profound interrelation between parent and child and more, between mother and child. The bond between adopted mother and baby can be extremely strong and real; but that does not alter the fact that there is in some cases the blood link is also extremely strong and real and disrupting that may be necessary but it also has consequences, and it isn't to be done lightly or casually. Denying that it can have consquences - well all I can say is, talk to adoption specialists, adoptees and adopters. In some cases it works very well but it is very well known that there can be significant consequences for the adoptee, including a sense of never feeling at home, never feeling they belong, health issues and other attachment related issues.

Really, please look into this.

I have a psychology degree.