paid surrogacy in poor countries is NOT exploitation

[kellyandthecat]

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/20/commercial-surrogacy-wombs-rent-same-sex-pregnancy

julie blindel writes a very self-satisfied piece in the Guardian saying surrogacy should be banned in poor countries because the women there are being exploited. she used a very extreme example - the very sad case of the little boy with down's abandoned in thailand by the australian couple - but that's about it. of course surrogacy should take place in good conditions and no one should be forced into it, but to ban it completely seems VERY unreasonable to me. my sister struggled with fertility problems for years and if they had to they wouldn't have had the money to use a surrogate here in the UK or the USA. it was a HUGE struggle and I remember how hard it was for her. its heartbreaking to think people could be shut off from this option when assuming the conditions are right the surrogates in these countries can earn a life-changing amount of money for them and provide such a life-changing help to those struggling to concieve.

now of course the surrogates conditions have to be good and their compensation appropriate. but i feel like a blanket ban is exactly the kind of not-thinking-it-through that led to all the sperm donation rules being changed so now no men donate sperm any more and we have a huge shortage and crisis effecting those with fertility problems.

it's still probably cheaper to go abroad. Realistically very little chance of an Indian lady choosing to keep a western baby.

in the UK there is a long waiting list, it's expensive and the parents have very few rights. If the surrogate changes her mind and decides to keep the child - even though she may have no biological link to it - the birth parents are fucked. Money down the drain. No kid.

I wonder how many women are lurking here though laurie who are considering surrogacy and seeing some of the ugly reactions. i think it's okay they know that there can be ethical options for them.

and as for all the people saying 'you should adopt' i'd ask if you have any adopted children and as you probably don't why not. saying 'adopt' can apply to ANYONE having a child.

OddFodd literally on the byline: "Same-sex surrogacy bans are wrong"

You're on a hiding to nothing with this thread.

I have looked into surrogacy in India extensively and think that both sides are right. There is exploitation and even India is trying to legislate for this. It's only right to find it abhorrent. However, there are also surrogates who have made a perfectly reasonable choice because they want to buy their first home/put the funds into education/etc. In some clinics there are pretty stringent rules surrounding who has access to the payments to ensure that the woman is benefiting rather than her male relatives. There are also rules about the class and income of potential surrogates because many clinics have no interest in employing women who are malnourished or destitute - so it isn't a case of surrogacy to survive but rather surrogacy to have a better life. It's sad that any woman living in the world today wouldn't have other access to a better life with more opportunities for advancement, but that is the reality that we're living in. 'Protecting' women who are absolutely able to weigh up the risks and rewards is patronising and unconstructive. However I agree that legislation is required and so does anyone else with half a brain.

Don't go to surrogacy UK by the way. They are a by-word for unprofessional money grabbing incompetence.

None of the reactions are ugly.

I'm also unable to have biological
children - tough shit on me.

The idea of exploiting someone much poorer than me would never even occur to me. And nor should it to anyone else.

There's no one hanging round this thread all sad and desperate to exploit an Indian woman - what a ridiculous idea

saturnvista thank you for that sensible and informative comment. you're right i suspect. a good time for me to log off!

No paid surrogacy is always wrong. It doesn't matter if the women are getting money to buy a house, rather than money to buy food for their kids. It is not the amount of money that makes it immoral. If that was the case, we should make it legal to buy a kidney as long as it was suitably expensive. We don't, because we know that some things should never be for sale.

'and as for all the people saying 'you should adopt' i'd ask if you have any adopted children and as you probably don't why not. saying 'adopt' can apply to ANYONE having a child.'

And yet, there are not many saying that on this thread. I just skimmed it again, haven't seen a one on this thread, because it's not the point. By your OP, it's 'Is surrogacy for money exploitative?'

And everyone says, 'Yes,' so you try to make it about adoption.

Here, have some more rope.

I am a surrogate, currently pregnant at 6 weeks nearly for a friend who has had TEN goes of IVF. This is our sixth go, the closest we got was a miscarriage at 5 weeks and a 6 week ectopic which resulted in a lost tube.

We love our friends and are beyond thrilled to be providing them with their baby in however many months, please God.

It's not been grubby. My friends are more wealthy than us (they work like dogs) but I don't feel exploited.

I just wanted to do a nice thing for a great couple. That is all.

rushesofftobesickagain

In principle I don't have a problem with paid surrogacy.
I can't see as more exploitive than a lot of other legal employment options that people have in India/similar countries, it's not the worst. Not by a long shot.

No idea how it works in practice; in some cases I'm sure it is a bad deal for the surrogate. I don't know that regulation can fix that.

I don't like this issue tied to anyone's infertility problems. There are plenty other parenting options.

Paid organ selling I find abhorrent.

but i feel like a blanket ban is exactly the kind of not-thinking-it-through that led to all the sperm donation rules being changed so now no men donate sperm any more and we have a huge shortage and crisis effecting those with fertility problems

Yes, but the law also has to consider the rights and needs of the children born from donor conception. Namely that some donor conceived adults will want to be able to obtain information about or make contact with their donors. Hence there is no longer anonymous sperm or egg donation in the UK.

