AIBU to wonder if surrogacy is a bit cruel?

[NRGR]

Firstly I'd like to say I think someone being able to give a couple the opportunity to be parents is a lovely thing! I don't mean this in a nasty way.

When a baby's born they say they instantly know who mum is, by the sound of her voice, her smell, heartbeat etc. So taking that into account, is it a bit mean to take that baby after it's born and pass it straight to someone else? One of the first things they say to you when you have a baby is have plenty of skin to skin because you are all the baby really knows.

Surely regardless of whether the surrogate used her own eggs or not, as far as the baby's conserned she is mum and she will be the one the baby wants.

"Cruel" is the wrong word I think but it just made me wonder.

Adoption isn’t a solution for childlessness. It’s about finding homes for children, not children for infertile couples

Well I agree that that is what it should be. My point was that in the US now, as in the UK in the 50s, 60s and 70s, most infant adoptions are exactly that. Rich infertile couples are able to source healthy white children from poorer, vulnerable women who have become pregnant and been forced to relinquish their children as a direct result of the socially conservative educational, health and benefit systems in operation in many states.

"It’s just another excuse for a really nasty subset of fertile women to give infertile women a damn good kicking."

This kind of post keeps popping up on this thread, it's the reason I posted and it's still appearing.

I'm infertile and absolutely do not all agree with surrogacy. Not in my name, thanks.

polini but by similar token you don't speak for all infertile women. There is absolutely a trend for fertile women - usually with their own bio children - to come on threads like this & throw 'you should adopt' at infertile couples.

I don't see how being judgemental of morally dubious surrogacy and adoption practices is being nasty to people with fertility problems. You can feel sympathy for a person's situation without being obliged to condone their every action.

And yes adoption should be about meeting the needs of the children who have to be adopted not securing healthy, white, womb-wet newborns for anyone who wants one.

I withdrew my post as I'm tired and worried that it was rude without meaning to be - but I completely agree with you snuggy.

@bluestitch

I have no idea about UK laws regarding surrogacy and know very little about US ones but know that they were legally the parents from the minute the baby was conceived, they didn't have to adopt him and if they did it was done before insimination.

Adopting was their first choice. They didn't end up adopting because adoption agencies told them that by the time they would be brought to the top of the list they would be ineligible to adopt. So for them it wasn't adoption versus surrogacy it was surrogacy or no children.

I am 100% for adoption and would personally chose it 100 times over surrogacy but I actually think it's unfair to absolutely want people to adopt when they might not have the capacity to look after an adopted kid and what it involves. Adoption should be about finding the best family for each child not flocking kids to people who are desperate for kids.

In their case they live in the US they know how terrible the healthcare system is, how disablist the society they live in is and how challenging raising a (thriving) child of colour (especially right now) in a society like the US that still thrive in racism would be and so if they had been to adopt they would have avoided that because they acknowledge they don't have the capacity to do that in ways that would benefit the child and I think that's fair. I think adoption should be about knowing what you can and can't bring the child instead of about the need to have a child.

polini if it was aimed at me you needn't worry about coming across rude, i get that sometimes posts can be read wrong. Mine probably could too so i will apologise if it does.

Adoption in the UK isn't morally dubious though? I think that's where the distinction has to be made. UK adoption is totally different to US so distinction does need to be made.
And yes, with this in mind it can be construed as nasty when infertile people are told they should adopt rather than use a willing surrogate. Because many people who can conceive naturally don't consider adoption as their first choice for having a child

I have no idea about UK laws regarding surrogacy and know very little about US ones but know that they were legally the parents from the minute the baby was conceived, they didn't have to adopt him and if they did it was done before insimination.

Thanks for your reply Linning. For me this just raises even more concerns about surrogacy practices in the US. I don't understand how they can become the legal parents at the time of conception to a child neither of them are carrying or genetically related to. It sounds like they have been granted ownership of a product they commissioned. It's buying human beings.

I think the UK system where a. It's about meeting the needs of the child and b. The decision where to place is made by someone impartial is better.

I'm sure it's not perfect but it's got to be better than a system where people are free to approach the "right sort" of pregnant women and try to charm them into signing their newborns over to them.

