To ask for your views on surrogacy?

[consortiar]

Is it ok a surrogate?

Is it ever ok to use a surrogate?

In what circumstance is it not ok?

In what circumstance is it ok?

Kardashians are an example and other celebs that have lots of money and no time or possibly inclination to be pregnant?

Lesbians presumably can carry their own baby with the use of a sperm donor.

What about gay couple that would like to use their sperm and an egg donor?

If it's not ok. What is it specifically that is wrong?

Couples that cannot have children due to the woman not being able to carry a baby, do they lose their entitlement to have a biological child due to the perceived wrong in using a surrogate?

From the context, I assume this is a male gay couple.

You know what two men went through with surrogacy, hmm?

I see nothing wrong with it, as long as the woman acting as surrogate does so freely of her own will (and I recognise that there could be problems enforcing this, but I don't think it's a common issue in developed countries where women have equal rights).

Why do you not think this is a common issue? On what basis and evidence? Who have you mostly seen talking about their experience of surrogacy? How common must the issue become before you consider it a problem? (In other words, how many exploited or otherwise ruined incubator women is an acceptable number so that others can have a baby?)

I'm so sorry your friend has been through all of this. I know we don't know when we will do. But bringing a child into the world while you have cancer seems crazy & selfish to me.

Hotandbothered I take it you haven't actually read the thread, or even my one comment you posted in response to.

Separating a baby from its mother traumatizes it, read the endless research that supports this.

Having your own biological child means no traumatized child.

Adoption is a necessary evil. To create a NEW child to traumatize is very different than giving a home to an ALREADY created child. What do you not understand about that?

I'm truly sorry for anyone who is struggling with infertility for any reason. I'd be very happy for my taxes to go towards mental health support, counselling and so on to help them.

But it is not a reason to turn women into incubators with all the associated risks that those of us with bad pregnancy and birth experiences know too well. Or to create babies to order to take from their mothers at birth.

Hard cases make bad laws.

@CuntAmongstThePigeons those children who are being adopted are someone’s biological children.

The reasons they’re removed are traumatising, so to say a biological child can’t be traumatised is contradicting the effects of adoption, no matter how necessary.

Comparing surrogacy and adoption isn’t as simple as this or that, with one being good and the other bad.

I agree

Hotandbothered you really need to actually read the thread. You've just made exactly the same point I've made a number of times already.

I used to think it was a wonderful thing, that was because I had not considered or looked into it from every angle (or any really except the Hollywood image of perfect little bundle being handed to perfect parents-to-be and happy ever after la la la).
I can’t imagine anyone who goes deep into this issue can come away feeling it’s ok. It’s horrendous. Deeply, deeply immoral and completely disregards the baby’s rights and best interests. Wilfully causing harm because of adult wants. However at least with those who were infertile and desperate I can understand that overwhelming want causing you to overlook what is right, it’s human nature. But those who do it to save themselves the inconvenience or whatever, are revolting and monstrous. I was bedridden with HG for the entire 9 months of my three pregnancies but I would never ever have considered a surrogate to save myself the pain and sickness. I can’t even fathom we’ve come to a time when that is considered acceptable. The same sex couple and trans couple aspect is so problematic and concerning that I don’t even feel up to broaching it at this time in the morning!

I literally said adoption is a NECESSARY evil. It traumatizes children but it's done in the child best interests as the biological parents cannot care for the child.

It's COMPLETELY different to creating a child for the sole purpose of traumatizing it.

Jesus Christ I don't know why people bother posting on threads they can't be arsed to actually read.

I agree with other PP's that surrogacy is wrong in every circumstance and that having a child is a privilege, not a right.

A babies development is actually hugely influenced during gestation by the hormones and other chemistry coursing through the mother before and during the pregnancy. The baby is inexorably linked to the birth mother with comfort cues and likes and dislikes already basslined by the physiology of the mother during pregnancy. Even coated with the protective layer of their first exposure to symbiotic organisms during birth which forms the basis of their immune system. To separate a mother and child feels cruel and wrong. The far reaching psychological effects on the child may never be properly understood.

I was on the fence about this for a while but the more I read pro-surrogacy arguments, the more against it I'm becoming. They will centre everyone except the baby and the surrogate, to the point where they'll bewail the hell two men went through with not a word for anyone else.

