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.

@Newnamenewname109870 you are talking rubbish. You're trying to justify surrogacy through an "the end justifies the means" argument. It doesn't stack up.

Infertility is a horrible situation, but trafficking a baby (which is NOT a 'thing' as you put it) is not the solution.

I think any reader who has made it this far in the thread will now understand that you don’t actually understand ethics. You don’t understand exploitation of other humans.

@Helleofabore I don’t think Newnamenewname109870 is far from alone alone in not understanding ethics. My feeling is that most people don’t give much thought to ethics at all and their morals just cycle around ‘might is right’, ‘the ends justify the means’ and ‘do as you’d be done by’.

Questions about the ethics about creating one human being specifically to solve the pain of another, are just too heady and far out.

If someone thinks we should create a human being to solve someone else’s pain through surrogacy, why not do it for organ harvesting (talking of movies - My Sister’s Keeper is broadly about this)? Or how about deliberate breeding some human beings with low intelligence, high agreeability and high physical strength to do jobs other people don’t want to do?

I think

I don't really agree. I work in clinical research so I think about medical ethics a lot. It's about weighing up the pros and cons, not ignoring all of either. The joy of parenthood IS a valid benefit (who doesn't have children for themselves?!) but you have to weigh that against the risks which in my opinion in the case of surrogacy are too great. It's about saying the risks outweigh the benefits, not that benefits don't exist.

It’s because I don’t view it as trafficking when it is not, you know, actual trafficking. I’ve seen it from a very different point of view. The same way I don’t see all abortion as child murder. There are positives and negatives for it in different situations. But fine, fully ban surrogacy in all countries in the world and let’s see what starts to happen.

What about donated embryos? there are so many things that I don’t believe should be ‘banned’ even if it’s something that needs careful monitoring.

Do you judge surrogate women for their choices do you think they are the problem. If there weren't willing women to do it then there would be no surrogate babies.

I do judge surrogate mothers as well as all the others involved. It’s an awful thing to do - grow a baby inside you deliberately, while having no intention to care for it, in fact planning to sell it/give it away. It’s a terrible thing to do.

I’m not disagreeing with any of the disgusting coercion, slavery and abuse of clearly vulnerable women on here.
I don’t think there should be a blanket ban because:

1. I don’t think all surrogate women are destroyed by the process. Clearly this needs to be monitored and some serious legal support put in place.
2. I don’t think all babies born by surrogacy are damaged by the process.
3. Even if I thought this happened in some cases, it’s clearly not all. Therefore a blanket ban wouldn’t be fair. I don’t like the idea of abortion but again I understand it’s not a black and white issues and would never want a blanket ban, like in parts of the states.
4. people are going to do it anyway. Make it legal and make it safe.

now I’m actually going to leave as I don’t think my presence is making much difference tbh.

You arguments are very similar to the pro-prostitution arguments.

Only because you’re assuming there is payment.

No. I mean it literally.

1. I don’t think all [prostitutes] are destroyed by the process. Clearly this needs to be monitored and some serious legal support put in place.
2. I don’t think [all lives touched by prostitution] are damaged by the process.
3. Even if I thought this happened in some cases, it’s clearly not all. Therefore a blanket ban wouldn’t be fair. I don’t like the idea of abortion but again I understand it’s not a black and white issues and would never want a blanket ban, like in parts of the states.
4. people are going to do it anyway. Make it legal and make it safe.

But you’re only a prostitute if you get paid 😂👍 put any word in there, whatever. Change it to cannabis. You do do.

1. I don’t think all babies born by surrogacy are damaged by the process.
2. Even if I thought this happened in some cases, it’s clearly not all. Therefore a blanket ban wouldn’t be fair.

So you realise that some babies will be damaged, but you’ve decided that because it’s not all of them, (not sure I agree but anyway) that’s okay? Really? Some babies suffering harm is okay with you, because a blanket ban would be unfair? How many harmed babies is allowable for you, how many is too many? I think my allowable number of harmed children is none.

If that’s the case, that you could swap out the word ‘surrogacy’ for prostitution, cannabis, whatever, in your arguments, then you are right when you say:

“I don’t think my presence is making much difference”

Surrogacy is a different issue, with very different ethical considerations than legalising cannabis, and if you can’t see how it’s different, then you can’t really add anything to the discussion.

I do judge surrogate mothers as well as all the others involved. It’s an awful thing to do - grow a baby inside you deliberately, while having no intention to care for it, in fact planning to sell it/give it away. It’s a terrible thing to do.

This

In my early 20’s I talked a friend out of being a surrogate for her older sister. She was being aggressively coerced into the situation at the time. I will forever be glad that my friends first born baby was one she could raise herself.

