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?

Sorry Tamzo - that wasn't what I meant. I meant that a woman forms a strong emotional bond with her baby in utero, and if that baby is taken from her (or she must give up her child) then she will feel it - not that a mother is as able to tell her own baby as a baby is its mother. (Though I would be interested to know if there has been research in this area)

Sorry to be unclear.

Many people on here think that to the surrogate mother the baby is purely a commodity that she can't wait to hand over, and doesn't give the child second thought. For some, maybe, but many women find it a dreadful wrench.

You are absolutely right. I think I very clumsily and insensitively tried to make a point.

As you can guess, I am not in favour of surrogacy but I do have the utmost respect for parents who adopt.

Because she won’t be the parent to the child, so ‘Not the Momma’

YABU big time.

in the UK surrogates aren’t paid, so hardly rent a womb. Also so many on here harping on about starching a baby from its mother yet have no issue when mothers take babies from their fathers. They’re told to actively leave dads off the birth certificates to make it harder, if they’ve done anything wrong it seems.

They also conveniently forget that one of those dads is the biological father to that baby. They aren’t stealing a baby, surrogates are well ‘trained’ and most clinics required extensive counselling before conducting the treatment in this country.

that t shirt was no different to the many women who refer to their babies fathers as sperm donors because they don’t play an active role in their lives. This is no different, that woman will not play an active role in those babies lives, therefore she isn’t the mumma.

As a society wehave a huge amount of adult children that WERE removed from their mother at birth, and they tell us ALL THE TIME just how horrifically this has affected them, even when adopted by nice people. And you can't honestly suggest that a newborn baby's bond with its biological father is ANYTHING like that too it's mother?! You know the person that grew the baby for 9 months. The very first thing it heard was her heart beat. The very first thing out tasted was her amniotic fluid. It recognises her voice, her heartbeat, her taste, her movements and her smell. Even her language!! Babies can be born to a C loving mother and no dad and often go on to live perfectly happy lives. It's not always the same when there is no mother in the scene. People raised without a loving mother with whom they have a strong bond and a fully formed attachment are often very unhappy and struggle to form attachments themselves. All of this is provable. You can even Google it ffs.

@myceliumama you're being very disingenuous with that comment and you know it. The stats on adult adoptees are skewed by the context of their adoptions. Currently for example foster to adopt is presenting better outcomes in children and teens, with it looking likely that a low ‘trauma’ at birth removal being optimal in terms of adoption.

surrogacy cannot be compared to adoption, especially when looking at adoptee stories as a collective, many in this space are from the US where adoption is a lot worse a process than here (also worse when compared to surrogacy too)

Adoption also doesn’t factor in a birth parent raising the child. Maybe do some more research on more accurate data sets before making such comments in future.

Also @myceliumama it’s well documented babies attachment to their primary care giver isn’t formed until 2-4 months so maybe you can do some Googling yourself ffs.

@VeryTrying22

www.psychologicalscience.org/publications/observer/obsonline/how-mother-child-separation-causes-neurobiological-vulnerability-into-adulthood.html

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111102124955.htm

www.babymed.com/news/separating-mother-baby-after-birth-causes-stress

Would you like me to link you to scholarly studies ? It's NEVER in a babies best interests to be removed from its mother unless the baby is at risk or for vital medical needs etc. but it IS in the best interest of the people purchasing the trafficked baby.

I have been a surrogate for a friend.

it’s my body, I chose to do it. My friends are happy their child is happy. I’m happy.

it’s not your business.

YANBU.

I think surrogacy is human trafficking - it will explode in the next decade and women and children will pay an awful price. It writes women out of a process only we endure, and separates a baby from its mother (against all NHS guidance…)

It is inherently misogynistic and I could never remain friends with someone who colluded in it.

Women are not vessels. We are sleepwalking in to Gilead.

I’m also cringing, and feel a sense of shame, for some of the comments on this thread.

wanting a child and being unable to have one is horrendous, and it doesn’t matter if it’s ivf, egg donation, sperm donation, or surrogacy using someone else’s genetic material, to support people to have a child who would otherwise never be born is in many instances a huge positive. Not all, but many.

some posters on here should be ashamed and I’m sure that if they came out from behind their key boards and actually met someone in real life who used ivf, sperm/egg donation, surrogacy they’d not say a negative word, never mind shouting about “selling babies”. Behind their backs, maybe, but I don’t think anyone in real life would own that.

YABU

I think offering to be a surrogate for someone you know and love, as a gift between friends or family, is different to the surrogacy industry, where poor women are used as mobile incubators for the benefit of wealthy people they don't know.

Unfortunately the vast majority of surrogate births are of the latter kind, not the former.

There is a bizarre notion, which you also see on SW discussions, that when employing a woman to do a service only woman can do, that is somehow 'renting her body'.

Newsflash: any service, that anyone does, is done with their body. We don't consider it 'buying access to a body' when we pay a man to clean windows, a woman to mine coal, a man to cook, a woman to render medical services and so on.

It's a service. Like all others. Some work is low risk and some higher, but it's all done with the person's body.

If the surrogate is acting freely, it's no different to any other service carried out.

Buying a baby is totally different to getting your windows cleaned

Fucking he’ll. What have I just read?

hell

I say it in real life too.

No issue with IVF where the parents who will bring up the child use their own eggs and sperm.

We have family members that were/are considering surrogacy. When they talked to me about it, I said I couldn’t support their decision and told them my reasons why. I’m not going to pretend I agree with something to validate someone else’s choices. It’s the people that buy babies and exploit women that should be ashamed, not me.

Absolutely @WildNights

i had fertility issues but never considered buying a baby

It’s not a trafficked baby. It’s a baby being raised by one of its parents. Are babies whose mothers die trafficked?

Many people seem to be against surrogacy because there is money involved. Are they also against it when money doesn't change hands - such as cases like this where due to a woman's medical inability to carry a baby to term, her mother became a surrogate and gave birth to her daughter and son-in-law's baby:
nypost.com/2020/11/15/grandmother-acts-as-daughters-surrogate-and-births-granddaughter/

Fucking hell, that is truly awful.

Yep. It’s always wrong.

I find it very unnatural and cruel on the poor baby. It's just selfish.

So Mumsnet hates surrogacy?
What if it were a man and a women with a surrogate? Would that change things.
Crass thing to write on a t shirt but can't be bothered to get worked up about it.
You can't legally pay for surrogacy in the UK. Do what you will.
My friend has a chance of being a mother (with her own egg) by using a surrogate. She couldn't be without one.