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.

@nolongersurprised

There is a girl in my DC’s year at school who has 2 dads. When asked by the other children about her mother she says she doesn’t know who she is, but lives in .

She is very loved it seems sad to me that, not only does she not have a mother, she has no memories or recollections of her mother. If your mother has died, you still remember her, or others do and their stories become part of your history. If your mother is too unwell or abusive/neglectful to look after you this is also part of your identity, you may resent or dislike her but you know who she is. If you are a gay man and you and your husband decide to share parenting with a female friend, then, irrespective of the living arrangements, your child has a mother you can tell them about, even if they aren’t in their life at all.

But hiring someone as a “gestational carrier” then deprives a child of that part of their identity.

I know a gay man who had a baby via IVF with a lesbian friend and now they co-parent. They're best friends just not together. Feels like a good and lucky way for gay men to have a baby without depriving the baby of a mother.

I have to say I'm very much in the "tough shit" camp when it comes to men having their own biological children any other way. You don't carry babies? Neither can your partner, therefore no bio babies for you. It may not be their fault they're gay but it doesn't give them a right to exploit women

@ArabellaScott
I don't know how you explain to a child they were made from a random egg.

No neither do I
Furthermore using a random egg flies in the face of not wanting to adopt really since in this scenario you are as much the surrogate baby’s biological mother as a child in the care system: ie not at all

@YourFinestPantaloons very different family set up bit at least the child has something explainable and knows where they came from.

@DebbieHarrysCheekbones, I remember thinking the same thing. And still think embryo adoption is a bit weird.

For anyone interested in actual research into families created through donor conception, surrogacy, gay parenting etc please read the work of the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge. They have conducted longitudinal studies into these children and 'new families' and the outcomes have been very positive. There is a summary of the research on surrogacy here surrogacyuk.org/2018/10/14/research-findings-from-a-longitudinal-study-of-surrogacy-families-in-the-uk/

The lead author of these studies Susan Golombok gave an interview in Time Magazine
time.com/5899546/family-structures/

I've copied some paragraphs from that article which some people on this thread may wish to reflect on.

"For decades people have raised concerns about families that vary from the structure of one mother, one father and biological children and assumed that the children would be harmed in some way as a result. The greater the difference from the traditional family, the greater the perceived risk of psychological harm to the child, the conventional wisdom goes.

This is wrong. I can say this definitively because I’ve been studying different family forms for more than 40 years, analyzing families with lesbian mothers, gay fathers, transgender parents, single mothers by choice, and families created by egg donation, sperm donation, embryo donation and surrogacy, and all my research points to one conclusion: What matters most for children is not the make-up of a family. What matters most is the quality of relationships within it, the support of their wider community and the attitudes of the society in which they live....

...Just because people become parents in nontraditional ways does not make them less capable ones or love their children less. In fact, my research suggests the opposite. The sooner we accept this, the better off these kids we claim to be so concerned about will be. Because there’s another finding that stands out loud and clear from our research: although the make-up of families does not affect the well-being of these kids, intolerance of their family does."

None of which addresses the point that it is highly unethical to build an industry that exploits women and trades babies.

@Guardian12

For anyone interested in actual research into families created through donor conception, surrogacy, gay parenting etc please read the work of the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge. They have conducted longitudinal studies into these children and 'new families' and the outcomes have been very positive. There is a summary of the research on surrogacy here surrogacyuk.org/2018/10/14/research-findings-from-a-longitudinal-study-of-surrogacy-families-in-the-uk/

The lead author of these studies Susan Golombok gave an interview in Time Magazine
time.com/5899546/family-structures/

I've copied some paragraphs from that article which some people on this thread may wish to reflect on.

"For decades people have raised concerns about families that vary from the structure of one mother, one father and biological children and assumed that the children would be harmed in some way as a result. The greater the difference from the traditional family, the greater the perceived risk of psychological harm to the child, the conventional wisdom goes.

This is wrong. I can say this definitively because I’ve been studying different family forms for more than 40 years, analyzing families with lesbian mothers, gay fathers, transgender parents, single mothers by choice, and families created by egg donation, sperm donation, embryo donation and surrogacy, and all my research points to one conclusion: What matters most for children is not the make-up of a family. What matters most is the quality of relationships within it, the support of their wider community and the attitudes of the society in which they live....

