Chrissy Teigen surrogacy

[HermioneKipper]

Just announced a 4th baby via a surrogate.

Its just so breathtakingly entitled to buy a woman’s body - especially when you already have 3 children?!

No regard for the safety of the surrogate’s body or thought for the baby who would be ripped from their mother at birth.

These people sicken me

Exactly, all about the wants of an adult rather than the needs of a child.

Naomi Campbell has just announced her second baby by surrogacy.

I didn’t say ‘do whatever you like’ I said that it’s not anyone’s place to tell someone they can’t do something with their own body. Last I checked you can donate organs if you wish. And you can donate your uterine space. it is anti-feminist to tell women when and how they can get pregnant, yes.

Strange how the countries full of these kind, altruistic women who just love being pregnant tend to be relatively poor.

How many Japanese or Norwegian women love getting pregnant in order to sell the baby to a stranger from a poor country?

Unless it's a kidney or part if your liver, you can only donate your organs if you're dead. And you can only donate them, you can't sell them.

Are you just assuming everyone against surrogacy is white and middle class?

You utter arse.

"A true gift from God" she says.

So not a commercial transaction with a much poorer woman?

That’s actually interesting point!

I wonder how many of the anti-surrogate crowd have no problem with porn/sex work.
MN often says all men/many women do it.

Oh, this boring old attempt at a 'gotcha' again 🙄

FTR, I'm as against prostitution and porn as I am surrogacy. Anything that reduces female bodies to commodities to be bought, sold, rented or trafficked, be that to gestate a baby for someone else or as an object for men to ejaculate into/over, is ultimately bad for women and girls as a sex class.

Ask the women of Holbeck what it was like living there during the six years that it was a so-called "managed red light district" if you don't believe me.

Holbeck Managed Zone saw streets 'taken over' by prostitution and kerbcrawling - Leeds Live (leeds-live.co.uk)

Not a gotcha at all.
I was suprised how againts people were about this (I don’t know enough about it personally), and specially because womanms body and all that.
When MN is mostly highly pro/ok with porn/strippers etc.

But at least no hypocrisy from you.

No, the people commenting on how they’ll agree with it when white, wealthy women do it are creating that impression.

You sound lovely btw :)

@adviceneeded1990 "No, the people commenting on how they’ll agree with it when white, wealthy women do it are creating that impression."

Really? What a very strange interpretation. My view is that I might consider surrogacy a legitimate non exploitative career/life choice when it is one embraced by white wealthy women, rather than largely by women from disadvantaged backgrounds.

@Lwrenagain You do not need to explain yourself ❤️ ignore the judgemental kind x

Part of the problem here is that we all have differing ideas about what constitutes wealthy.

So a woman from the UK who has never had a baby or who has had easy pregnancies and straightforward births, but who earns £24,000 per year working at McDonald's and struggles with the cost of living might well be of the view that a white woman living in a modest house in suburban America who gets paid $50,000 to carry a baby for someone else and is able to stay at home with her kids this way is an affluent woman making a free choice to use her body as she sees fit, earning good money and making a couple who want a baby very happy.

My annual salary is around twice what that commercial surrogate in America gets paid to carry a baby for someone else and I work reasonable hours, sitting in a comfortable chair, with regular breaks. The biggest dangers it poses for my health are the potential impact on my already bad eyesight from staring at a screen all day, and my constant close proximity to the biscuit tin at home and coffee and vending machines at work. I think $50,000 for carrying a baby for someone else is a risible sum and totally exploitative, even though I would struggle to pay that much to someone else.

For a couple like Chrissy Teigen and John Legend, $50,000 is a sum of money so small they wouldn't even notice it was missing from their bank account. They could spend that on flying a helicopter to downtown LA for dinner and then going to a club afterwards without even blinking.

Thank you so much ❤ x

Plus, it's worth mentioning that in most commercial surrogacy arrangements, only a small portion of the amount the couple actually spends will go to the surrogate. Yes, there are medical bills for the IVF and antenatal and maternity care, but in most cases there will also be an finder's fee for a surrogacy agency which has matched the couple to the surrogate, and which exceeds the amount paid to the surrogate.

Can you think of another industry involving the commoditisation of women's bodies where the person who matches the client to the woman providing the service earns more than the woman providing the service does?

I can.

That’s a very good point and something to think about. What amount constitutes exploitation, or is any amount of money exploiting someone? And if so, if I choose to be a surrogate for my sis for free am I still being exploited?

FTR, I'm as against prostitution and porn as I am surrogacy. Anything that reduces female bodies to commodities to be bought, sold, rented or trafficked, be that to gestate a baby for someone else or as an object for men to ejaculate into/over, is ultimately bad for women and girls as a sex class.
👏👏👏👏👏

This.

Ignoring the systemic issues that oppress women based on their biology in favour of "be kind, celebrate an individual and their decisions" style so called feminism really screws women over.

The individualistic "don't question my decisions or discuss the culture surrounding decision making" type of thinking benefits a patriarchal model that keeps women in their place. Who benefits by celebrating renting women's bodies for various purposes? Not the women who are commodified.

That Ukrainian baby farm makes me feel physically sick. How dare they do that to newborns? It's an obscenity.

Once I was ok with altruistic surrogacy. But then I met a few of them, as you say, sister for a sister, best friend for her friend of 20 years, cousin for gay male cousin. And what I saw was coercion.

Each and every time. It was actually bullying in the case of the cousin for gay Male and huge dollops of coercion.

One of the sisters had life changing injuries from the birth and now the family are estranged. She only went through with it because she knew she could see the baby often. About 5 years after the child was born the estrangement happened.

I think the "commissioning parents " felt bad for the surrogate, but causing a rift and moving far away with the baby didnt help the now disabled sister.

Shes left on benefits for life, the baby is across the world and probably has no idea about the surrogacy.

The best friends are no longer friends.

I dont know how altruistic surrogacy can be stopped, but we should try.

We can start with commercial surrogacy.

It's almost as if MN is not a monolith and different people post on different threads 🤔

That was heartbreaking and horrific. I remember it well - same when the Russia-Ukraine war started. All of those innocent babies trapped in a wars one. There was a big fuss about a British couple who braved the shells to get "their" infant, and how wonderful it was to have "their" baby. Not a single thought for the mother that baby left behind, or her safety.

I am pleased at least one child get out of there, but NOT A WORD about the mother.

I wonder how many of these little ones got to their commissioning parents after covid? How many were traumatised by war and what was effectively an orphanage situation? How many were no longer wanted because the buyers wanted a "new" baby? How many mothers didn't even get paid because they commissioning parents didn't feel they got what they wanted?

Well said.

And I can't say I've noticed any particular enthusiasm on MN for a woman's right to be used and abused for porn or sex work.

Maybe I'm reading the wrong threads.

That’s why I said donate. Last I checked no surrogate is selling a body part, so I don’t see the relevance?

A commercial surrogate is selling the use of her body parts.