Surrogacy makes me very uncomfortable

[HermioneKipper]

I was listening to Giovanna Fletcher’s podcast with H from Steps and hearing them talk about him using a surrogate for his twins made me feel very uncomfortable.

It’s essentially renting a woman’s body to buy a baby.

I understand the woman must’ve consented but she was paid and it doesn’t take into account the risk she was putting her body through. Pregnancy and childbirth is a huge strain on a woman’s body and she risks serious injury giving birth that she’ll have for life.

Even more so as she had twins which is even more dangerous.

And the babies taken away from their birth mother immediately. Who knows what harm it does to them.

It feels akin to the black market of buying and selling organs.

I know I have children so perhaps don’t have the right to comment but it doesn’t sit right with me.

I personally wouldn't be a surrogate. I lost 2.1 litres of blood during my first delivery and I know that child birth can literally kill you.

I don't think there's anything wrong with it though as long as its heavily regulated and not done by poor women out of desperation.

In the right circumstances it can be an amazing gift to someone and I pull my hat off to every woman who does this sacrifice for people in need.

Which I know sounds really harsh.
I don't doubt parents who use surrogates go on to love their children but it doesn't make it a good way to get a child.

@spicedappledonuts
Hardly trafficking I'm not stealing the baby to sell it on 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

If without the exchange of money or other goods there would be no baby then it is trafficking.
What other words would you use for the buying and selling of humans?

Trafficking isn't about stealing, it is about the trade in humans.

Infertility is absolutely horrible. Secondary infertility is even worse. Repeat miscarriage miserable. Late miscarriage dire. Visiting your child’s grave takes you to dark places.

I personally think that if every woman on this thread who has the privilege of getting pregnant naturally actually opted out of this thread there might even be some reasonable discussion.

Re adoption, the amount of people who’ve had children easily say why don’t you adopt do you read about the children up for adoption? Those children have been actively harmed from day 1 as an embryo in some cases.

The arguments that exist for abortion should exist for surrogacy, the technology is out there if people aren’t able to do it in their own countries with reasonable access/rights/safety then people will do it where they are able. The baby hotel only existed because people for whatever reason weren’t able to it in their own country. Who wants to have a baby abroad? You go where you can.

@QOD

Is your DD also the biological child of your friend? It's not totally clear in your post, but I'm reading it that way.
If so, how does she (DD) feel about that given that you're all still in touch (?)?
If not, will she be able to find out who her biological mother is?

[quote Babyghirl]@Mickarooni
When I know I have tryed every avanue to get my much wanted baby, but as I say I will be using someone I know with my own egg and dp sperm so not really buying a baby.

I just think people need to walk in the shoes of someone who is going through infertility to understand how it feels.

It's all well in good when you have not struggled to have kids and never have to have that talk.

I don't believe in it if it's just for money but for a friend or family doing it to make someones dream happen is a different story.[/quote]
The thing is that not everyone on this thread has said whether they’ve been in the position of infertility or not.

You say “every Avenue” but still haven’t clarified how far you would go? Some people will do literally anything (within the confines of the law obviously) to have a baby and I do understand that drive, so very much. The trouble is that we all have varying moral beliefs. Some people think having any child at all is killing the environment and that it’s morally wrong to procreate. I don’t agree but we all have metaphorical lines that we would not cross.

@RedToothBrush

Its baby trafficking.

Ultimately this is what surrogacy is

@TakeMe2Insanity

Infertility is absolutely horrible. Secondary infertility is even worse. Repeat miscarriage miserable. Late miscarriage dire. Visiting your child’s grave takes you to dark places.

I personally think that if every woman on this thread who has the privilege of getting pregnant naturally actually opted out of this thread there might even be some reasonable discussion.

Re adoption, the amount of people who’ve had children easily say why don’t you adopt do you read about the children up for adoption? Those children have been actively harmed from day 1 as an embryo in some cases.

The arguments that exist for abortion should exist for surrogacy, the technology is out there if people aren’t able to do it in their own countries with reasonable access/rights/safety then people will do it where they are able. The baby hotel only existed because people for whatever reason weren’t able to it in their own country. Who wants to have a baby abroad? You go where you can.

I find it very worrying that you’d consider a woman who has carried and given birth to her own child ineligible to have a view on this issue Especially when the vast majority of surrogates are biological mothers already

@spicedappledonuts
Human trafficking is stealing girls of the street and selling to sex rings, but I'm not doing that nor will I be paying for the baby either.

@Mickarooni
I'm on waiting list for ivf and if that fails I will then go down the surrogacy is my last option.

@TakeMe2insanity
I agree with you, must be nice to not have that problem, and I'm sure alot on this thread have not had problems so can't walk in them shoes.

You're willing to risk another woman's life @Babyghirl to get what you want. I don't know how anyone can ever justify that to themselves, nor taking a baby from its mother at birth.

@babyghirl you are putting your desire for a child, which is a want not a need or a right, above the health and safety of the woman who will give birth to the child and the rights of the baby.

It's trafficking, no matter the spin you put on it.

What is the birthing mother changes her mind? What if she becomes ill in pregnancy?

@DebbieHarrysCheekbones But you didn’t read the three other paragraphs.