It is not just about the wants and wishes of those struggling with fertility problems or those donating.

unweave has it right.

Lucy It's not like a kidney in many respects. A kidney is something that our bodies rely on for functioning. A baby isn't. This is nuanced. For example, there is a huge difference between taking payment for egg donation and selling your kidney. As for what's morally 'wrong', that's never going to mean the same thing to everyone, no matter how loudly it's said. Personally, I feel that a society in which many women (and men) have no other way to get an education is wrong and perhaps we should be worrying about getting that right, rather than stamping out the only solution on offer for a small number of women who won't access education by any other means.

Yes it is like a kidney. People can live fine with only one kidney. But removing a kidney has risks. Similarly with pregnancy for a surrogate. The pregnancy and birth carries risks. I actually think paid surrogacy is worse as it is selling a baby. At least a kidney has no feelings about being bought and sold. A person will have.

yabvu

the reason these women become surrogates is because they have very few if any other ways to make a substantial amount of money

how can you not see that as exploitation

Kelly - the byline is about not discriminating about gay couples. But Bindel doesn't think that they're any more right for paying poor Indian women to incubate their babies for them any more than she does heterosexual couples. Which she makes quite clear in the article. Hence me asking if you'd actually read it.

Apologies for that nonsensical post. Hopefully you get the drift

Lucy Ok then, it's like a kidney. However I doubt that baby who is genetically related to one/both intended parents would feel 'sold' as if they were nothing more than, say, a premiership ticket.

Think I'll hide this thread now.

Why, saturn?

Because it hits a nerve?

I think paid surrogacy is definitely really wrong. The two massive issues are physical and emotional damage.

Birth can cause a lot of physical damage and the more births you have the worse it gets, muscles get torn, prolapses and incontinence can result.

Emotionally everything primes a woman to bond with their unborn child. Feeling the movements, the hormones, the aftermath of the birth and the milk coming. Giving the baby away is likely to be traumatic.

I can't see that knowing intellectually the baby isn't yours genetically would help much. This has only been possible for a few years and I don't think we are set up emotionally to deal with it.

The reasons above are why most women wouldn't be keen on being a surrogate. When money starts changing hands women will be doing it for the wrong reasons and damaging themselves in the process.

To my mind paid surrogacy is like prostitution but worse.

adoption can cost loads of money, how is that not selling babies?

I'm taking a wild punt that you don't know much about the intercountry adoption process (because domestic is free so I'm guessing you don't mean that).

The single biggest payment I made was to Richmond council for my home study. I'm assuming you don't think they are in the business of selling babies.

If there is even the hint of unethical practices the UK has a pretty good track record for banning adoption from that country - there are several countries on the banned list including for example Guatemala and Romania.

If you can't distinguish between paying for home studies, legal costs, translation costs, notary and apostille costs, interpreters, donation to orphanages who have cared for the children (including those who are unadoptable) for months/years and paying for a woman who is financially significantly disadvantaged to grow a baby for you then perhaps you shouldn't be trying to argue your way out of a paper bag.

I never considered international surrogacy - if I was desperate enough to try it (and who knows I got pretty desperate at times) I think I'd be keeping my head down pretty low and hoping no-one found out because I would have to acknowledge that my desperation trumped my ethics.

The baby is genetically related to one or both parents paying the surrogate. But it is the surrogate who actually carries the baby and feeds the baby with her own body through the umbilical cord. And it is her who gives birth to the baby. It is that woman's baby as much as the woman who produced the egg.

Of course it's exploitation. No amount of equivocation can change the fact the poor women are being used as brood mares by rich people.

GayByrne It's wonderful that you are doing such an amazing thing for your friends. But, I'm guessing you are acting through genuine choice, and aren't living in poverty in a developing country?

What an utterly grotesque original post - sorry - not easily shocked, but really

YABVVVU of course

Lots of things are heartbreaking, it doesn't justify exploitation. My child needs new lungs, it breaks my heart and at times I feel pretty desperate about it, should I buy them a new lung in a developing country and justify it because the money would enable the donor's family to eat or get an education. Of course not.

There are lots of ways to help people out of poverty - exploiting their bodies isn't one of them.

I think when you look at fertility, adoption, surrogacy, adoption from abroad, sperm donation, the whole thing we need to shift perspective.

This should not be about someone's 'right' to have a child, it should be about that child as a person.

When a child is old enough to understand the circumstances of their birth can you look them in the eye and tell them and them understand and believe it was the right thing?

Going through cycles of IVF, jumping through hoops to adopt, or just a happy accident can all be explained and thought of as positive.

If you are a child and at 10 years old you found out you were carried in someone else's womb would you want to know who that person was? To meet them? When it is your auntie or your cousin and you can talk to them about it that is one thing, or like the Drewitt-Barlow children you can Skype and meet up, but if the woman that carried you is in a village that doesn't have a toilet or electricity, who can't read a letter from you because even if she can read she cannot read English what is that going to do to you?