To think that a surrogate mother...

[BackDownSouth]

Is the biological mother of a surrogate baby that she delivers, even in cases where another egg was used? One thing I hate hearing in the surrogacy debate by pro-surrogacy folks (who like to minimise the connection between mother and child and the effect that separation at birth can have on both) is “the surrogate has no biological relation to the baby” in cases where an egg other than the surrogate’s own were used. Of course she has a biological connection to the baby. She doesn’t have a GENETIC link to the baby - no. But biological? She has about as much of a biological connection with it as she would her own genetic child. The baby is quite literally made of her. The genetic material of the egg may predetermine baby’s genetic make-up to match that of the intended mother’s egg but that is such a shallow link compared to the nurturing happening during the pregnancy. It's the surrogate mother’s body building and nurturing that child. The mother’s body will likely forever retain snippets of the child’s DNA - particularly traces of Y chromosome if she carries a boy. Everything the mother does or eats or feels will influence that child. The baby knows her smell and voice and as soon as they are born they seek her, and they will feel stress at being placed into a stranger’s arms rather than mum’s immediately after birth. It’s completely ridiculous to say there is no biological connection between surrogate and baby. What’s more of a connection, really, to a newborn baby who has no concept of themselves other than the birth mother who is all they have ever known? Is the baby bothered about a mother who makes up half of their DNA but who has been on the other side of the world since their conception and is going to lay claim to them through a financial transaction? Or is the baby instead going to crave the presence of the woman who has grown and nurtured them? The surrogate is mum and the baby is going to need her post-birth no matter how much people want to ignore that.

People like to say “DNA is nothing” in the context of the love between step-parents and their stepchildren, adoptive children etc, and that’s rightly so. A genetic link isn’t what makes a family. But in the case of surrogacies, this is all completely thrown out of the window and the idea of a surrogate mother bonding with her baby (because it is her baby…) is inconceivable because she ‘isn’t even related to them’ despite literally creating and birthing the child.

Go away with your goady threads.
For some of us it is our only chance of being parents through no fault of our own. Just because you were lucky enough to carry children doesn't make you judge of other people.

Surrogacy isn't about the needs or best interests of the baby, it's about the adults. It's a selfish process driven purely by selfish needs. No surprise that those who engage seek to minimize the link between baby and surogate-mother as it also minimizes their selfishness. I can't imagine how awful it must be for the baby to be ripped away from the only human it knows so early on.

The surrogacy business, in particular surrogates abroad where poor women are being used by British couples, is repulsive to me. Using another woman in this way, who has limited choices should not be allowed.
There are plenty of testimonies of devastated women, who have become surrogates to feed their existing children.
Any woman who gives birth to a child is a mother.

Donor eggs and surrogacy complicates things, definitely. However, the woman whose egg is used is the biological mother. The woman giving birth is the birth mother (unless it’s her egg in which she’ll be the bio mum). I am against surrogacy when a woman from a different country (usually poor) is used as a surrogate. I think it’s best for the woman raising the child to use her egg and be the bio mum.

Sorry but this comment is a prime example of what is wrong with surrogacy - you've completely dismissed any discussion of the women birthing these babies to talk about yourself. Where in my OP have I actually gone out of my way to be nasty towards intended parents? All I have done is stated facts - a woman carrying, growing and birthing a child* *DOES make her the biological birth mother even if not the genetic one. As Mumsnet is a feminist-focused forum I wanted to have this discussion as is my right. Don't assume I was lucky in my own journey to motherhood either, having my 1 DD was a traumatising rollercoaster due to severe endo and I nearly didn't survive it (in a physical and mental sense, both in TTC and pregnancy). Having quite literally almost died during childbirth myself, I get a bit pissed off hearing that a surrogate apparently has 'no biological connection' to a child in the case of a different egg because it literally isn't true. She is growing a baby from herself and risking her life in the process, the genetic mother goes through none of that so IMO in the surrogacy debate there needs to be a better distinction between 'biological' mother and 'genetic' mother.

It's not a goady thread, it's a fair comment about surrogacy. This board is for discussion and debate, if you want to put forward an alternative case for surrogacy, that's fine, but don't just insult the OP. Wanting a baby is not a reason to allow surrogacy. There's lots of things in life I want but can't have.

Surrogacy is basically human trafficking and, in my opinion, should be made illegal. Babies are not commodities.

DNA aside, the majority of surrogacy exploits vulnerable women and turns babies into commodities.

I am so sorry that infertility is a struggle for you, it is awful and can feel so consuming.

As an adult you have the ability to understand why you are feeling distressed, verbalise it, and seek support for it.

A baby is traumatised when it is removed from its birth mother. It’s instincts are telling it to search for her smell and her sound, yet it is helpless to do so. No matter how loving the others they hold it, the baby doesn’t feel safe. Unlike us the baby lacks the ability to rationalise its emotions and physical sensations. It has no control or ability to self sooth/ask for help.

The only type of counselling, that requires specific training, by law, is for adoption. Why? Because the wounds run so deep. Deeper than bereavement, deeper than abuse, deeper than addiction, deeper than infertility, you name it.

Surrogacy isn’t about the child, unlike adoption which gives a child a loving home, where otherwise they would have non. Surrogacy is quashing difficult adult emotional experiencing by subjecting an innocent baby to intolerable trauma.

The person who provided the egg is the biological mother.
The person who went through the pregnancy is the birth mother.
And the person who raises the child is the mother.

There are a lot of ethical issues around surrogacy particularly in countries with less stringent laws regarding women's rights. But it can be a wonderful way for an infertile woman to have a baby.

