Friends surrogacy

[Fatcat00]

Not a particularly close friend, but friend enough for me to be invited to social events etc. has recently told me she is having a baby due in April, I was shocked and congratulated her, she then says “surrogate… obviously”. I was a bit lost for words.

for context friend has recently divorced, they had been trying for a baby for 5 years, had IVF etc. I furthered the conversation and asked if it was her egg. Her response was “nah, I’m not bothered if it’s not my biological baby.. I just want a baby”. Followed by “I can’t be assed putting hormones into my body for the sake of my own egg”. I am just so shocked and speechless, I don’t agree with surrogacy for a number of reasons. Some of them being I don’t agree with the hiring of a woman’s body. I don’t agree with a baby being ripped away from its mother to suit someone else’s needs and the physical and psychological implications to both baby and mother as such. Why not just adopt?? If you don’t care for the child to be your biological anyway, why not adopt a baby who needs a parent?

it’s kind of made me look at her in a different light. She seemed very flippant about it (I’m aware this is just how she has came across I’m sure it’s a lengthy and draining process). She says she was put in touch with this woman through a friend who had used her.

essentially, this surrogate has just got pregnant for the purpose of handing over the baby to someone else in exchange for cash. I think I’d still be a bit 🤔 even if it was her own egg if truth be told.

I just can’t get my head around it. Am I being a bit of a bigot? Aibu to want to distance myself a bit? I don’t like feeling as though someone’s path to parenthood or happiness is “wrong” but it really doesn’t sit right with me and I’m not entirely sure why.

This is literally a textbook goady post.

Where has OP said the friend is buying a baby from another country though? I honestly can’t see that bit.

I'm not against it. Just distance yourself. Its none of your business

She probably has dual nationality in which case it may be possible to get the baby on her other passport if dual donation is allowed in that county.

IVF batters you, both physically and mentally. If she's already been there, then she'll be best placed to know if she can go through that again. Is her flippant way of discussing HER choice usual for her? Maybe it's a self protection mechanism.

I suspect in 20 years time there will be waves of legal cases against the clinics and surrogates who were involved in this business.

The UN Human Rights Commission is currently looking into international surrogacy and the sale of children as a form of human trafficking. So hopefully at some point international law will outlaw the practice, as it has be banned in many countries already.

https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-sale-of-children/surrogacy

OP hasn’t given nearly enough information for the up-in-arms outrage for ‘human trafficking’. We’ve been told that a friend out the woman in contact with a surrogate, it’s not the woman’s egg and the woman is of south Asian heritage. That is all we know – everything else is pure speculation.

The OP hasn’t said it.

I agree.

I’d be flippant too if someone was intrusive enough to ask if the egg was mine. Especially not even a close friend.

I’ll clear a few things up and then I’m leaving this thread as I’ve solidified my answer to whether or not I should begin to distance myself. My ethical beliefs don’t line up with hers, I don’t agree with what she’s doing, and I struggle to justify her choices. Meaning I don’t see much of a friendship going forward. Thank you to all that answered, agreeing or otherwise.

to clear up

• yes she had ivf and I knew about this, it was her ex husband with the fertility problems
• she was tired of ivf process after divorce so didn’t want to harvest any of her own eggs and wasn’t bothered about the baby being genetically hers (leaves a ? To me as to why select the ethnicity)
• she is not buying the baby from abroad. She has just selected a surrogate specifically with her heritage who is uk based.
• the surrogate of whom she was connected with via a mutual friend. The surrogate has previously done this same process fo a same sex (Women) couple.
• I don’t agree with surrogacy and this thread has confirmed why I’m so against it.

thank you again

@Fatcat00 Wow!! How judgemental are you?! Thank goodness she didn't ask for your opinion! You are lucky you have not had fertility issues!! You don't have a clue what it's like struggling to to have a baby, miscarriage after miscarriages, the strength to keep your head above the water when when someone announces their pregnancy, congratulating to them and then having to watch their baby bump grow. You do it because they are your friend!!

