To feel sorry for this lady?

[Spanglylycra]

Two of my male friends are having a baby via surrogate due later this year.I know they will make great parents and this isn't an anti-gay thread at all. The baby is via donor egg implanted into the surrogate who has no biological relationship. However (my AIBU) I can't help feeling sad for the surrogate. I know she is a grown woman capable of making her own decision and has gone into this willingly but she doesn't know them and doesn't owe them anything and despite payment being illegal in the UK there is still a very large "expenses" payment made which is well into 5 figures. So despite the fact they will be amazing parents I just feel sad/uncomfortable about the woman's role in this. On one hand they talk positively about her being amazing and selfless and on the other hand refer to her "just carrying it" which makes me sad for women being used as a vessel - it's a bit Handmaid-esque. Their social media posts are also starting to be covered in #dontforgetaboutdads and I just feel like the woman's role is being cut out. Just wondered what others may think am I over thinking this?!

No but it's how we have evolved thought. Biologically a woman and a man create a baby. It can't happen one without the other. So to me, personally, it goes against nature. I'm not trying to insult or offend anyone. I just don't belive it right that same sex parents raise a child.

All sorts of people do ok despite being born into difficult situations, it doesn't make those situations something to aspire to.

I just don't belive it right that same sex parents raise a child.

Homophobic crap.

I don’t think there’s any problem with surrogacy provided consent is freely given. It’s bollocks that somehow a baby has bonded irreplaceably to its mother by hearing her voice in the womb. Young babies are happy to be cared for by anyone who is familiar to them. I think the idea that mothers are irreplaceable is unrealistic. Not all mothers are good for children and a child brought up by supportive loving parents will have the best chance in life.

Peach

I’m not saying you’re a prostitute, but I’m saying the same moral objection to prostitution applies which is that surrogacy, like prostitution, is treating a woman as a means rather than an end. The defence that it’s a nice thing to do for someone is saying that when a woman consents it’s ok to use her. But it’s not- no person can consent to becoming an object to be used by others. It is dehumanising.

When we dehumanise others it becomes easier and easier to abuse and control them. Especially in the case of women who inhabit a structurally weaker position in society, even more especially if they are poor, this leads to further abuse. Just look at the relationship boards to see the examples of women being abused from dehumanised situations- one of the key being that they are financially dependent on their abuser.

And “goes against nature” Siegal? Wtaf? So does driving cars, wearing clothes, using medicine, using an iPad to post on an internet forum

Hidden - if that were the case, women could never consent to anything. According to your logic we’re just too vulnerable and we know to do so!

I dunno if I could be a surrogate due to circumstances but I am on the bone marrow register. If someone needs my bone marrow I am happy to consent to give it for free despite it being a painful and sometimes risky operation. I would donate eggs to someone who needed them. My free choice motivated by altruism.

Italian Having seen my relative to through surrogacy and gone to meet ups with them etc, I can say that many, many people hold the opposite view to you regarding biological parents. But it seems to be one of those situations where context is everything. In your case, the child would not exist without you and was concieved in love albeit in an unusual way. I completely understand that you would feel a biological parent.

However, it is possible to carry a child and not be in any way the child's mother.
If you spent time with surrogates you would know that well. If there is no maternal bond and no genetic link either, your reasons for privileging the person giving birth seem less valid. Surrogates don't even acknowledge the term parent (and the child will never know them as such) so why should anyone else force it upon them? The law needs to acknowledge how different the surrogacy context is for the child's sake.

In a surrogacy, the 'real' parents (the people who have moral responsibility for the life that wouldn't exist without their intentionality, often the genetic relationship and instant love) are those who have moved heaven and earth to make their dream of having a child come true. I've never met a surrogate who didn't feel unsafe and creeped out by the law suggesting otherwise.

If you go to an ultra sound with a pair of IPs and a surrogate, you will see the IPs in floods of joyful tears and the surrogates watching them (not the monitor) with a look of utmost satisfaction!

Surrogates are always women who could have their own child at the drop of a hat. They go into surrogacy because they want to make parents happy. They are simply not available to the child as a parent and that is not going to change.

bananafish The OP of that thread acknowledges that with hindsight there were possibly some MH concerns regarding the surrogate. It is lovely for the OP that she got her daughter but you don't know that the surrogate herself is 'happy and healthy'. Wanting to be a surrogate to atone for previous abortions suggests some underlying issues that make me think mandatory counselling and assessment should be required at the very least prior to embarking on this.

