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?

A baby doesn't grow i side the father, recognising the father's voice, being aware of the father's smell. New babies can identify their mothers.

It's not all about milk and cuddles - there is deep physical and psychological bond which develops in utero, and it works both ways.

Surrogacy is a vile practice. No matter what the t-shirt says, the baby has a mother and will be willfully deprived of her while still tiny.

@Emotionalsupportviper But many adoptees establish bonds that are just as strong with their adopted mothers. It is offensive to suggest that I, and many other adoptees, cannot have a significant bond just because we weren't grown in the womb of the person we call mum. There is so much more to a strong bond between mother and child than this.

Surprisingly enough, you're not the only person to have IVF. If you're not bothered, great, doesn't mean no one else is!

Doesn't bother me. The reactions on this thread are hilarious, you'd swear the child has been ripped away from it's mother. For the woman to stand there and have a photo wearing this T shirt says to me she made her choice to help them have a baby and wasn't pushed into the decision.

Surrogacy is the only option for some people and it's easy to say how wrong it is when you are gifted with the ability to carry a child naturally.

and yet it is the case that whenever an example is given of a specific case of surrogacy that people want to oppose it is almost always gay men, despite them making up only about a third of surrogacy cases.

You still haven't offered any evidence that most discussion is about gay men.

why is that?

Let's pretend (and we do have to pretend, because you haven't offered any evidence) that your assertion that most discussion revolves around gay male couple is true. If (if) that's the case, then I would suggest that the most likely answer is misogyny. Women are shamed for having babies and shamed for not having babies in this misogynistic society. Straight couples may well not blast pics of their surrogate all over their social media pages because the woman in the couple has an internalised sense of shame and failure about not carrying the baby herself. Whereas most of the gay male couples I see are very wealthy white men, who will receive praise for their posts, and not be shamed because they weren't carrying the baby themselves.

Yes to this

Surrogacy is the practice of renting a woman's body, and taking - often buying - her baby. It's human trafficking and it's wrong.

The trauma of a baby taken from its mother at birth is significant. After nine months of incredible closeness, to be taken away from her, is just heartbreaking.

It's all just wrong. No one is entitled to have a baby. If you can't have a baby naturally then there are some reasonable and ethical options to try. But surrogacy is not one of them.

I don’t agree with surrogacy for anyone, lest I appear homophobic.

It's dehumanising for the pregnant woman, excuse me, pregnant person. Handmaids Tale comes to mind.

I'm not in support of surrogacy for money, rent a womb etc. Some agencies and women make money selling babies so I am totally against it. Perhaps the type of person to sell a womb/egg/whatever might wear that t-shirt because they don't care as long as they get paid?

You might want to look at your own posts before pulling others up on theirs!

The baby's ecsatic. It can't believe it's luck

Who do YOU think you are to tell someone who was adopted that their feelings are shite?

that's a very nasty thing to do!

you'd swear the child has been ripped away from it's mother.

It wasn't ripped away it was bought and sold, with paperwork and social media photos.

The actual newborn baby itself won't understand that difference of course. They are primed to seek out their birth mother who they recognize before birth. Who they have permanently exchanged dna with during the pregnancy.

They will obviously survive given appropriate care. But it is considered to be such a damaging thing to do to newborns that to remove a child at birth for child protection reasons requires a judge to believe that their is a risk of significant harm. It requires many reports, multiagency meetings and agreement from a range of professionals. It is action only taken in the most high risk cases.

I can't understand why buying a child makes this trauma go away?
As someone else has pointed out you aren't allowed to treat puppies like this.

It's very high risk for the woman who goes through the pregnancy, especially if she has no genetic connection to the baby, and it's not in a baby's best interests to be removed from the mother immediately after birth

I don't know anything about surrogacy - why is it very high risk for the surrogate and are there any studies which measure the long term harm caused to babies who are removed from their mothers immediately after birth (whether due to surrogacy or other adoption / taken into care / NICU)?

How important is the mum-baby connection compared to a baby's connection with another loving adult - is a baby with a loving carer who is not the mum better or worse off than one with a mum who is not very loving?

What they shouldn't be able to do, what no one should be able to do, is rent a woman's body.

