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.

This is not a goady thread. There is no right to have a child. Why do you feel you are being judged?

Because it's not their baby! Biologically and genetically the baby belongs to 2 other people. The baby grew in their body but it is not theirs.

Yikes!

I know I couldn't be a surrogate. I would bond with the baby and I think I wouldn't like going through the risk of birth for someone else.

However, I am not arrogant enough that everyone feels like that.

There are some very selfless women, who want to give this beautiful gift to a couple. And I admire them.

Also, my own births were very high risk (lots of blood loss). That influences my opinion that I wouldn't want to be a surrogate.

But there's some women who sail through giving birth, it's so easy for them.

Out of interest, do you

1. think, in the case of adoption, that biological (egg/sperm) parents should be able to take back a relinquished baby at any point from adoptive parents, and the adoptive parents would be okay ‘because the baby belongs to the gamete-providing parents’ - and the baby ‘isn’t theirs’- doesn’t ‘belong’ to adoptive parents?
2. think a woman who uses a donor egg or a man who uses donor sperm should be okay with the donors/bio parents taking the babies away at a later date because the baby genetically and biologically belongs to the donors and isn’t theirs?
3. think the relationships that the baby forms are irrelevant/don’t merit consideration and that the ‘ownership’ of the bio/gamete parents trumps those other relationships?
4. think there is a point at which relationships do become important, even if the close relationship of growing inside a person’s body for the first part of one’s life from conception isn’t important, is it a couple of months? Years? Or never?

The baby grew in their body but it is not theirs.

Wow! Don't you think a mother and baby create a bond during the 9 month pregnancy? Don't you think the baby recognises the mothers voice and smell? Don't you think hormones attract them to each other?

Don't be ridiculous!

No because to these lunatics the mother has fuck all value. She is might as well be plugged in like an incubator . She literally means nothing to them
oops but everything to the actual baby

And yet, that human being has taken bits of that pregnant women to form their body. Or do you think that is an irrelevant thing in comparison to donating genes?

Plus that pregnant woman could end up with that human being’s cells as a residue in parts of her body for the rest of her life.

Growing a human being to the stage of birth is not an act of just providing a safe space, it is a whole body experience for both the mother carrying the child and the child. Otherwise, we really could grow them in a bag with different solutions being fed into the bag as needed according to a timetable set by a scientist.

But yes…. Not ‘their’ baby, it ‘belongs’ to its owners! Glad you pointed out that that human is just a product being purchased by that baby’s ‘real’ parents.

Whose baby is it if a donor egg is used?

But this is not comparable to the yearning that many adopted people have to know their roots. My friend doesn't know her medical history, doesn't know why she was abandoned (as she sees it)

This is the thing about adoption on MN. People who have a friend or acquaintance who was adopted think they know better than those who have adopted. So they come on and talk about the lasting trauma babies endure when taken from their birth mothers and the lifelong anguish the children suffer. Whereas we who have adopted know that each child is unique and don't write all adopted children off as damaged.

I happen to know two adoptees and 3 families who have adopted, 2 successfully and one failed.

One of the 2 families that has successfully adopted appear to have an easy ride, both families adopted siblings. The other has had both parents have to change careers entirely to be able to accommodate the mental health issues that their sons have. They have never gone so far as to say they regret it but it has been challenging for them to say the very least, even with some support form adoption charities etc.

I am also the person you have paraphrased, my friend's struggles are genuine in spite of what you are implying. My husband has a friend who was adopted who is genuinely happy and has no wish to find his birth parents. People are different.

I have no idea why you wish to minimise experiences other than your own. It's almost as if you are accusing people/ me of making things up.

And to be clear I have never said I know more than adoptive families but I can tell you that some adoptive children ARE damaged by their early life experiences. That's a fact.

But what I can't work out is why you are implying that people who have experience / know people who are adopted have had these issues are making it up? Why are you using this to try to depend the commercial trade of babies?

Some people think that actually you do have a right to have a child or at least try every option to get one.

The people who parent it and form the primary caregiver attachment. Come on.

For those so concerned about the baby’s attachment within surrogacy, are you the same people who say women should be able to abort up until birth? Just curious.

No. People have the right to have a child in that they have the right to get pregnant and have their own family if they wish.

People should never feel they have a ‘right’ to have a child meaning they can procure one on demand. Particularly if it means they can exploit women’s bodies to achieve that ‘right’.

There is a huge difference.

So you don’t actually know the process for live organ donations?

Ok. So tell us in further detail how you think that emotional coercion is detected? This is a 9 month pregnancy that results in living human being hopefully born. This is a life long connection that is established in utero.

Because you try to minimise this every time you bring up ‘it is like kidney donation’. Yet you have just admitted you have only a superficial knowledge of that process.

How do you expect layers of family relationships to be revealed enough for someone who has such deeply buried issues? It is really all very well to say, well an adult has their own agency. Coming from an abusive family background, I can assure that requires more than a superficial process to uncover. And sure, many decisions are made that have lasting effects under family pressure, but this also involves the creation of a human.

This is not a life saving procedure. This is a life creating procedure that has the potential to limit or shorten the life of the women involved in creating that life and the potential cause significant mental health issues.

You are happy to hand wave all that away with a breezy, let’s get a process in place. Yet have contributed very little in how that process works while maintaining that this process is ‘just like kidney donation’.

And what about women who have baby after baby removed because they are unable to care adequately for a baby? What about the baby's rights? Should those women be forced to take contraception (unless they meet requirements about a change in their way of living, e.g. a period of sobriety), given how damaging it will be for the baby?

Or should we say women have the right to choose what happens to their body, including making decisions about pregnancy?

Then, once a baby is born, their needs take priority.

I don't know how a baby smells anything in the womb, don't you have to breathe to smell something? I also wonder if we smell the same inside? Is it the same as how we smell outside, surely how we smell will depend on lots of environmental things, what soap we use, what perfume we use, and does that smell the same inside?

I wonder if studies have been done to compare how anyone smells externally to how they smell inside their body, inside their womb, inside an amniotic sac.

I know someone who had to do that, they might have done it many times now but the first time they did it they were quite traumatised by going into the delivery room and taking the baby that was only a few minutes old. I can't even imagine how a mother must feel in that moment and how anyone could go through pregnancy after pregnancy knowing that was going to happen. Maybe they just hope each time will be different or the loss of the baby just makes them crave a baby so much they ignore what is going to happen.

Well people have the right to try to get pregnant. Whether they succeed, with or without medical assistance, is ultimately beyond their control. It’s not a right enforceable by law, like the right to vote for example. There is certainly no right to adopt a child.

Have those women deliberately sought another woman’s body to carry the child?

This is about surrogacy. This isn’t about women making poor reprocessing decisions for themselves. This is about people who exploit at least one woman’s body to produce a child that they demand. And it is about that child who had been created that way and for that purpose.

Absolutely, children being born when a woman has made a poor choice and she cannot look after that child’s needs should be discussed.

But that is irrelevant to this specific issue.

And the fact those pregnancies happen should never be used to wedge open the potential for exploitation of women or children for surrogacy. It amounts to whataboutery.

Yes. Thank you.

My statement should have had that limitation about medical assistance.

And absolutely, there is no right to adopt or foster.

and reproductive decisions. Not reprocessing.

I completely agree OP. I don't understand the mentality of infertile women believing their inherent right is to have a child at any cost! It's so selfish and completely disregards all your points which are facts, such as trauma from being removed from the mum who's grown them for 9 months. It's lifelong trauma that will impact all their future relationships.