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.

Did yuo forget half your first sentence? Surrogacy IS illegal in many countries, and that will hopefully spread.

I don't care what led people down the path of buying womens eggs and bodies,it doesn't matter. It's wrong whatever their reasons are.

I actually feel pathos for those women who kidnap babies from hospitals.

Doesn’t mean I don’t think they are doing something wrong.

Oh I’m sorry, you seem to find it unacceptable for someone to express their horror and disgust at people’s commissioning of infant human beings to suit their own agenda?
Please excuse me if I don’t give a toss.

I am actually pretty comfortable with the view that no surrogacy arrangement is without exploitable elements and without ethical dilemmas. I am also very comfortable in having laws that protect children from being exploited and that protect women from being exploited.

It is an interesting discussion to have views that are hardline on these protections challenged as being unreasonable or from groups other than feminists. I don't think I have read many feminists that agree with any kind of surrogacy because they recognise the exploitative nature towards the child and the potential exploitation of the women providing eggs and carrying the child.

"Surrogacy is not illegal"
but it is unethical .
The world is bursting , there are many many children in need but Mr& Mrs, Mr& Mr with money can buy themselves their REAL baby.

Suggest you actually read the thread.

Quite a number of those posters are those who have stated they do not have children for any number of reasons.

I think we are in a world where ‘backstory’ is everything, justifies everything.

That is not how justice words.

Sad and desperate people can to bad, wrong, even evil things.

Understanding what drove them to do the bad thing doesn’t turn the bad thing into a good thing. It’s still bad.

Do bad

What issues should she have according to you?

Allow someone a life? Did you mean to write that?

what you should when written is “allow someone to commission and procure their own child when they could not have children via any other route, were adamant it was going to happen come hell or high water and balls to the actually human being being born into their show”

I will just keep repeating my point.
As it seems do you.

Let’s hope those people and that child you know are always so “happy” about it……..

Plenty of infertile people on this thread have expressed their opposition to surrogacy. It seems most of the pro surrogacy posters prefer to ignore those people.

Some people are able to thrive whatever. Take Louis Armstrong - son of a prostitute, in and out of a ‘waifs home’ throughout his childhood, but something about his disposition and humour got him through, some resilience, so he had a really successful life.

There are no guarantees that a baby born is going to be one of these unflappable, optimistic types. So pointing to one person who is cheerful despite being separated from their mother at birth is not a testimony that the separation does no harm.

https://thecritic.co.uk/end-womb-trafficking/

Here is an interesting article by Julie Bindel. I am not sure it has been posted yet. But Julie has been working with this issue for many years.

"What about so-called altruistic surrogacy? Who could be against such a “not for profit” arrangement, based on the generosity of a woman, bearing a child for someone who can’t carry her own? There will, of course, be the odd example of a woman who truly did go through pregnancy and birth for no reason other than her desire to help. But like the “happy hooker”, this woman is a rare exception rather than the norm."

"Many of the altruistic surrogates I interviewed have told me that the process has had a terrible effect on them. Even the women that did it as “a favour” for a friend or relative found it incredibly painful to hand the baby over, and every single one I spoke to told me that it either fractured or destroyed the relationship with the recipient. None of them found it possible to maintain a positive and ongoing relationship with the growing child either, no matter what claims pro surrogacy campaigners might make about what is possible."

and it is dangerous to blanket condemn it.

@ibis17 why should we not as a society condemn the concept of surrogacy?

I condemn it.

Yes they have I agree with you: it’s been overlooked and it’s been posted a number of times

In response to the poster you quoted I also cannot stick this not having an opinion on a practice because you don’t know what’s led some people to do it. That analogy is dangerous.

I am still waiting for the procedures on how any regulating body will assess that there is no exploitation in the arrangement at all.

What does that look like in reality? How will this be assessed, over what timeframe and how are the power imbalances to be described?

I am very concerned about the future of surrogacy in the UK and the rest of the world and the impact on the child and the women who are being used as resources to be exploited.

If the IVF hadn't worked we wouldn't have gone down the surrogacy path or indeed that of adoption.

Surrogacy is not illegal. Fact. It brings hope to many infertile couples.

This is again about the parents' wishes! Parents seem to think they have a 'right' to have a child.

Even the women that did it as “a favour” for a friend or relative found it incredibly painful to hand the baby over

What about the baby? It must be harmful to remove it from its birth mother with whom it's been bonding for 9 months, whose voice and smell it recognises...?!

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.

Are you saying that if anyone does not have a child for whatever reason, then someone has not been given a chance to exist?

It’s really important that we form strong ethics as a society about this kind of thing. Such a Pandora’s box of horrors once you lose sight of the bigger ethical picture confining the scientific advances in human reproduction.

Desperate people who are willing to try anything to become parents are not who we should look to, to set ethical standards.

That is a bit of a head fuck that.

That logic does imply the ol’ Monty Python “Every Sperm Is Sacred”. We should be continually pregnant and giving birth, because each egg released during our period is a potential person who could exist and potentially be happy.

What’s your point? Do you also disagree with people who donate kidneys? Is no one allowed to do anything that doesn’t benefit someone else but might harm them?