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.

The only person I know who has been through surrogacy in the uk adores their surrogate. I don’t know if you could automatically count that as trafficking/buy/sell humans.

I think there needs to be clarity: surrogacy in the uk in principle altruistic vs paid commercial surrogacy in Ukraine/US/India etc. Theres certainly a difference between the two. Is any system better than the other?

Re women going into paid surrogacy, they are obviously doing it for the money. I do remember watching a documentary where a woman was virtually given financial advise by the clinic telling her it was a one off job a chance to buy land/home for her family.

I'm against all surrogacy regardless of circumstances.

I do remember watching a documentary where a woman was virtually given financial advise by the clinic telling her it was a one off job a chance to buy land/home for her family.

That might be true of an organ also. Does that make it ok?

@DebbieHarrysCheekbones
Why does anyone have kids not for a laugh, but because they Want one so why am I different to anyone else, oh wait because I'm struggling does not make that want any less, yes I might not be the birth mother but I will be it's biological mother. Have you had trouble with fertility and know what one who has is going through 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

[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]
Of course they are. Because people who ARE suffering infertility have the motivation to convince themselves there’s nothing wrong with surrogacy, because they’re so desperate for a baby. Women who aren’t going through infertility can be more objective and also gave the benefit of experience. Having seen the instant recognition my newborns had for me from literally the second they were born and the distress they showed when passed to someone else, I feel strongly that conceiving a baby with the full intent to put it through separation from the one thing it knows and brings it comfort, is wrong.

I am aware I am very privileged to have experienced that and my heart aches for anyone struggling with infertility but that doesn’t mean it’s ok to do anything to get a baby at any cost.

I don’t know if you could automatically count that as trafficking/buy/sell humans.

But that’s what it literally is. A baby as commodity. Regardless of the relationship.

why am I different to anyone else

Because you need another woman to go through the physical risks and emotional pain of pregnancy for you.

YANBU.

All of this warping and twisting of language to erase female experience (birthing bodies, menstruators, etc) is helping to normalise the use of women's bodies for commercial surrogacy.

Mark my words. In ten years time it will be legal in this country to buy a woman's reproductive capacity.

@bookh this isn’t an easy discussion for anyone. I’ve suffered 10 year infertility before my child, then 5 years with secondary. I have one child but I’m missing 5 others. While I am trying desperately to accept my hand, I do feel that people are missing. I don’t know if surrogacy is for me anymore than if it isn’t. I just know that to ban it isn’t the answer because someone with enough skill/technology will be able to dangle the prospect of a real live baby in-front of a desperate person.

[quote Babyghirl]@DebbieHarrysCheekbones
Why does anyone have kids not for a laugh, but because they Want one so why am I different to anyone else, oh wait because I'm struggling does not make that want any less, yes I might not be the birth mother but I will be it's biological mother. Have you had trouble with fertility and know what one who has is going through 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️[/quote]
I’m sorry for what you’re going through but this is yet again another paragraph and YOU and YOUR wants and needs. They’re valid, absolutely, but you haven’t once as far as I’ve seen posted about this from the baby‘a point of view. Do you honestly believe hand on heart that there would be no harm or distress caused to the newborn that is taken from its mother at birth? Honestly?

@Mickarooni
Thank you very much for your kind words 💐

I just know that to ban it isn’t the answer because someone with enough skill/technology will be able to dangle the prospect of a real live baby in-front of a desperate person.

What do you mean?

@TheKeatingFive

I don’t know if you could automatically count that as trafficking/buy/sell humans.

But that’s what it literally is. A baby as commodity. Regardless of the relationship.

This.

I'm against it in all circumstances.

If your first act 'as a parent' is to remove it from the woman who gave birth, then yes I find that problematic.

And no, even if its not for money I still think surrogacy reprehensible.

A baby isn't a 'gift' to give/recieve between two adults.

The baby might be genetically not related (and that in itself because of the extra risks involved in that as a process) but that doesn't mean they don't have a link to the woman on their birth certificate.

The denial of this, takes something from the baby.

Emotional abuse / coercive control in altruristic surrogacy is a real risk because of the dynamics of the relationship. It upsets natural and normal power balances.

Buying and selling people is fucked up, however young they are.