...Just because people become parents in nontraditional ways does not make them less capable ones or love their children less. In fact, my research suggests the opposite. The sooner we accept this, the better off these kids we claim to be so concerned about will be. Because there’s another finding that stands out loud and clear from our research: although the make-up of families does not affect the well-being of these kids, intolerance of their family does."

I haven’t read the link I am not concerned about “unconventional “ parents or families.

I am concerned about that fact it’s legal in parts of the world to pay a woman to carry a child and literally take it off her or

Don’t mistake fears that surrogacy has a murky moral map with bigotry and narrow mindedness. At least not on my part

But hiring someone as a “gestational carrier” then deprives a child of that part of their identity.

As does two lesbian women using an anonymous sperm donor.

It is not just about harms, it's about rights. A child has the right not to be commissioned. A child has a right to to come into the world without being under a contract of term and conditions. A baby exists in a dyad with its mother and that relationship should be recognised as a fundamental right unless puts the baby or mother at risk of harm and, even then, they should have a right to claim that person as their mother and not be gaslit by the new adults around them to regard that first and primary relationship as just the womb they grew in.

And anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.

There were numbers of slaves who didn't want to be emancipated, they described themselves as content with their lives.
That didn't mean that slavery wasn't totally wrong.

Trading in people is simply wrong, doing it to vulnerable new born babies doesn't make it better.

52 year old rich celebrity pays woman to carry her baby for her

www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-10001059/Naomi-Campbell-52-discusses-wonderful-baby-girl-time.html

Also bragging about 12 hours sleep a night. Oh do fuck off Naomi

Happy slaves
Happy prostitutes
Happy surrogate mothers
Happy abused wives
Happy porn stars
Happy cam girls

And happy women who actively fought against women, as the sex class they were included in, getting rights (the vote, Suffragetts and Suffragists). For every Phylis Schafley there's a Gloria Steinem.

For every woman who gives up a baby there will be one who regrets it. Can we not hear from them too, or is it only happy endings that are allowed to be shared?

A woman here has twins, again for a same-sex male couple, again it's twins, one for each to be genetically related to. She maintains she is happy, though I wonder what drove her to do this and whether she was truly prepared (the surrogacy agency pounced pretty quickly and she mentions doubts around what she will tell her two very young daughters when the babies don't come home.)

www.mother.ly/pregnancy/adopt-foster-surrogacy/surrogacy/my-journey-through-surrogacy

For every life-long friendship where families join together and bond, there is a woman who is dropped by those who promised to cherish her always.

We can talk about all these different scenarios without being 'judgy' and I would suggest that closing down a discussion on a controversial and emotional topic because dissenting opinions is being expressed is bigoted. And that goes both ways. That's what a discussion is.

I’m also going to put it out there that I think 52 is too old to be having a baby. When the child is 18 she’s going to be almost 70. Poor kid.

Same goes for Elton John etc

It's feasible now, with egg freezing laws changing, that a woman could freeze her eggs at 30 and have a them fertilised by purchasing sperm and have a woman have a baby for her when she herself is 85.

Is it likely? One would hope not, it wouldn't be in the best interests of the child. But is it possible and legal? Yes, if surrogacy law reform passes.

Though frozen eggs have low rates of success, there are no upper (or lower) age limits for commissioning parents and it has already be mentioned that the law reform proposals would see the age limit for a surrogate mother drop to 18, so it's feasible that a defrosted egg of a 30 year old (or younger) could be fertilised and grown in an 18 year old, as her first child (there is no legal requirement for her to have been pregnant/given birth) and the 85 year old would raise the child as she is the genetic parent, with or without a partner.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/14/freezing-eggs-women-fertility-treatment

Do you think the fee-receiving doctors are going to say no?

Do you think the MPs/Government are going to say no?

Do you think the judges are going to say no?

It's just all so wrong @OhHolyJesus

I agree but I do want to hear the arguments from the other side. I thought it was all fine until I started reading snd learning more about it. I was fed a diet of women's magazines as a teen and later as a young woman, I read all the stories of how some poor woman would be left childless if another woman didn't come along and generously and selflessly, have a baby for her. There has been a definite shift in media coverage to be very much about the same-sex male couples who, by no fault of their own (not their biology, not their sexual orientation...they are certainly NOT infertile) need a woman to help.