Obviously there is no one size fits all "solution" to infertility in any case

@bluestitch

I think that (and that's me making it up potentially) technically they own specific sample of sperm/eggs, because they have other embryos frozen (like any other IVF couple) that they could use to give the baby a sibling if the wanted to. So I think it's more about them "owning" sperm/eggs more than the baby?

I don't know not very sure about that part.

Yes, navigator, you missed the point about the sport or career entirely, it wasn’t actually a serious suggestion. I was lampooning the sort of thing fertile women say to infertile women. But, hey, at least it allowed you to shoehorn in that all important fact you’d had children in there, hey? And make a lovely little superior and patronising comment at the same time as insisting you don’t use your fertility to make you feel superior. Don’t worry, no need to bother with the patronising, I actually have children, probably more than you (from assisted conceptions, not the genuine article I know, but you’d never know they were single handedly destroying humanity to look at them, they’re quite, well, cute).

but I think there are genuine feminist concerns to be articulated around commercial surrogacy. Vulnerable, poor and desperate women may be exploited and have no recourse to support and counselling to help them process having to give away the child they have carried - regardless of whether it is their egg or not.

Ah this old chestnut. Women! We have freed you from your chains! You no longer need to do what men tell you! Now you just have to do what middle aged, middle class women tell you to do instead!

Yes, I can see there are valid concerns for women in third world who may have no choice, but in the west with decent legislation it’s an extremely dubious argument that women shouldn’t be allowed to do exactly what they want with their own bodies. It’s that very modern illiberal liberalism isn’t it? ‘You can do what you like as long as I approve of it. I tend to find that the sort of women who are most passionate about this sort of thing are usually the sort who have never actually ever been short of a bob or two and can’t imagine the circumstances where having an extra £20k for something non-essential but nice which they’d never have otherwise (last me a house deposit or travelling or a boob job or a car.

It’s just swapping one set of moral rules about what was women may and may not do with their bodies for a new set of rules.

Polini, I would hazard a guess that you’re probably coming at it from a bit more of an informed standpoint than ‘why don’t you adopt a baby instead’ or ‘but you’re messing up natural selection’. And it’s not just surrogacy people on here are against, several posters are just against any form of assisted conception.

I mean, I’m fine with the whole idea of natural selection as long as it’s applied equally. So instead of going to the supermarket and just picking stuff up off shelves we’re forced to run, jump, climb and undertake hard physical labour for our food and if people are a bit rubbish at that stuff we send them away with nothing. Ditto people who don’t have the intelligence, skills or physicality to get jobs. The principles of natural selection says they and their offspring should be left unfed and with no shelter so their inferior genes are removed from the pool. Ditto people who become, disabled, sick or ill. For ease we could just sterilise many of them in advance. I’m sure somebody tried it before, short lad, comb over, funny tache. Name started with an ‘H’.

Of course I’m being facetious. But a lot of posters on this thread have come pretty darn close to the wind with some of this stuff.

Augusta your description of feminism is spot on what i think sometimes. We have gone from men telling us what we can do, to other women dictating what is right for us, in our names!

@Pissedoffdotcom

I couldn't agree more. If villifying other women is feminism then I'll go back to the dark ages.

Yes! I'm all for equality & women's rights...but surely my right is to decide what i do? Apparently I make a shit feminist so my friends tell me. Ah well

Pissedoffdotcom

're comment about infertility... I don't think anyone genuine poster has a dig. Please remember, if an infertile woman decided to go down the surrogacy road it will be a fertile woman carrying the child, taking on the risks of pregnancy and bonding with this growing life over the 9 months.
It's what happens to achieve this pregnancy and afterwards that is of great concern.
And I truly believe that commercial surrogacy IS turning babies into a commodity.

But if the fertile woman is volunteering to do it then what concern is it of anybody else? Nobody distinguishes between commercial or altruistic surrogacy, it's just 'surrogacy' - so surrogacy is selfish. Surrogacy is exploitative etc etc.

