Surrogacy article in the guardian

[HermioneKipper]

amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/oct/01/how-gay-parenthood-through-surrogacy-became-a-battleground

this has made me furious! The entitlement of these men is just unbelievable. How dare they demand the use of a woman’s body.

Gay male couples don't have the capacity to have children. Tough shit. I don't have wings so I can't fly. Boo hoo.

I was thinking about this yesterday and I think there’s actually a long (minority) tradition in male gay culture of using women to provide biological offspring. It used to be that (a proportion of) gay men would marry a straight woman and con her out of ten or twenty years or more of her life, so that they could be family men. Now this.

They didn’t do it just to have children though, they did it because openly living as gay was unacceptable and even illegal.

Oops sorry I missed it. Will check out now.

Yes totally agree on the organ thing. I’ve said to people before that selling your organs is illegal so why are you allowed to sell your body?

apparently it’s not the same and women should have the right to do whatever they want with their body 🤷🏻‍♀️ ok then!

I agree that they didn’t come across well at times. I also think that the commercial aspect of surrogacy in the US is horrific, both conceptually and cost-wise. Reproduction help is for the (very) rich only, it seems.

But the substance of their claim is to do with an employee benefit that by definition is offered to straight people and lesbians but not gay men. Therefore potentially discriminatory in a legal sense. The fact that this pushes up against a biological aspect is… I suppose you’d call it an uncomfortable series of tensions that need to be resolved, one way or another.

Even Phyllis Chesler, who has been critical of surrogacy generally for a very long time, concedes that they have a point on this specific legal aspect.

I thought it was an interesting article and covered both ‘sides’ pretty well. It’s not a question to which there is an easy answer.

100% this.
Womb appropriation.
Disgusting and entitled.

@Thethingswedoforlove
They can adopt, though. discrimination would be to deny them that possibility based on their sexual orientation (which is no longer the case in this society, thankfully).

I almost died during childbirth (arguably, I was dead for a bit and was brought back), with no sign before/during pregnancy that it was a risk. I am in the very painful process of accepting I won’t ever be able to have another biological child. Being able to hire a poor woman’s body because I have more money than she does and there are any number of reasons why she would put herself in that position does not give me the right to do something immoral by outsourcing the risk.

having biological children is not a right. If it were, I’d be demanding truck loads of (not my) money be spent investigating how I could safely do so.

also one can ask a female (friend, family member) to bear their child without money being exchanged, in an unofficial agreement. Without the essentially coercion by circumstances that needing money brings into the process.

TBF, lots of gay men through the 20th century chose not to marry women but to fly under the radar. That’s where we get the expression “confirmed bachelor”.

Direct discrimination because they don’t have a womb at their disposal? Disgusting

I think some people believe having biological children is a human right

To be clear I am outraged at the audacity that they think that gay men have the right to have children without giving a thought to the welfare of the women they expect to bear their children. The entitlement of these individuals has completely shocked me. I am against surrogacy but obviously fully in favour of gay men raising children.

Top Trumps!

“Situationally, we are the most infertile.”

As someone who has been through infertility and IVF, this made me see red.

No thought for the woman or the baby, it is all rather handmaid’s tale.

What kind of fathers will they be if they are willing to cause the baby they plan to father the trauma of separation from his or her mother at birth?

Gestational carriers - that term can fuck right off.

How many poor women (any women) are doing this for free?

Entitled bullshit

As a 53 year old woman can I claim age discrimination as IVF is not open to me?

You could still get it abroad.

apparently it’s not the same and women should have the right to do whatever they want with their body

Except have an abortion of course....don't forget that! So women definitely should have the right to sell their body for sex or rent out their wombs, but definitely shouldn't have bodily autonomy when it comes to abortion or contraception. Just in case anyone was unclear.

Oh my goodness the entitlement and the continued disavowal of biological reality these days. It's not f'ing discrimination, it's not infertility, it's just a reality of being two men. And unfortunately not everyone gets everything they want in life.

Except have an abortion of course....don't forget that! So women definitely should have the right to sell their body for sex or rent out their wombs, but definitely shouldn't have bodily autonomy when it comes to abortion or contraception. Just in case anyone was unclear.

I see your broad point but as regards this particular case, New York state continues to have legal protections over the rights of women and girls to access abortions. So women do have bodily autonomy as regards contraception and abortion in New York.

I think it's important to be really clear about this stuff, otherwise it risks the whole argument falling apart because someone doesn't know the difference between federal and state, or that some states protect abortion rights and some have made it illegal.

NicolaSixSix there's most definitely coercion involved in a lot of cases where a sister or close friend is asked to be a surrogate - reading first hand accounts from surrogates in those situations is quite eye opening (more often than not the surrogate is ghosted or contact reduces and becomes strained afterwards too).

The elephant in the room here is that they think this should be on THEIR health insurance.

Yet it doesn't do anything for or against their health.

Thats the burden of someone else. And if they have long term complications, whose insurance does that go on? It's not on either of them.

Its a really relevant point.

Well, indeed.

But then that burden applies to any surrogacy arrangement, doesn’t it. Regardless of the sex of either of the two people who aren’t carrying the baby.

The gist of this argument/case is that this health insurance is offered to heterosexual couples (and some lesbians) but it excludes gay men.

In terms of commercial surrogacy, the shit’s already been shat in New York state. Whether or not surrogacy should be allowed full-stop is a slightly different question.

Personally, I don’t think commercial surrogacy is ok. (And I’m a gay man; despite what some on here think we don’t all think the same and we’re not a hive mind.)

However, given that surrogacy is already legal, allowed for and supported in New York state, the fact that these men are excluded from health insurance coverage concerning it is, arguably, discriminatory in a purely legal sense.

Two separate issues, in my opinion.

This is an opportunity then to reconsider the ethics of surrogacy being available on anyone’s health insurance, and the ethics of surrogacy more generally. Human beings should not be for sale. Women’s bodies should not be for rent. Mothers and babies should not be separated except for the protection/safety/health needs of one or the other of them. None of us are entitled to be mothers or fathers. We don’t have a right to have a child.

I’m fairly certain that they don’t provide surrogacy for anyone on the insurance and that’s New York’s defence.

it’s not discriminatory if no one’s getting it.

Totally agree that ethics on surrogacy should be rethought.

My view is that surrogacy should have a blanket ban

An infertile woman was covered by employee health insurance to have a baby using an egg donor and a surrogate, and they aren't. The issue is that health insurance is discriminating against them because they are men.

The health insurer says it will only cover cases of infertility, and a woman who can't make any biological contribution to having a child is regarded as infertile, they aren't.

Even the feminist anti-surrogacy campaigner interviewed in the article agrees that they are being discriminated against.

(This is assuming this is the same article I read over the weekend, haven't followed the link.)

I’m fairly certain that they don’t provide surrogacy for anyone on the insurance and that’s New York’s defence.

An infertile older woman ex-colleague of one of the men was covered.

Yes I agree they probably are being discriminated against.

But after having kids I don't agree with commercial surrogacy at all. The damage to a woman's body is great in terms of 'wear and tear' and this was completely disregarded in the article. Let alone the unknowable possibility of harm and even death.

Some of the interviewees came off as total ghouls (adoption = volunteering and the firefighting analogy were proper WTF moments).