Unpopular opinion but surrogacy as a choice is a bit gross?

[Janedoe95]

I was just reading about Paris Hilton and obviously i don’t know the full story but it seems like she just used a surrogate because her friends do for convenience.

obviously if you have no choice I completely understand but if it’s just because pregnancy is hard I think it’s a bit wrong taking a newborn baby away from the only person they’ve known for 9 months

especially as pregnancy itself prepares you to care for a newborn and changes your brain for that purpose.

am I just being very judgmental

Well I don’t know about that. If you make an informed choice to do something for money then that is your choice to make. As much as is humanly possible should be done to safeguard people, but some jobs are inherently risky and if people still choose to do them that is their decision to make. What we should be focusing on is keeping people out of poverty as much as we can so they don’t feel compelled out of desperation, and I am not naive enough to think there aren’t some surrogates who do so feeling they have no other option, but to say that no one should do something even if they fully consent is too big brother for my liking.

but If your argument against surrogacy is that it’s damaging to be removed from your birth mother then it’s really not different at all. Those are the people who’s opinion I’m interested to hear on adoption really.

This is close to how I feel about it too.

Not enough is written about all the possible downsides to pregnancy and birth, and how it can impact your health for the rest of your life.

I’ve had 3 children and apart from a back problem I developed after the birth of my second child (that was caused by the birth), I did not experience physical after effects of pregnancy until I hit peri menopause. Post menopause, it’s even more obvious.

The difference between the sisters in my family who have not had children to the ones that have are quite obvious- we have discussed this between ourselves. I know It’s a small group of people to use as an example, but two of us have children and three do not. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the 3 child free sisters have much better physical health than the two who do have children. (Pre pregnancy, we were all of us exceptionally healthy strong women).

And then you have the effects on mental health that often occur with pregnancy.

When a person is asking a woman to be a surrogate, paid or unpaid, they need to know exactly what effect that pregnancy could have on a surrogate, during pregnancy, during birth and including the future possible health problems. They need to know and understand all possibilities up to, and including, maternal deaths. And the surrogate has to be fully aware too of exactly what is being asked of them and all the possible health outcomes, obviously.

Having been able to have children, it’s hard for me to say that surrogacy is wrong. But I really do have concerns about it all.

I thought the surrogate did have rights until a court says otherwise.

No more than using donor eggs to have children

Are you also in favour of making selling your organs legal?

@WindscreenWipe builders are skilled, gardeners are skilled, plumbers are skilled. Carrying a baby for someone else requires the right health but it's not a skill, so no, you are wrong, it's not the same.

Surrogacy done for the right reason is heartfelt, but what PH did was purely buying access to a poorer person's body ie rent a womb. This is not heartfelt. PH obvs thinks her body is more valuable than someone else's and that type of surrogacy is imo unethical. But what does a poorer person do to earn money?! Inequality and equity are societies challenges.

Surrogacy and "sex work" are not about bodily autonomy or liberty. It's exploitation and we need to think about how these things impact the most disadvantaged women in society.

I think surrogacy should be banned.

YANBU OP, I don’t agree with it at all. I think it is unethical from all points, even in cases of so-called ‘altruistic surrogacy’. I think both extremes of POV are spreading, whilst surrogacy becomes more popular, so does the idea that it is ethically and morally wrong.

FWIW, I believe that surrogacy is bad for women as a sex class (it perpetuates the idea that we are just vessels for continuing the human race, without agency), it is bad for socioeconomically disadvantaged women (who are often the ones exploited by this), it is bad for the babies themselves (taken from the only woman it knows, her smell, her sound and given to strangers. So much is talked about ‘the fourth trimester’, why do we ignore that in surrogacy cases?). The whole thing revolts me.

It isn't something I've given much thought to, but I'm inclined to agree.

Also, not being able to have a baby at 40 isn't fertility issues, it's nature. But it's ok because if you're rich enough you can just buy a baby.

Agree with a pp if it was such a noble, honourable thing to do then surely a close friend or relative would be offering to help.

You shouldn't legally be allowed to rent someone's womb.

It isn't ok, at all, and yes women are forced into it, by poverty.

Show me one example of a rich woman having a surrogate for a poor one and we'll have a chat about surrogacy and choice....

I'm not judging the women undertaking surrogacy. Clearly they are often in an invidious position and it may be the only relief available. I'm absolutely judging the customers who take advantage of them.

For me just how abhorrent it is depends on where the egg came from. If it's Paris' egg and she couldn't carry the pregnancy for some reason, I don't feel it's so bad. The surrogate got a load of money and the baby isn't being taken from its mother - Paris is the mother.

If it's a donor egg or, worse, the surrogate's own egg then it's just revolting and inhuman. I feel so sorry for children born in this way.

I had fertility issues and would never have considered surrogacy. I’ve never felt I had a right to have a child.

Oh look, this thread again

As a choice, I agree it’s a bit off.

However I know someone who has been a surrogate five times (2 families had 2DC, and a fifth to a third family). All unable to have their own children. She was paid expenses (which were generous tbh) but did it just for the joy of it. She likes being pregnant as she’s had 7 very easy pregnancies but has no problem handing the babies over when they are born.

So sometimes it can certainly be successful and a nice thing to do for someone facing infertility.

I agree.

I personally wouldn't adopt. I'm so glad I've got my son. I know I'd love a baby that I'd adopt but there's no love like it when its your own imo

No I agree.. it's almost like she wouldn't want the stretch marks and 4lb weight gain.
It's totally fucking nuts.

Agree with this 100%. I could never take a baby away from another woman. Women are human. It is modern slavery.

I worry about the future of these vanity babies, especially those ‘born’ to two people neither of whom has an xx chromosome. I think that parents, especially mothers, have hormonally derived ability to tolerate needs and behaviours which the childless cannot reproduce. Adoptive parents may be able to substitute these qualities with kindness and dedication.

Of course, there are exceptions, there are dreadful ‘ natural’ parents ( although I suspect that they would not qualify as adoptive parents). Perhaps surrogate parents could be vetted in the same way as adoptive parents? The people who are struggling with infertility, and who have found a surrogate mother who is truly motivated only by benevolence, would pass with flying colours, so should support this idea.

Many of the surrogate users seem to be in a different category of desire altogether. Wasn’t it PH who used to carry a tiny dog around?

How sad for all the children out there in the care system who aren’t worthy of being loved.

I didn't say they aren't worthy of love did I 🙄 you can't compare the love. When you've had them in your tummy for 9 months and then give birth to them. Oh and having miscarriages before that intensifies the love

@Emmamoo89 I adopted my 2 children. How can you possibly know that you love your son more than I love my children?? You have no idea the bond I have with them. And for what it's worth they are very much "my own".