This also prompted another question for me - I understand that in some circumstances the surrogate is not treated well or is coerced. But are there any circumstances in which you think it's ok for a woman to decide herself what she does with her uterus? Is it ok to donate eggs or breast milk or bone marrow or a kidney?

@Steamoutmyears

im glad you have your DD. I hope this vile thread hasn't upset you too much. Hide the thread, give her lots of cuddles & remember, these comments are not representative of real, normal, people!!

Your bond with YOUR DD is real xx

@Bovrilly

How important is the mum-baby connection compared to a baby's connection with another loving adult - is a baby with a loving carer who is not the mum better or worse off than one with a mum who is not very loving?

Did you read the gut wrenching thread on adoption a few weeks ago?

What? Not the same for ivf at all

I'm in the USA and doing a search about risks of donor eggs in surrogates is very difficult because the first few pages are just paid adverts.

There are a lot of people making a lot of money out of this.

But here are a couple of articles which highlight some basic health risks of donor eggs. Which cover the increased risk to the pregnant women.

evidence.nihr.ac.uk/alert/donor-eggs-may-be-linked-to-higher-risk-of-pregnancy-complications-following-ivf/

www.inviafertility.com/egg-donation/vicki-meagher/egg-donor-pregnancy-preeclampsia-risk-higher/?hs_amp=true

@LoveFromD

Did you read the gut wrenching thread on adoption a few weeks ago?

No.

I wouldn't suggest any such thing - what I am saying is that it is unnecessarily cruel to deprive a newborn of her/his mother unnecessarily. You were fortunate - you're obviously adopted by a wonderful and loving family - but although you won'r remember it, you will have experienced distress as an infant.

I would also argue that people who regard a baby's mother as just a convenient "womb-to-rent" , and who want to whitewash her out of their and the baby's lives, are unlikely to put a baby's needs above their own.

How important is the mum-baby connection compared to a baby's connection with another loving adult - is a baby with a loving carer who is not the mum better or worse off than one with a mum who is not very loving?

What makes you think the biological mother doesn't care about her baby? Even if she hasn't provided the ovum, she has still carried that child to term,, felt it grow and quicken inside her, and experienced giving birth and the rush of bonding hormones that comes with that experience.

Surrogacy is an appalling thing. I will believe it is a good career choice when wealthy people start suggesting it to their daughters. It is poor, desperate women who do this. Or women who are effectively "pimped" out as surrogates - usually by men.

And the opportunities for peadophiles to obtain children like via surrogacy are enormous- and it is happening.

Is it ok to donate eggs or breast milk or bone marrow or a kidney?

Yes. But I would suggest if you find that such "donations" are primarily low-income women "donating" their breast milk and kidneys and bone marrow to wealthy couples, and that very few (if any) wealthy people "donate" breast milk and kidneys and bone marrow to poor women, then you'd be right to find the whole industry pretty shady.

The mother is always the woman that grows and delivers the baby.

Consider a baby with three "mothers"
A. provided the egg
B. had the pregnancy and gave birth to the baby
C. brought up the child from birth to adulthood

If we have to choose, I would say C has the biggest claim on the word mother, followed by A, with B last. I guess by biggest claim, I meant the word "mother" can be used to describe them in the largest possible number of contexts that might crop up.

Thank you @calmlakes

The first of those studies does say that they can't be sure they have eliminated age as a confounding variable and the second says that while high blood pressure seems to be more likely with donor eggs, it is routinely screened for and very treatable, so I'm not sure if that warrants the "very high risk" label that the PP used? Unless there are other factors, as I said I don't know much about the ins and outs of surrogacy.

@Emotionalsupportviper

What makes you think the biological mother doesn't care about her baby?

Not that they don't care but in the past mums were encouraged not to "spoil" their baby by cuddling them too much. Newborns were looked after in the hospital nursery and brought back to mum for feeds. Even now for various reasons not every biological mum finds it easy to bond with their baby.

Question for those who don't have an ethical issue with surrogacy.

What's the difference between:

A. a woman in financial need, purposely trying and succeeding to get pregnant, then selling the resulting child to a loving couple who cannot have their own children for whatever reason, for £10k.

B. a woman in financial need, offering herself as a surrogate using her own eggs, then giving the resulting child to a loving couple who cannot have their own children for whatever reason, for £10k.