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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to wonder if surrogacy is a bit cruel?

365 replies

NRGR · 06/01/2019 00:34

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.

OP posts:
abacucat · 06/01/2019 12:21

Do you not understand that struggling people will take unacceptable risks if the financial rewards are huge? That does not make it right and it is why Thailand and India have made surrogacy illegal.
We could allow babies to be sold in Britain and make the financial rewards huge. Still would not be right.

AlaskanOilBaron · 06/01/2019 12:25

I don't like it.

silvercuckoo · 06/01/2019 12:27

I think all the talk of how bad surrogacy is for women in developing countries shouldn’t detract that it’s not great for poor women in ‘developed’ countries either, ie America.
Of course. In developed countries, however, there is at least hope of a legal redress. Like in the UK case cited above, where the court decided that a baby will continue living with a surrogate who is not genetically related, and is socially disadvantaged compared to the couple.

SnuggyBuggy · 06/01/2019 12:28

I remember reading a horrible story in one of the papers where a woman carried baby twins for her own brother using a donor egg. The couple ended up hiring two nannies as they both had demanding jobs and didn't have much time for babies.

I just felt so sad for them.

EmeraldShamrock · 06/01/2019 12:29

I do not think the baby would be affected, especially if it is born from love my sister to another, friend to friend.
It is a wonderful thing to do for someone as long as all adults are happy and not doing it because they forced for financial reasons.
I watched the couple on this time next year, with their new baby it brought a tear to my eye.

EmeraldShamrock · 06/01/2019 12:31

*One sister to another.

abacucat · 06/01/2019 12:35

I remember parents saying the same thing about donor insemination i.e. no big deal, kids won't care, its only sperm, real dad is who brings them up, etc etc.
Then those kids actually grew up and lobbied to get a change to the law so they could meet their biological dads and find out a bit about them. It turned out that some of those kids did care very much.
The same is going to happen with surrogacy.

I think many parents desperate for kids tell themselves lies about the methods such as paying a surrogate to get that child, or what the child is going to think about it.

AmyDowdensLeftLeftShoe · 06/01/2019 12:46

Donor sperm or eggs means half the biological material you are made of isn't one of your parents so I can understand why this is an issue as people want to know at least their genetic history. However if the donor or surrogate is related than that issue isn't there.

sheepsheep · 06/01/2019 12:47

I think its sad how so many on this thread have tried to undermine the strength of a baby's bond with it's mother. It is fundamental. It is instinctual. Babies are not the blank slate that we have come to see them as. They have an incredible ability to learn, powerful drives and instincts to grow, and so much of who they are has already been determined before they have left the womb. Those first few moments in the world are important. If the first thing a baby faces is an incredible loss, how can that not have a long lasting effect?

Motherhood is not valued. It is commercialised and trivialised, and women are kept from knowing their own strength and power. Really sad.

abacucat · 06/01/2019 12:50

AmyDowden A woman who used her body to actually grow a baby, is still a biological mother. It is her body that made the fertilised egg into an actual baby.

SummerGems · 06/01/2019 13:01

I am very much of the view that just because something can be done doesn’t mean that it should.

While infertility is heartbreaking for some, the reality is that sadly for some, this is life,and we have become far to much of a society who is told never to question anything because of how it might make someone else feel, and how dare we do that? But the upshot of that is that we have become a society which accepts that anything goes in spite of the price (be that emotional or otherwise) which is to be paid for it.

How dare you question a woman’s wish to go and pay another woman to bear her a baby for instance,if you’ve never had infertility problems you can’t possibly understand. When as hard as it is, not having been there doesn’t mean you lose the right to an opinion,and neither should it.

The fact that the laws around donor conception have changed so radically in the past few years because of the wishes and feelings of the now adult products of donor conception speaks volumes about the fact that actually it’s not all about the love someone has for their child but that there are actually far bigger issues at play.

It’s simply not enough to think that the child will do well as long as they have a loving home. it’s also simply not enough to suggest (as people often do) that many fathers bugger off and never see their children so creating one in a laboratory with an absent parent is perfectly ok because of the ones who deliberately disappear out of the equation. One does not balance out the other.

