to be offended by this T-shirt?

[parklife1]

I saw a post on social media today. It was about two gay men becoming fathers of twins via surrogate. There was a picture of the two men in "DAD" T-shirts. The pregnant surrogate stood in between them with a T-shirt saying "NOT THE MOMMA".

I'm not even against surrogacy perse, but I found this picture offensive.

I understood why she was wearing it - she wanted to display that she doesn't want to have a mothering role in the children's life.

I still think it's a slap in the face of women, we go through so much during pregnancy and labour. Giving birth can be life-threatening, I lost 2.1 litres of blood during my first birth and 1 litre of blood during my second birth.

Many women have postpartum depression after birth and the hormones are on a roller-coaster.

My body will be forever marked by giving birth (stretch marks, C-section scar, mum tum).

To me this picture is just offensive, because it sort of portrays women and our bodies as a commodity.

AIBU?

To repeat my answer in pie-chart terms, I would award 95 points to the woman who brought up the child, 4 points to the egg donor, and 1 to the woman who gave birth.

I agree and would have posted similar if I’d come back earlier

for the 66% of coverage to stand as a serious figure it needs to be evidenced and @TeaKlaxon also needs to show that the remaining 34% of coverage was received overwhelmingly positively and responded to slower since the claim is that coverage of same sex surrogacy prompts quicker criticism and is overwhelmingly negative thus proving homophobia.

(That is for their claim on the word mother, not their overall contribution, which would be a different question.)

That means I never had a mother or a father, then.

But how was I born? With whom did I live?

A fair description would be with my female owner. It's certainly how she saw it - and me - as a piece of property.

The only difference is that the sole owner and the male provided some genetic material before being kicked into touch.

I still wished for a connection with them. Still would have been so happy if she had given a shiny shit about me. Or him. But legally, biologically, and emotionally as far as I was concerned (and was constantly let down about) they were my father and mother.

Love is not a prerequisite of any parent, biological or adoptive.

The difference is that this couple have bought and already decided that their property is not anything to do with the woman who carries it, enables it to grow and then finally births it, rather than mine where they made it, she decided she wanted it all to herself, he didn't or couldn't stop her and then she decided that she didn't really like the latest property that much after all, as it wasn't performing to specification.

@Emotionalsupportviper

New mothers can’t identify their babies accurately sadly. There used to be quite a few baby mix ups which went totally unnoticed until the child was older and didn’t resemble the parents at all.

I think you're getting offended by a woman making a statement about a choice she made about her body and I think that's wrong.

I chose not to be a parent. If I wore a T-shirt that said 'Not a Momma' would you be offended by that too?

Blokes using women's bodies for their own ends.

Plus ca change......

@ArcheryAnnie

So “misogny” is responsible for people being harder on gay men who use a surrogate than straight women? Actually no, it’s quite a different bias at play.

The mental gymnastics some on here will go through to blame everything on “misogny” and cast women as the victims of the bias of it - even when (as in her example) someone else (gay men) are the ones experiencing negative bias is amazing. Somehow it all circles back to misogny and their own cause.

@Steamoutmyears

Dont worry about this thread. Your DD is yours. These people are head deep in their ideology and don’t represent most.

@Tamzo85 everything you’ve posted is based on supposition. There’s no evidence that gay men are particularly singled out for criticism around surrogacy.

On the other hand it’s blindingly obvious that there are ethical issues around third parties using a woman’s uterus for their own benefit using the inequality of wealth. It’s largely why the UK has the restrictions around surrogacy it does.

Thats nice dear

I quite agree!

I disagree with surrogacy full stop, for both gay and straight couples, for lots of reasons. For the child (as others pointed out, we don't take baby animals from their mothers at birth, but doing it to humans is fine?) and because of exploitation of women. Do you ever see a wealthy woman being a surrogate? When all these celebrity couples (Kim K, Oli Locke, Tom Daly etc) use surrogates, how come none of their celebrity mates or siblings ever step up and volunteer?