I knew the risks. I had experienced a pregnancy previously, I knew the process. I willingly helped my couple. And to have somebody else tell me I shouldn't have done it because I am being taken advantage of? It's actually quite insulting, like someone is insinuating I don't know my own mind.

I am against people being able to go to third world countries where there genuinely is little free choice

Commercial surrogacy has just been banned in India which has caused an outcry - this is because, as recent research conducted in surrogacy clinics in India shows, most surrogates choose to do it of their own free will. This is for two primary reasons, firstly, it is transformative financially and secondly, it’s way better than the alternative.

Commercial surrogacy gave some Indian women the only possible route to earn enough to buy a house or give their children an education, rather than face a life of poverty.

Also, it’s worth remembering that many women experienced far more oppressive working conditions as live in servants or nannies or as workers in toxic industries or working in windowless factories for up to 14 hours a day with their children at their knee. Unsurprisingly many women prefered surrogacy (Indian surrogacy clinics were extremely sophisticated places with expert clinicians and surrogates extensively vetted).

Now commercial surrogacy is banned and the only surrogates that can be used are a close family member it’s far more likely to be driven underground and for pressure to be put on sisters or female cousins to carry children for those who can’t have them.

Is this a new development? I thought India had only banned surrogacy with foreigners as IPs.

Feminism is about a bit more than women being able to do what they want. It recognises women as a class and the structural disadvantages of that class, which means choices are not made in a vacuum. It is unacceptable that a woman's only choice for a better life is to rent out her womb. Women with access to opportunities and other forms of bettering their lot never make this 'choice' - because they don't have to.

But that only applies to certain countries & can be structured so it doesn't happen. Trust me when i say that the UK surrogates I met in my time have no interest in 'bettering their lives' financially through it. It's like me saying factory work shouldn't be allowed to happen because in some countries they are treated like shit. You have to accept that there are different standards in different countries & fight the shit ones accordingly not blanket rule

All I can hear on this thread is people telling women they are not allowed to express a viewpoint because it might upset people. Feminism is about looking at a society that puts woman like those in India in that position. If women are being forced into surrogacy because the alternatives are worse than fucking tell that's a low bar.

I've found this thread really interesting and some things really illuminating. My overall stance hasn't changed, but I was interested to hear that USA doesn't allow those claiming welfare to become commercial surrogates which I guess goes some way to safeguard vulnerable women.

Like anything slightly emotive, it is so difficult when it appears people make blanket statements, and it's very easy to be an armchair philosopher / moraliser. I like to think I wouldn't judge an individual woman for making the choices she makes (and as Augusta says if £20k could buy you freedom and a measurably better life, can I hand on heart say I wouldn't be tempted?) but I do expect law makers and society at large to make decisions that make such choices unnecessary, it's a pipe dream I know! Equally I expect laws to set out what exactly is allowed - as I mentioned, the UK surrogacy laws (alturistic ok, commercial not, surrgate can change mind at any time, baby must be biologically one of the IP's) draw the line in the right sort of area for my personal views, although I can see that the last two rules may conflict in individiual circumstances.

Infertility is also a very tough thing to go through - I can see how surrogacy is tempting, I really can, and again, I can't hand on heart say I wouldn't have looked into it if it was me. How much of wanting babies is a biogical urge, what is socialisation, what is other factors? At a societal level we are still VERY heteronormative and fixed in what adulthood should look like: grow up, buy house, choose a partner, have babies, work outside the home for the next 40 years. Regardless of my views on surrogacy, I do hope in time there will be other life plans that are acceptable and desirable - it's ridiculous that childfree by choice people are seen as selfish for example! - that perhaps make pursuing children to raise from babyhood less of "the norm" and more one of many options. It won't solve the pain of infertility of course, and I sincerely hope I'm not being hopelessly insensitive, I am just thinking out loud

Thanks Augusta and pissedoff especially for your robust and challenging responses, it's been really thought provoking.

And if the suggestion is well it could be worse then surely all bets are off. Selling kidneys absolutely fine if the alternative is abject poverty. Selling people into slavery absolutely fine if the alternative is abject poverty. I think people are confusing looking at what might be the right thing for society with making judgements on individual people.