The denial of biological reality to suit an individual's personal preference or agenda is a really common theme lately. A surrogate not seeing herself as the 'biological mother' doesn't mean she isn't.

Wanting to be a surrogate to atone for previous abortions suggests some underlying issues that make me think mandatory counselling and assessment should be required at the very least prior to embarking on this.

I entirely agree

In cases of gestational surrogacy implications counselling is mandatory in UK clinics

And the cases have to be approved by the ethics committee

(This isn't the case in clinics abroad and isn't the case in traditional surrogacy)

But assessments aren't permitted by law. UK law is pretty strict about it being illegal for any third party to get involved in a surrogacy arrangement. I don't believe this is been.

Most surros and IPs would advocate for greater regulation of surrogacy.

*I don't believe this is beneficial - not been!!

twisted it's hardly in the child's interests to force the issue though is it? And there is the biological reality of genetics, which you're not acknowledging.

I have acknowledged it, I've stated that the egg donor is the genetic mother. Of course nobody is going to force the issue with a child, that doesn't mean that it can't be discussed on a talk forum. IMO it is all a wider part of the attempted erasure of the important and dangerous process of pregnancy and childbirth. Surrogate mothers sometimes die, precisely because of this biological process. Reducing women to carriers and pretending that the baby somehow just gets carried around whilst it grows itself contributes to a damaging attitude towards women that commodifies their bodies, allows exploitation to thrive and goes far beyond how an individual surrogate or the IPs choose to identify.

hiddenmnetter you seem to be talking about surrogacy where payment is made.

I see the point.

But in my understanding this is not legal in the UK. So UK surrogates might have a different experience to, say, USA or India.

I can see comparisons but my only experience of knowing a surrogate was she did it to help someone and was not paid.

@PeachMelba78 you can speak about your experience however you choose, of course. However, I don't understand how you are not the biological mother ( or biological female parent). If you were not/ are not the child's biological mother, who was?

I do understand how you talk about it may/will frame this experience for you, of course. And maybe you are thinking of the child with her or his parents now.

Do you want to share your story or is it too personal? I admire you for coming onto the thread but don't want to pry.

Just for the record we have a birth child and adopted. Prior to that had fertility treatment with donor eggs, we were encouraged always (in both processes - donor egg and adoption) to be honest with any children so that the child knew their own history. I think that is important for kids.

Totally agree with Spanglylycra. Women's role in childbirth is already being diminished and that attitude has found its way through the court system impacting child custody issues. Especially for poor women. Lets just say if men bore children we'd be very clear about their infinite importance and rights. Just wait until the scientists finally get men pregnant, which they ARE working on now, which should tell you everything right there!! It will make our eyes water to see how male 'childbirth' rights get instantly enshrined & protected for something women have been doing since millennia!

heartsease68 you clearly know a lot about surrogacy and I bow to your superior wisdom on how s surrogate feels ( I do mean that sincerely).

As an adoptive parents I don't ever use the term 'reai' on terms of parenting. I am my son's mum legally. I love and care for him, with my husband (hid dad), because we want to and because his birth parents, his biological parents, could not do so.

I know surrogacy is different to adoption.

I think we are talking at cross purposes. You are talking about the emotional, practical, caring day-to-day 'load', of parenting. I get that 100%.

I am talking about the biological process of bringing a child into the world. This cannot happen (for humans, apparently can for other animals) without a female and male. We label these biological roles mother and father.

Many children are not being brought up by biological parents. Some knowingly (to all) some unknowingly. Some in families where some know and some do not.

I think what we are discussing is semantics.

heartsease68 you do not need to answer this - but maybe ask - was your relative the surrogate or the person who became a mum via surrogacy?

'...that wouldn't exist without their intentionality...'

Yes I completely recognise this is the case with donor and surrogacy situations which do make them different to adoption situations.

'...that make me think mandatory counselling and assessment should be required at the very least prior to embarking on this.'

We had mandatory counselling with donor egg treatment it was very helpful.

Italian it's mandatory for UK clinics for both donor egg and surrogacy treatment. Not in clinics abroad

Yeah i know but I did find it helpful.

As a feminist I think paid surrogacy makes vulnerable women into walking wombs for rent. I don't agree with it.

I agree! I think it should be mandatory everywhere Italian