In fact we are now seeing single men need that same help. I wouldn't be surprised if we see more stories like this:
^
www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-56162721^

With a shortage of 'surrogates' (or women as I like to call them) and surrogacy agencies wanting to advertise (to boost their 'breeding stock'), with little to no restrictions on who can 'apply', you might wonder where all these women will come from...but then I think of the years of austerity, followed by Covid related struggles or unemployment and I think...they won't have to look to far.

Sen.Cuomo has some interesting comments relating to this in the legalisation of commercial surrogacy in NY. You also never have to look to too far for a man (wealthy or not, gay or not) passing comment or laws re access to a woman's body.

@HermioneKipper

I’m also going to put it out there that I think 52 is too old to be having a baby. When the child is 18 she’s going to be almost 70. Poor kid.

Same goes for Elton John etc

Another example here OP, though surrogacy is not mentioned, if Peyton did use another woman and her body she truly did disappear like magical, mythical being, vanishing into the night after delivering a brand new baby girl.

Personally, I find hard to believe that a 64 year old, however good for her age she looks, didn't 'use a surrogate' (I really hate that phrase). If she was actually pregnant herself then it must have been fraught with risk, for her and the baby.

It is of course unfair that men can father children in old age (Ecclestone was 89 for his forth) but it's just how it goes.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/julia-peyton-jones-why-i-became-a-mother-at-64-wrg9gh9hr

Its funny. It seems the right want to control women's bodies by banning abortion but the left want to control it by allowing exploitation for surrogacy. And Ed Davy just wants to pretend women don't exist.

Meanwhile the police watchdog tell us violence and abuse of women isn't taken seriously enough.

Its almost as if there a universal theme here...

That's it Red. To the Right a woman is a host (abortion), to the Left a woman is a host (carrier/gestational host) ...and Ed Davy thinks there is no where men can't go, including single sex spaces for women that are protected in law.

It's not difficult to see why women are pissed off. Add in a menstruator and a cervix haver here, even a birthing body there, with a sprinkling of domestic violence, low rape convictions and sexual harassment in the workplace, or even just a sex-based pay gap, it's a wonder there isn't an uprising of epic proportions.

Sen.Cuomo has some interesting comments relating to this in the legalisation of commercial surrogacy in NY. You also never have to look to too far for a man (wealthy or not, gay or not) passing comment or laws re access to a woman's body.

And, if you don't know, Cuomo recently resigned over his long tenure of harassing women who worked for him.

[quote DebbieHarrysCheekbones]@ArabellaScott
I don't know how you explain to a child they were made from a random egg.

No neither do I
Furthermore using a random egg flies in the face of not wanting to adopt really since in this scenario you are as much the surrogate baby’s biological mother as a child in the care system: ie not at all[/quote]
Ahh...but you can shop for your egg, choosing from a catalog of pretty, healthy, white (ethnically Korean and Japanese women's eggs are also expensive due to demand), college-educated young woman.

After a lot of internet searches for colleges and AP testing, my then 15-yr DD was targeted with advertising that promoted egg donation.

It's not difficult to see why women are pissed off. Add in a menstruator and a cervix haver here, even a birthing body there, with a sprinkling of domestic violence, low rape convictions and sexual harassment in the workplace, or even just a sex-based pay gap, it's a wonder there isn't an uprising of epic proportions.

Today I feel I have an answer to that. I'm behind deadline, I'm trying to juggle 2 kids after school events that take place at the same time, my DF needs his meds picked up and my MIL wants me to host dinner tomorrow. My DH forgot to pick up toilet paper so I think thats now on me cause he just left for a double shift. I'd like to join the uprising but my DD has a doctor appointment at 3.

And now I even feel guilty for reading this thread on my work-from-home-to-save-me-time-break cause it reminds me how my laundry has piled up this week.

[quote Mickarooni]@BeenAroundTheWorldAndIII

“ I would be a surrogate, and it would be ridiculous of you to think a grown woman is not able to weigh up the risks of a pregnancy and child birth.”

Using this logic, why is not legal for me to sell my organs?[/quote]
But surrogacy is legal. And selling organs isn't. So I can weigh up the risks associated with a legal act of being a surrogate and make an informed decision and then become a surrogate if I want to, all with the framework of the law. I cannot legally sell my organs so it's a totally irrelevant comparison.

Surrogacy isn't legal in quite a lot of countries, it isn't a universally accepted activity.

So I can weigh up the risks associated with a legal act of being a surrogate and make an informed decision and then become a surrogate if I want to

What would be the process of coming to an informed decision before being implanted/self-inseminating?