Well done!

Her family and no right to do that to her. Coercion is now a crime.

Threatening suicide is a known coercive control pattern behaviour.

Good point red

So I see we have now got to the ‘ban it and watch what happens’ stage.

Was this supposed to mean that if surrogacy is banned, that people would… actually, what? kidnap babies? Hold women in forced baby farms?

So, not only should surrogacy be legal so people don’t commit suicide because they can exploit at least one woman and a child that has been deliberately and specifically created to stop them committing suicide. But, we now should have legalised surrogacy because some people society cannot control themselves and will get babies illegally.

And this is from a poster who declared that ‘ethical surrogacy’ exists…. who then has stated fucked up and unethical reasons to keep surrogacy legal.

It all amounts to people are going to exploit women and babies anyway, may as well let people do it.

Once you see it, you really cannot unsee it.

The whole “it is going to happen anyway, so may as well regulate it” is borrowed from legalising illicit drugs from what I remember. And prostitution.

That is where this thread has descended. Using activism lines from using harmful drugs and prostitution to support the exploitation of at least one woman for her reproductive capabilities and exploiting a human being created deliberately to fulfill an adults desire.

Considering that it is going to require so many layers of fully qualified and very expensive equipment to run illegal surrogacy businesses. Plus if the rules reflected the human trafficking aspect of exploiting that baby to be trafficked across borders, governments could have procedures for identifying these children, at the border and at other key registration points with significant enough deterrents that parents would not even contemplate it as an option. I suspect that the reality of ‘illegal surrogacy’ will be low and those discovered would be very severely punished.

Just as other forms of illegal ‘sourcing’ of babies today.

If a governing body required the equipment to be highly regulated even to the destruction of old equipment and no resale when equipment is replaced, that would be a start. This would also make sure no illegal IVF clinics or egg harvesting businesses.

The businesses (because illegal surrogacy would be business and not charity) would need many staff, then sourcing illegal equipment. Then another layer to this would be bringing the baby home and trying to register that baby in the home country. A faked document would require significant hacking to make it actually work on the many levels required for access to health services etc. Therefore this becomes another net of capture. Basically, a family who pursues illegal surrogacy will face a life of detection and it will be a very rare person who will do that. And those people would be considering other illegal sources of babies anyway.

So, I am not sure what the ‘watch what will happen’ threat means.

However it was meant, using the ‘watch what will happen’ and ‘ it is going to happen so regulate it’ are threats. They are just as coercive a form of activism as ‘suicide prevention’. They should never be viewed as coherent and evidence based facts and logic to legalise surrogacy.

So, they are unethical reasons to wedge open an unethical act.

And just as emotionally manipulative and not based on science or ethics as any other argument mentioned on this thread so far. If an action requires so much emotional manipulation due to lack of substantive and proven science, it should be raising red flags and sounding alarm bells.

YY Helleofabore

I agree that it would be extremely tough to get away with illegal surrogacy if it were properly enforced.

Since commercial surrogacy isn’t legal, neither is child trafficking. I don’t understand how people are currently able to traffic babies from abroad like gay male celebrities do. How did they get the British passport for the baby? How come questions aren’t asked at customs and social services aren’t called to remove the trafficked child? They should be asked - where did you get this baby from - you didn’t leave the country with it? Where is its mother? …….. 🫤 Fuck me! that baby would be ‘something to declare’ at customs alright.

If it were properly enforced, and surrogacy was illegal, then the only time I think surrogacy would happen in the UK, would be close relatives.

Births need to be registered, i am pretty sure that I needed to take medical records and ID when I registered my children’s births to make sure I am who I say I am, the baby is mine and I gave birth to her. How could people get around that if surrogacy was illegal?

You aren’t just allowed to give babies/children away. Social services would need to be involved if anyone did it - otherwise there would be problems trying to register the baby at a GP or getting a school place. Since social services would look for someone within the family first to adopt the baby, then ‘altruistic surrogacy’ within the family would be the only you could get away with it.

Just wanted to also point out the complexities of judging how affected babies, children and adults who grown up as a baby from a surrogate are by it. Most children feel a strong loyalty to their parents, who’ve brought them up and loved them. In lots of cases this can prevent them being honest about how they feel. You may well have a child who’s successful at school, an adult who gets a successful role in their career, who claims they don’t want to know anything about the surrogate parents, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are in fact unaffected or that they’ve honestly looked at their feelings about it. It also doesn’t mean they don’t have other issues that aren’t immediately obvious. It’s like self-reporting - it’s not always an accurate or full picture. I’m not saying everyone who was born from surrogacy is negatively affected, but I do think it’s very hard to judge who is or not.