Personally I disagree with surrogacy and I disagree with donor conception. I feel desperately sorry for anyone who cannot conceive due to infertility but this doesn’t mean that I feel they should be entitled to seek a baby at any cost.

waterplease · 06/01/2019 13:16

I'm not a fan of surrogates either OP, aside from thinking it's creepy to carry another woman's baby I don't think it's ethically right.

Since when did everyone NEED a baby and since when did women's bodies become something to be used as a host or bought?!

It's sad when a couple can't carry their own baby, but a child isn't a right, it's not a necessity and there is always adoption (which I do take into account can take a long time to happen but it's always there!).

If I couldn't get pregnant I certainly wouldn't be seeking out another woman to do it for me.Hmm

birdsdestiny · 06/01/2019 13:32

Havent Sweden just made surrogacy illegal I am sure I read that somewhere but someone else may know more accurate information.

OnTheDarkSideOfTheSpoon · 06/01/2019 14:16

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/25/surrogacy-sweden-ban

Ylvamoon · 06/01/2019 14:24

birdsdestiny it's illegal in Germany too. Officially you are not even allowed to go abroad for surrogacy and claim that baby as your own. It has to be adopted...

As I said up thread, I don't agree with surrogacy. And I think some of the posters on here claiming that it does not have an impact on the baby have never experienced actual loss or the basics of maternal instinct powerd by your very own body.

I think being infertile is very sad, I can't imagine being without my DC and from that point I do understand that a child IS sometimes everything to aim for in life. But it does not give you the right to make decisions over an other (2) human life in such a big way.

Pissedoffdotcom · 06/01/2019 14:25

Surrogate here. Some of the issues raised can be applied to children in general. No child asks to be born to the parents they are born to. Many children don't like the idea of having a sibling, yet the parents decide because they want another child both will have to lump it.

My surrobub (i don't care how twee that sounds btw) is now 3 & has a very firm bond with her dads. We regularly played their voices to her when I was pregnant, she recognised their sounds. Cruel would be bringing a child into the world that wasn't wanted. There is nothing cruel about bringing a child into a world with parents who want to do everything right. The hoops people have to jump through are immense.

Yabbers · 06/01/2019 14:29

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.

Utter bollocks. My baby was cut out of my womb and spent 6 weeks in a plastic box being looked after by a series of doctors and nurses.

She has no problem knowing who mum is.

strawberrisc · 06/01/2019 14:29

@abacucat
AmyDowden A woman who used her body to actually grow a baby, is still a biological mother. It is her body that made the fertilised egg into an actual baby.

Absolutely disagree. If we advance enough to “grow” babies in a laboratory from a man’s sperm and a woman’s egg does that make the bell jar the biological mother?

livupq · 06/01/2019 14:37

Pissedoffdotcom

^this

So many people give children less than great lives. They get no choice who they are born to.

Bluestitch · 06/01/2019 14:38

strawberries The woman who gestates the baby is absolutely the biological mother. She grows it with her body, creates a symbiotic relationship with it. Pretending otherwise is an attempt to reduce the role of the pregnant mother to that of the father, gamete supply. Then we can talk about women carrying babies as though they simply slip on a backpack for 9 months, and compare them to inanimate objects like bell jars.

Pissedoffdotcom · 06/01/2019 14:40

If you share no DNA with the baby you carry then legally you are mother...biologically? No. Hence there are two types of surrogacy.

A woman who gives birth to a baby is, in this country, legal mum. Regardless of genetics.

Bluestitch · 06/01/2019 14:46

You can have a genetic mother and a biological mother. Carrying and birthing a baby is the fundamental biological process of creating life, pretending that the woman who does that isn't the biological mother is a nonsense designed to minimise their role and make renting their wombs seem more palatable.

Caxx · 06/01/2019 14:47

I agree with op it's cruel
I spent just 6 hrs with my birth mum before I was given away straight into the arms of my adopted mum I never felt safe or loved with them
Aged 20 I met my biological mum her smell and touch was so familiar I felt for the first time calm and loved

Pissedoffdotcom · 06/01/2019 14:55

That's interesting Caxx when I meet up with my IPs & my surro baby she isn't at all interested in me. She regularly returns to her dads for a cuddle or a kiss, will happily toddle off to play...but she never turns to me for comfort or reassurance.

Not at all minimising what you have posted, just an alternative experience