They remind me of Tom Daley who doesn't think women exist when they want fairness in sports, but that they do when he wants to commission a baby and needs an incubator. Women exist for baby making purposes when you require that but that's all. They aren't people and there's no added complications beyond that. Not to them, their health, or the child.

The issue is not whether it’s wrong in your individual situation with your personal perspective. The issue is how do we protect those who might end up as a surrogate when they really don’t want to but feel an obligation in that scenario. There has to be a framework that exists to protect the vulnerable first, then wind back from that to allow actual genuine free choice. If you assume everything’s fine and don’t put in place any checks, inevitably it will be exploited at some stage. Instead you have to assume everyone is being exploited and work from there.

But I ask the question of how this would work - how do you protect all three parties involved, cover all possible eventualities of a pregnancy, and protect from exploitation - on every surrogacy thread and no one can ever answer it. Those who are pro surrogacy essentially believe that shit happens [shrug], so as long as people get their baby, there’s no point trying to figure out all the complexities [hand wave]. It’s a cop out.

I am against surrogacy for all reasons although I think there are different degrees of it. A sister being the surrogate mother for a sibling is different imo than commercial surrogacy. I also hate the way surrogate mothers are just called “surrogates” if mentioned at all. They are surrogate mothers.

The implications and ramifications go way beyond you and your family.

I hate the phrase you see in a news article about celebrities- "X and X welcomed their baby via a surrogate"- without ever mentioning the birth mother at all. It's so bloody dehumanising. It wouldn't have been just "via" for her but a good few years of her life, risking her life for the couples happiness.

After many failed IVF attempts. It being their only option to have a child of their own. That would be wrong?

Everyone speaks hypothetically about this dilemma. Yes you sound kind and wonderful. Hypothetically.

Would someone you love put you in that position?

If you have children already, would you risk your health, potentially ruining your own child's experience of having you as their mum?

Is it worth the risk?

I would do a lot for my sisters whom I love so dearly, but I would not bear a child for them and they would not allow me to do it, because we love each other.

I don’t think it serves anyone well to underplay the physical and emotional issues around pregnancy, most especially in surrogacy. It’s disrespectful to women and can undermine their rights. Society putting that spin on it usually results in more legal powers to the commissioning parents and even less power or protection to the surrogate.

For example some people are mixing up ‘genetic’ and ‘biological’ parenthood/motherhood in this context. Wombs aren’t just a balloon that holds a baby while it magically grows itself out of nothing.

The pregnant woman’s blood feeds the baby to build its cells, taking her nutrients from her food, calcium from her bones and teeth. She builds the whole baby from a fertilised egg cell. She births it at risk to her own health.

She is most certainly always a biological parent of the baby, whether or not she was also one of the genetic parents of it from her own egg.

I think there are only a few occasions when it's ok, otherwise wrong. I also don't think using a sperm donor, in the majority of cases is right either.

I'm very uncomfortable with surrogacy. In very specific circumstances I think it should be legal eg a truly altruistic arrangement such as a sister carrying her sisters baby because of cancer treatment rendering her unable to. Any form of commercial arrangement is a no from me.

Whether gay couples should be allowed to rent a womb is tricky as it can make me sound homophobic which I'm not, but I don't think they should be able to end of, 2 men can't have children naturally but quite fine with fostering/adopting the many children in need of a loving home.

I have considered surrogacy for us, I can’t carry another child but would love another child. If we used my egg, DH sperm and had an arrangement with a friend or family I don’t see the major issue.

i would however have issues with using a woman I don’t know who is just doing it for money and has no other options. it leaves it open to be abused.

there are women who do it just because they love being pregnant but i think it’s few and far between

What if your friend or family member had complications long term for their health as a result of the pregnancy?

I think Tom Daley has done it and more recently Brian Dowling. He used his sisters body.

Babies should never ever be sold. In the same way that a kidney can't be bought on an open market. It's a terrible terrible crime. Nature links a baby to the woman it is born to. We can ignore the facts but we know that a baby takes comfort in hearing the voice of the woman they have heard for the most the in the womb. They know the rhythm of the heartbeat of whoever gave birth to them.
They know their smell. It's absolutely barbaric that a baby would be torn from the person who is supposed to give care in the earliest days on purpose. In a planned and methodical manner.
Utterly sad, no one has the right to a child and we shouldn't accommodate the situation as if that's the case.