The vast majority of women on this thread who have been lucky/fortunate/blessed to get pregnant, carry a baby to term and then give birth to a live healthy baby seem the most closed to hearing the positivity surrogacy could bring.

@TakeMe2Insanity why is secondary infertility worse than infertility.

@Clymene
My sil is on to her 5th pregnancy not having any more no complications in any pregnancy if she had complications in any pregnancy I would not even think twice abot doing it.
But if the shoe was on the other foot I would do it no problem my friend also like the sil have both offered to do it for me.

Surrogacy is illegal in most of Europe. Not because the people who made the rules had their own children and didn't recognise the pain of infertility but because most governments recognise it as an exploitative practice that only benefits the intended parents. It is dangerous to women who act as surrogates and hugely detrimental to the children who are born to be sold.

[quote Babyghirl]@spicedappledonuts
Human trafficking is stealing girls of the street and selling to sex rings, but I'm not doing that nor will I be paying for the baby either.

@Mickarooni
I'm on waiting list for ivf and if that fails I will then go down the surrogacy is my last option.

@TakeMe2insanity
I agree with you, must be nice to not have that problem, and I'm sure alot on this thread have not had problems so can't walk in them shoes.[/quote]
Is this just about getting what you want then?

The issue I and many others have with surrogacy - which coincidentally transcends whether we are biological mothers or not - is actually about treating babies as commodities and goods.

Your struggles are entirely personal and valid. I don’t seek to diminish them but by extension of that philosophy I continue to find the concept of getting a baby that’s not damaged by the birth parents or the care system etc to be deeply self serving. Regardless of circumstance the actually place of a newborn baby is with its biological
Mother who gave birth to them. To deny that fact is a denigration of the life that’s apparently so longed for and precious. It is a life at your price. Your terms. That is wrong

Infertility is absolutely horrible. Secondary infertility is even worse. Repeat miscarriage miserable. Late miscarriage dire. Visiting your child’s grave takes you to dark places.

Of course. Literally no one here disagrees with you on that. But none of that makes it ok to buy/sell human beings.

Reading through this thread I am increasingly disturbed by the lack of talk about the babies in these transactions.

There’s talk about the desperation of infertility, there’s talk about the sometimes perceived selfless offers of friends/families to carry a child. But even in the event of someone known to the intended parent, the talk of the baby only extends to “she will only be carrying the baby.” There is no mention, anywhere, of how the pregnant woman feels when the baby moves for the first time. No mention of how she must feel when the baby is moving consistently, poking her ribs with its little hands and feet, kicking her stomach so she can see it move, when she sees pictures of it, inside her on the scan. These are all things which pregnant women go through, and yet these surrogates have been reduced to “all she does is carry the baby.”

That says everything about the industry that needs to be said. There is 100% no consideration for the fact that there is A, an actual human baby in the mix here, and B, the fact that a woman is mother to that baby while it is growing inside her. Will feel the baby growing, will worry about the baby if it doesn’t move, will probably talk to the baby sometimes. She’s just “carrying the baby.”

Hideous.

@bookh I can only answer for myself, but it’s like getting half of what you want, a taster. You now have an idea of what your child actually looks like (obviously all children are different), you’re close to something almost as if you touch it but you can’t. I’ll always wonder what my child would be like if he had had his siblings etc.

@MrsPsmalls

This is NOT an amazing thing to do for someone. This is not about the women. It is not about fertility problems - and no one has the right to have a baby, however sad that makes them. Its not about the surrogate being magnanimous - no one should get to be magnanimous with someone else's (the infants) life. The only person that matters here is the infant and it is in no babies best interest to be taken from its biological mother at birth.

100% agree with this.

Nobody is owed children. They are not a right. Surrogacy shouldn't be the cure to the problems of people who can't have children at the expense of the child's health and wellbeing.

Surrogacy deprives the child of all it's ever known and already offers a disadvantaged start to life.

Altruistic or commercial, it's just wrong. It shouldn't be done.

[quote TakeMe2Insanity]@DebbieHarrysCheekbones But you didn’t read the three other paragraphs.

The vast majority of women on this thread who have been lucky/fortunate/blessed to get pregnant, carry a baby to term and then give birth to a live healthy baby seem the most closed to hearing the positivity surrogacy could bring.[/quote]
The positivity?
What taking a newborn baby from its mother to make another feel complete?

@Babyghirl
Wishing you all the best and lots of good wishes for your treatment.

@TakeMe2Insanity thank you. Appreciate your honest clarification.

Having walked your first paragraph, bar that, it incited a rage I cannot explain. I suppose for me after fifteen years of infertility, loss, horrific loss and let's not go there loss, that was my limit. My second, I accept, whilst unexpected was textbook, despite the history. So I had resigned myself to accept my lot at one. Gratefully.

The surrogacy aspect I only have professional experience in, under uk only agreements. In Scotland if a surrogacy is to go ahead a court reporter, solicitor, is appointed to investigate following birth of baby. I did that many times.

What I would say is that under the laws I was working with here, I never experienced anything but positivity and exceptional love and relations.

In the right circumstances it can be an amazing gift to someone

Do you think a baby should be a gift? Created to be given away?