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.

and it was not questions asked of you.

I think that Human Biology is robust enough to ask for clarity if they want to.

Over ten years ago I joined Mumsnet and enjoyed the healthy debates that it held.

Those respectful disagreements are no more. Now it's more like reading a transcript of PMs Question Time.

I for one find it really sad that this bunch of intelligent caring women are unable to debate such an emotive subject without insults, badgering and bullying.

As for surrogacy, I find the idea abhorrent. I do though admit to wondering how the surrogate twins born in the nineties are now. Never personally knew them, but worked with the adopted mother's sister.

No it’s not well said at all. It is said in some sort of patronising first world privileged vacuum which seeks to airbrush the grubby reality out of the very basis this appalling practice ever existed: so someone could buy a baby to order.

As for your anecdote about the happy every after surrogacy story meaning surrogacy per se isn’t that bad, well it’s a bit like someone saying because they’ve got a healthy respectful relationship with their local prostitute it doesn’t make all prostitution bad.

it is embarrassing to read some of the reaching garbage on this thread especially most of if coming from supposedly educated modern women.

I think partisan groups are now battling for hearts and minds of those reading to get their voice out there more loudly and make it the majority view. It's another way to create propaganda now - there's no real interest in debate or difference. They have all already made up their minds about someone who would have a different view and have made the decision that they're beneath contempt.

I’m confused who, in the situation I have recounted, is being commoditised?

Surrogate mother = chosen to help & still close to the child
child = happy adult glad to have been born
genetic parents = happy to be parents

to make someone into a commodity suggests an exchange of money or some kind of fiscal gain, which was not the case here.

To me, it sounds rather like you are saying the child in question, now an adult, shouldn’t exist.

To me that is a very dangerous thing to say.

Again, I am discussing this situation not all surrogacy.

Can you hear yourself. Such vitriol.

If you’d read my post, you’d have seen I have been very clear that I am not saying my story suggests surrogacy in general is ethically ok. I am simply pointing out that there are situations where it works well, and it is dangerous to blanket condemn it.

Not true. Have you actually read the thread? P.entry of people who can’t have children, myself included, have expressed their opposition to and distaste for surrogacy.

The child has been commoditised.

Just because they are happy, doesn't make them not have been commoditised. And it doesn't need to be fiscal gain. It can be any 'gain'.

The 'experience of pregnancy without the responsibility of the child created' is the 'gain' in this case.

yes yes we get it, it was all fields then, you were superstars.

In actuality, I was here ten years ago too, it was exactly the same. People like complained about "bullying" as if thats a thing you can even do on a discussion thread on the fucking internet, and loftily telling us that we're not doing it properly.

I'm pretty sure you recall what they were told to do then if they didn't like it?

But if the child is happy, why does it matter?

again, specifically discussing this story.

to follow your line of argument: How are you not a commodity of your parents’ desire to gain something through the experience of becoming parents?

Actually, it is probably a case of commodification and commoditisation with the 'value' being non-fiscal but still of very high perceived value. Happy to use 'dehumanised for the purpose of a transaction' if that makes it clearer.

My mother did not give me away as an infant after she had the 'experience' she wanted.

Pot kettle 🤣

So you’re saying what, the child should stop enjoying life & their family (in which they include their surrogate) and start to feel dehumanised just because you refuse to believe there could be a happy outcome through surrogacy?

And even if my mother gave me to the richest and most loving parents in the world and I was very happy, if I was deliberately created and she carried me as part of some kind of transaction where I was then handed over to people, it doesn't remove the exploitative aspect of her pregnancy experience.

The positive emotions don't remove the ethical dilemma.

is it the giving away that bothers you?
they have been very present through the child’s life and the child is very content with their mum and their surrogate mum in their lives. I think you are being a little closed minded.

I agree with you OP. The women who gave birth is the mother and if a different woman supplied the egg, then she is more akin to a father of the child, who also only supplied a gamete.

The mother - is who gestated and grew the baby from her body, who the baby will feel that deep mother-baby connection to.

So in this situation you’re saying a happy family should actually feel bad because there is a theoretical structure that means despite all being happy, they are actually all exploited?

By saying sometimes it’s ok it’s basically endorsing that practice on some level.

you either think surrogacy is ok or you don’t. I could be you and know those people and I would still condemn surrogacy and not agree with what they did. There aren’t “shades” of procuring a child via another woman’s body for fuck’s sake.

They aren't all exploited. Some of them are the exploitors. They should feel shitty about that. The child is going to have issues regarding their creation, at some level.

You are the one here that is trying to say that a positive outcome means there is no 'exploitation' or ethical dilemma.

I disagree.

I think there are situations where it is hugely exploitative and situations where it makes a lot of people very happy and allows someone life who would otherwise never had the chance to exist.

It would be so much easier if life were black and white, but it seldom is and antagonising increased polarisation just causes difficulty.

Surrogacy is not illegal. Fact. It brings hope to many infertile couples. Love all these posts about how "sad" it is that some women can't have kids and how being a parent is not a "right". I bet they were written by parents. I mind my own business and try hard not to judge other people's decisions as I have no idea what led them down that path.

There are a lot of utilitarians about “the ends justifies the means”.