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.

@Lockdownbear

What happens if you discover the surrogate baby has a genetic condition at scan? Who gets the final say, presumably the surrogate mother? I'm not sure on the legalities surrounding surrogacy but could the surrogate parents reject the baby if a disability is obvious at birth?

I'd assume that stuff is covered within the legal paperwork, making up the contract that both parties entered into.
I'd assume if the baby has issues evident at the scan, the parents are entitled to request & pay for abortion, if the mother says no then it will be her responsibility.
Defect at birth should lie with the parents but it wouldn't surprise me if the contracts are very unfairly written and the parents will only take 'normally developed' babies.

I'm definitely seeing that international surrogacy is exploiting women in poor countries.
Properly managed within the UK with protection for the surrogate I don't have so much of an issue with.

The sale or return clause does not make it sound better.

The pregnancy you have given us isnt good enough therefore you either end the altruistic thing / contractal transaction we entered into (keeping in mind you are likely to be doing it for money if you are exceptionally poor and desparate) or you can take on the lifetime costs and emotional difficulties of raising a faulty child whilst we get to walk away without any further legal or financial obligations because we were richer / more selfish than you in the first place.

If that doesn't show up the power imbalances and exploitive nature of surrogacy which piles all the real risk on the birth mother, I don't know.

The risk of the birth mother not going through with the surrogacy and keeping the baby she gave birth to, and accepting all responsibility for them, pales into insignificance in comparison. Compounded in most cases because the birth mother will lack the financial power to keep the child / fight a legal battle to keep the child.

The whole thing where someone can tell a woman she MUST have an abortion or else is gross and is slavery of women for reproduction.

Another example of a rejection, this time there was an "epic snafu" with the sperm (what a way to make light of such a serious situation but I don't think this source is much more that sensationalist nonsense)

cafemom.com/parenting/220964-man-doesnt-want-baby-surrogate-mixup

It's not just disabilities that leave a surrogate born child in foster care or adoption services. When the adults desires aren't met, or there is a constant, life-long reminder of wrong that was done, resulting in daily guilt...the child, often a newborn baby, is rejected/abandoned and others have to swoop in and pick up the pieces.

I recommend this

In relation to disability or being born with development/congenital issues check out Heathers story.

@HeartsAndClubs

Nope. “Unless you’ve walked in the shoes…” doesn’t cut it.

As you’ve never been pregnant or given birth you are not in a position to comment on what it is like for a woman to carry a baby. What it’s like to feel that baby moving, feel it kicking, give birth to it and hear it cry for the first time.

You can’t have children. That’s life. We all have things we want but can’t have but sometimes that just isn’t achievable, and when that happens you have two choices. You can either be consumed by bitterness, change everyone’s view of you because nobody wants to be so involved with someone quite so bitter as all that, or you can find a way to get on with your life. Just because you want a baby doesn’t give you the right to want someone else to give you one.

Perhaps a puppy would be a good idea.

Nastiest post I’ve ever, ever seen on MN.

Nastiest post I’ve ever, ever seen on MN.

Really? Head over to feminism sex and gender discussion for some other, harsher examples.

And this from the surrogacy board...

surrogacy has gone wrong www.mumsnet.com/Talk/surrogacy/2188488-surrogacy-has-gone-wrong

Not nearly as nasty as the people who don't seem to grasp or care that this is trading in human beings and that the baby and surrogate mother are vulnerable because some people want a baby at any moral cost.

Wow, that thread. I honestly don't know how anyone in good conscience can support this practice, in any form. The cavalier attitude to women and babies is sickening.

@TheKeatingFive

Wow, that thread. I honestly don't know how anyone in good conscience can support this practice, in any form. The cavalier attitude to women and babies is sickening.

yes the cries of 'just put the baby up for adoption' were sickening.

I wonder how all that panned out? I hope the poster and her children are doing alright.

It seems to me that the willingness of women to be nice to their own detriment in life makes them an easy target for the kind of emotional blackmail that is pedalled around surrogacy.

@TheKeatingFive

Wow, that thread. I honestly don't know how anyone in good conscience can support this practice, in any form. The cavalier attitude to women and babies is sickening.

I love that Dave thought he could just leave the baby with the surrogate because he was too immature and lacking in responsibility to sort his shit out. And then expect to pick up the baby when it was convienent for him, and sod whether it was fine for the surrogate. It really does show up the mentality of those who seek surrogates.

I wonder what happened in the end and whether Dave stepped up or whether he just fucked off or took her to court later.

[quote OhHolyJesus]And this from the surrogacy board...

surrogacy has gone wrong www.mumsnet.com/Talk/surrogacy/2188488-surrogacy-has-gone-wrong[/quote]
What a predicament to leave the surrogate in. I hope she has managed to cope.

However it doesn't appear that they had a legal contract in place, which is dangerous for both the surrogate and the intended parents. Lack of legal protection indicates that no councilling took place either.