The twisting people will do to justify appalling things as long as it gets them what they want. The poster who can't have another child because pregnancy will probably kill her, so you're considering using your sister as a surrogate. To get the exact amount of kids you want you would put your sister through something you've acknowledged can be fatal.
And one of the parents of a surrogate child on this thread has previously posted about their story and it was pretty clear their surrogate had mental health issues. But now it's being painted as an amazing success story.
Surrogacy should be illegal in all cases.

@TakeMe2Insanity I agree. It was just that one comment I couldn't follow. And yes, very similar experience. Fifteen years here, but zero for second. I should have nine.

As I said the only experience I have was entirely positive, wonderfully so In two particular cases which I will remember forever.

[quote Babyghirl]@DebbieHarrysCheekbones
Why does anyone have kids not for a laugh, but because they Want one so why am I different to anyone else, oh wait because I'm struggling does not make that want any less, yes I might not be the birth mother but I will be it's biological mother. Have you had trouble with fertility and know what one who has is going through 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️[/quote]
I am a mother
I have carried and given birth to three beautiful healthy babies. It is precisely because of that I know that the minutes and hours that followed their birth showed me what the last nine months of my life had been about. There was a bind and a connection that depended entirely on them being with me or around me and not handed to someone else. I was their world. They sought me and I sought them the second they were born.

It is a denigration of the very thing you seek to try and diminish this. And truthfully that terrifies me

@MayorGoodwaysChicken
I know people who have adopted kids that where taking of there birth mothers and guess what they are a star pupils doing really well and heading towards a great career.
And they will tell you they could not be happier so as long as a child is loved a child well thrive but as I said my egg my baby only thing is someone else will carry for me.
Everyone has an opinion and that's mine and I won't change my mind on it.

I really hope for all the ladies on this thread that is ambushing ladies for wanting a baby and it's the only root left to go and have daughters of your own they don't have fertility issues.

my egg my baby only thing is someone else will carry for me

And there we have it, the commodification of women to fulfil your desires.

I really hope for all the ladies on this thread that is ambushing ladies for wanting a baby and it's the only root left to go and have daughters of your own they don't have fertility issues.

If they did, it wouldn’t make surrogacy okay.

No one has a right to a child.

I find your inability to see it from anyone else’s point of view (the child/the birth mother) quite something.

[quote Babyghirl]@MayorGoodwaysChicken
I know people who have adopted kids that where taking of there birth mothers and guess what they are a star pupils doing really well and heading towards a great career.
And they will tell you they could not be happier so as long as a child is loved a child well thrive but as I said my egg my baby only thing is someone else will carry for me.
Everyone has an opinion and that's mine and I won't change my mind on it.[/quote]
This is staggeringly naive and tells us just how much you have really looked into these issues The vast majority of adopted children have significant issues with attachment etc. Just read some of the adoption boards on here, it’s eye opening. You may know one or two who are ‘star pupils’ but implying that love is enough and everyone is fine if they’re just lived enough…well I have no words for how wrong that ridiculous statement is. As has been said upthread, taking a child from its birth parents is a ‘least worst’ option when the child is otherwise at significant risk of harm. It isn’t done lightly precisely because of how much is known about the issues it causes the child. Setting out to conceive a baby with the express intent of causing it that harm is quite another thing.

@DebbieHarrysCheekbones
Well aren't you lucky to have a family just because I have to do things abit differently to get there does not make me a bad person 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ but you know what when I do get to hold a son or daughter that child will know how much I fought and went through to get them and know that they will be loved until the end of the earth and back again.

I know people who have adopted kids that where taking of there birth mothers and guess what they are a star pupils doing really well and heading towards a great career.

That’s wonderful.

If doesn’t negate the trauma of taking a baby from its mother. Which on most cases of adoption is the least worst option, but not in the case of surrogacy.

@Babyghirl

I really hope for all the ladies on this thread that is ambushing ladies for wanting a baby and it's the only root left to go and have daughters of your own they don't have fertility issues.

I hope that my daughter doesn't have fertility issues but I also hope that she will see that having a baby is not a right and that surrogacy is treating women like commodities and has neither the best interests of the woman who carries the baby and gives birth (the mother) or the baby at heart.

Many infertile women choose not to use surrogates.