On the gay couple thing, there is definitely misogyny at play, although obviously not in all cases. I always remember the reality TV show with the gay couple whose surrogate mother gave birth on the show (without her consent apparently!) and one of them hilariously quipped - 'if I knew i was going to be giving birth on TV, I would have at least got a wax'. It made me feel sick. Funnily enough that particularly story did not have a happy ending.

But I disagree with it in all forms, apart from perhaps if it is a very close friend or family member doing it.

I am also interested in answers to this question. How come it (presumably) isn't OK for a woman to get pregnant herself and sell her baby, but it is OK for her to be commissioned to get pregnant and sell her baby?

@Bovrilly I think one issue is that surrogacy and egg donation is a massive industry ( certainly here in the USA) so there isn't much funding going towards looking for medical difficulties with it.

I think one of the articles was from a service providing egg donation so they don't have much incentive to emphasize the medical issues. But even they have to acknowledge increased risks.

Fundamentally it isn't surprising that using a donor egg is higher risk as it isn't a genetic part of the woman's body and the human body often struggles with donor parts.

The adoption is trauma thread is very eye opening.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4546976-adoption-trauma

I love mumsnet, it never ceases to amaze me how little I know until a thread like the above comes up.

From the very little I know about private adoption in the States, I don't think (A) is a million miles off. The birth mother may not get pregnant deliberately but she chooses the adoptive parents who then cover her medical bills and expenses (whatever that may entail) and the baby is handed over just after birth.

I am not saying that people with children who have donor egg or surrogate backgrounds are not their children.

This isn't about individual families. The biological drivers to reproduce in some form and raise dc is very strong. We shouldn't leave this decision making to individuals desperate for families and those willing to financially exploit this desire.

I am saying as a society we should really think about whether we want to continue buying and selling babies based on adult wants rather than babies needs.

I also can see no difference between selling babies directly from the full biological birth mother and mix and matching womb and egg and selling that combination.

Yes. Adopt don't shop.

So “misogny” is responsible for people being harder on gay men who use a surrogate than straight women? Actually no, it’s quite a different bias at play.

Er, no, @Tamzo85 , that's not what I am saying at all. I am suggesting that it's possible heterosexual couples don't post as much about acquiring a child via a surrogate, because women are frequently shamed and told their are "failures" for not being able to produce children.

Gay men, on the other hand - and particularly the very wealthy, white gay men that are frequently featured in these stories - aren't shamed for not being able to produce children, so there isn't that factor pressuring them into keeping the surrogacy private.

I'm just as "hard" on straight couples as I am on gay couples when they exploit poor women. It's just possible that I am slightly less likely to hear about a lot of the straight couples that use surrogates, because yhe pressure and shame dumped on women who cannot produce their own babies means they are less likely to post on social media with pics of them and their surrogate.

There are some really heavy handed comments on here that are upsetting to myself and other adoptees. It is TRAUMA and the baby is RIPPED AWAY from it's mother. We know this, we feel it, we live it. We don't need insensitive arseholes that don't have any lived experience of this situation telling us that our opinions are shite.

Fuck. Off.

@GenderCriticalTrumpets That is not the case for all of us adoptees.

I think all the posts that conflate adoption with surrogacy are unhelpful.

Adoptive families (or at least the decent ones) don't pretend the child arrived magically out of nowhere, or try to reduce the birth mother to nothing but a convenient rented uterus. I posted earlier about how on birthdays my mum would remember the other mothers that went before her. (There were other issues with my mum, but on this at least she was absolutely sound.)

Adoption is about trying to find the best outcome for the child. Surrogacy is about buying the best option for the would-be parent. They are quite different.

Thanks @calmlakes

Yes, I agree there needs to much more and better research. It would be interesting to know the cause of raised blood pressure in these pregnancies, I see what you're saying about foreign tissue but would have expected miscarriage to be the more usual response. (But maybe miscarriage rates are also higher with donor eggs.) Anyway, an interesting and worthwhile area of research, good luck with it.

This x 1000