Surrogacy is basically human trafficking and, in my opinion, should be made illegal. Babies are not commodities.

100% this. In Ukraine , there are over 100,000 orphans , many babies from failed surrogacy yet everyday more children are ordered through dubious clinics.

I've been researching surrogacy a lot recently and it appears common for babies to not meet their intended parents for weeks after birth because they don't travel to the baby's place of birth until documents are ready. Instead the baby remains in the clinical hospital environment starved of cuddles and love which is so important to baby's development.

Even babies who are removed forcibly from their mother's at birth in child protection cases at least have their social workers to advocate for their needs and they are given to a foster parent who can care for them ASAP. A foster parent still doesn't make up for the trauma of being removed from birth mum but a foster parent at least understands the baby's imperative need to be loved and to bond and so will accommodate that.

There is something very wrong when a newborn born to a surrogate is in a worse off position after birth than a newborn removed for child protection purposes.

In the case of a child born to a commercial surrogate (in a country such as Georgia or Ukraine pre-war) they are born into a state of limbo. The surrogate mum can have no further contact with baby, often the intended parents won't turn up for days, and the surrogacy agency only care about themselves and their customers. Who is advocating for this baby in the meantime? In the case of a child protection removal, there is at least a social worker to consider the baby's emotional needs.

But when you research the actual definition of 'biological', I don't think it makes it clear at all that the woman who provided the egg is the biological mother. Isn't the pregnancy of a surrogate a biological process? The term "genetic mother" covers the role of the egg, but I cannot help but associate the term "biological mother" with the image of the mother going through the biological process of growing that child, just saying "birth mother" ignores the whole pregnancy process in my mind. If the surrogate miscarries early on they don't go through birthing the child but still were pregnant - a biological process.

I am probably in the wrong focusing so much on technical terms perhaps, but my wider point still stands that surrogacy is exploitive to both mother and baby for the reasons stated in the OP.

Being a parent isn’t a right. You’re not entitled to it. You shouldn’t be allowed to rent a woman and her womb because you want a baby. You post shows that it’s all about the wants of adults and nothing to do with the resulting baby.

I think using egg and sperm donors in any circumstances is wrong too.

It should all be banned imo.

I get what you are saying but my natural way of seeing it is:

The person who provided the egg is the genetic mother
The person who goes through pregnancy is the biological mother as pregnancy and birth is a biological process
Then, yes, the person who raises the child is simply the mother and that could be either of the above depending on the circumstances

The only form of surrogacy that I find acceptable is for women unable to conceive and birth a baby themselves. The current fashion for the rich and/or celebrity mothers who seem to not want to disturb their bodies or lifestyles but want babies I find appalling. Wanting to snatch the baby and run straight after delivery is similarly offensive.

@BackDownSouth

The term biological refers to genetically related. So the parent who provides the egg is the biological parent.

Pregnancy is a biological process but surely it's the developing of the egg that's the biological part? (Which in ivf has already been done) after that the human body is a vessel to carry the baby.

For some of us it is our only chance of being parents through no fault of our own. Just because you were lucky enough to carry children doesn't make you judge of other people. I’m sorry you weren’t able to conceive but that doesn’t mean you have the right to exploit another woman and buy a baby. Because that is what surrogacy is, human trafficking, with no thought for the baby who is the commodity during the process.

egg and sperm donation.

Just because something can be done, doesn’t make it ok.

It’s really sad that some women can’t have children, but unfortunately sometimes that is just a fact of life.

Meant to say the same applies to egg and sperm donation.

Agree with OP.
The only way I can see it working is a woman to woman type of situation ( sister or very close friend) to help out a woman they love who can't carry to term for whatever reason.
Otherwise, think it's abhorrent.

And that differs to standard gestation and parenthood how? How is it more (or less) selfish? What a ridiculous comment.

What terms would you like? Gestational mother and genetic mother. If a woman was to feed another woman's baby would she be a lactation mother? They've got to choose something. It's standard practice to call the sperm donor the bio dad.

Hmmm let me count the ways:

Surrogacy is renting another woman’s body for your own gain, without the consideration that the baby is being ripped away from its mother at birth and given to total strangers. And yes, as far as the baby is concerned, the woman who gives birth to it is its mother, babies don’t know anything about biology and donated eggs and what-not.

It’s about bringing a baby into the world who is going to be made to grow up knowing they’re different, that they were taken from their birth mother irrespective of whether the child is biologically the intended mother’s or not.

Interesting how there don’t seem to be hoards of adults who were surrogate babies speaking out about how wonderful surrogacy is and how happy they are.

Interesting how the law had to be changed recently to allow the children born of donor eggs and super the right to trace their biological parents at 18 because of their sense of growing up with a lack of identity and the damage that does to them.

As far as a surrogate baby is concerned, it may as well have been removed from its mother at birth and adopted. Because the process and the trauma towards a baby removed from its biological mother to be adopted and a baby removed from a surrogate to be handed over to the biological mother is the same. The process a baby goes through during the pregnancy and the birth is exactly the same.

It differs because with standard gestation and parenthood the needs of the baby are prioritised from day 1. With surrogacy the best interests of the baby are secondary to the needs of the parents. They delude themselves that ripping the baby from the birth mother is acceptable, because they want it to be. Creating a baby and knowing the first thing you'll do is not in that baby's best interests is selfish.

I'm not even making comment on the birth mothers and their treatment because that makes my blood boil. Women using women for their wombs - foul.

The woman's body is merely a vessel?!

You have got to be joking.

She's not wandering around with a baby in her pocket just minding it until someone collects it ffs.