I only really agree with surrogacy where the embryo is the intended parents, therefore not biologically the surrogates, and the two intended parents will both be invested in the child they created.

We had IVF and the number of legal forms surrounding it was scary. Stuff that you just wouldn't think about, if we create an embryo and you get killed before it's implanted, If you split is the mother still allowed to have the embryo implanted?
I can't remember the rest but loads of stuff

Nastiest post I’ve ever, ever seen on MN

No,it's not nasty, it's straight to the point. If it upsets you you need to ask yourself why it's hitting a nerve. I speak as some one with experience of adoption and 'not having the family I originally hoped for.'

If talking about ethics and morality of surrogacy upsets and hurts your feelings then I think it says everything:

You think feelings trump rights.

That's what you took from that thread - that it was a poor contract?

So, if you had decided 8 months in that you didn't want the baby, what was in the contract for that scenario?

Back to a post way back...

Actually, I have no idea how common surrogacy is here, or in a country where the rules on payment are relaxed. Anyone have the numbers?

"In the UK alone, the number of parental orders made following a surrogate birth has tripled from 121 in 2011 to 368 in 2018. The true number of surrogacy arrangements may be even higher, as there is no obligation to seek such an order."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-47826356

430 applications were made in 2019 I read somewhere. It is on the increase...and as @NiceGerbil says the public consultation appears to be wanting legal reform to make it easier/commercial, due to its popularity here I suppose.

Gary Powell, veteran gay rights activist has spoken about this as by comparison the U.K. is quite relaxed in its approach compared to other European countries.

https://twitter.com/gbnews/status/1436024325908443137?s=21

@FourTeaFallOut

That's what you took from that thread - that it was a poor contract?

So, if you had decided 8 months in that you didn't want the baby, what was in the contract for that scenario?

I'd have made sure there was at least a financial responsibility for both men not just the biological dad.

They should all have had counselling before they started.

If a couple decide to split during pregnancy then usually the baby will stay with the mother, with the father being obliged to pay maintenance.

In this case given neither seem to want the child they should both be paying not just maintenance for the child but an allowance to the mother too.

No , sorry...I meant, what are the standard clauses available within a typical surrogacy contract in the situation where the commissioning parents decide that they do not want the child in say, the third trimester?

@PinkPlantCase

A PP mentioned why are we okay with having pets if we aren’t okay with surrogacy….

You can’t take a puppy away from its mum until 8 weeks, so why is it okay to take a baby from its birth mother almost instantly?

It is a feminist issue, if you’d have posted this under the feminist topic you’d have got different responses.

BBC 3 did a programme about surrogacy recently. There were many uncomfortable moments, including decisions being made about interventions to labour and birth by people other than the woman giving birth.

I saw that BBC programme, there was a blog about it here. It was interesting how the nature of 'altruistic' surrogacy was explored but as a transaction of another kind.

stopsurrogacynowuk.org/blog/

There was one repeat-surrogate mother who was very much about what the commissioning parents were going to give her in exchange, but not as money, more like friendship for life as they could never 'drop' her after she had 'given' them a baby. It turned out she had friends drop her as she couldn't participate in the party lifestyle they shared when she got pregnant with her first child. I thought that was quite insightful, it isn't always about money but it can remain transactional on a different way.

I have no real clue.

But if I was the be a surrogate, I'd be looking for both parents to be paying for the child they created and for me to look after it for the next 25 years plus compensation for loss of earnings beyond that.

I watched that documentary, that woman was frankly quite odd!

@HeartsAndClubs
Hardly f##king vile
And its not a designer baby I want.
And yous don't agree with me where I don't agree with yous everyone can have an opinion you had yours and I had mine.
It's vile knocking someone down who has struggles as I said I will do surrogacy with my egg and oh sperm if I need to and that's all there is to it 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

and that's all there is to it 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

I think the issues and examples raised in this thread demonstrates that it's far from 'that's all there is too it', from the ethical questions, laws, costs and payments and errr...the actual human life being created.

It could not be further from "that's all there is to it" but your response goes a long way to support the concerns expressed here, in fact I would go so far to say this is pretty close to the root cause of surrogacy and sums it up nicely.

I think it's utterly traumatic for the newborn. Even if they go on to have a lovely life I can't help but think the trauma is inside of you forever. A newborn knows the voice that carried them before they're born. Makes me sad to think about it.

Another one here with serious misgivings. The sense of entitlement some high profile people who've had children via surrogate have sits very very uneasily with me. It comes across as "of course we can choose to have a child when we want because we will just buy it". I'm thinking of people like Tom Daley and Julia Peyton Jones.

This was from an interview with Daley and made me spit feathers:
Daley says that gay couples are uniquely suited to being parents because they are prepared to endure the daunting surrogacy process. “One of you isn’t going to fall pregnant after a glass of wine on the sofa, that’s for sure,” he says. “You have to want a baby more than anything in the world.
“The surrogate mum doesn’t supply the egg, so she has no biological connection with the infant. I think that helps,” Daley says.