Adoption is nit easy, when I enquired I was told to go to a different council tp ask about ethnic babies, because don't have any of your kind in this Borough 🙄 the council don't help! I even applied to be a Foster parent, told them my health condition and they said, it not an issue. I went through 8 months of training for them to say sorry, we can approve you because of your health!! If they can't listen to grown adults what makes you thin they listen to the children!!

Fyi you are such an ignorant person!

It’s human trafficking regardless. Doesn’t have to be international for it to be human trafficking.

Child wanted ✅
Child made available ✅
Money exchanged ✅
Child goes from party one to party two ✅

A 10 year old. A 5 year old. A 1 year old. A newborn. What’s the difference?

Travelling from London to Newcastle or travelling from Birmingham to Kiev, what’s the difference?

Read the thread hun. I have had fertility issues. Calm yourself down and make a brew while you read through and get some perspective hey? X

@CampervanKween damaged? Why? Are children bron through ivf damaged?

My daughter is surrogate born, her and her other surro friends are dojnt absolutely fine!!
Your another ignorant person. I bet you don't even know anyone who has gone through the process!!

This is really concerning. Is the surrogate mother using her own egg? That would make her the genetic mother of the child, meaning at handover the woman is literally giving away her own baby - with all the attachment issues and risks that has for the child.

Surrogacy Concern is a new campaign group set up in the UK to challenge the narrative on surrogacy and campaign against Law Commission proposals that would make surrogacy easier (not safer, as some claim).

They’re on Twitter at SurrogConcern or SurrogacyConcern.uk if you want more info.

@Aqua20

She's not ignorant, she just doesn't support a practice like commercial surrogacy, which is illegal and a criminal offence in a lot of countries.

Someone's desire for a baby does not outweigh the human rights of a child.

I've had multiple miscarriages and have personally experienced the grief that goes with it, but there's no way I'd support surrogacy.

It's hypocritical to wish someone well with something you think is morally abhorrent.

• the surrogate of whom she was connected with via a mutual friend. The surrogate has previously done this same process fo a same sex (Women) couple.

So the woman has done it before and clearly is happy doing it if she's being connected by people!

Changes the context of your thread entirely - why am I not surprised that this is just buried in the detail now and not at the start? You'd likely have got different answers if you'd been more open at the start but you wanted the answers to support the decision you had already made.

You're entitled to your decision and your friend is entitled to hers. I doubt she will mourn the loss of the friendship and neither will you. Case closed.

They mean that surrogacy is going to happen.

It can either happen legally, with proper rules and regulations in place. Where women choose to do it.

Or it can be made illegal and happen with no proper rules and regulations in place and therefore there will be women exploited or forced into it.

It has no worse impact on the children that are fostered, adopted or birthed by women who forgot their pill and wasn’t planned.

Many children are raised by grandparents/aunties because the mum got pregnant too young, has died or leaves the county to work away.
It’s quite common in some cultures.

Well said @NotBadConsidering

OP’s friend didn’t say she was trafficking children, she said that she was having a baby via a surrogate, which is perfectly legal. It is you who have wildly embellished the story due to your own twisted fantasies about child trafficking.

Kindly I disagree. The UN defines human trafficking as "through force, fraud or deception, with the aim of exploiting them for profit, forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation".

You and no one else on this thread (bar the OP) has evidence of the above, and not even that money is being exchanged beyond expenses.

No there are those who seek to police other women’s reproductive choices and what they do with their own bodies, and those who believe in women’s (bodily) autonomy and reproductive freedom.

YOU do not get to dictate what constitutes other women’s “misery”.

Oh mate.

I said that paying this woman to ‘have a baby for her’ does not and will not make her a mother.

Applying to adopt the baby and being granted permission will make her a mother.

It’s a distinction that is legally and ethically important.

I have had fertility issues

I find this very hard to believe. What kind of “fertility issues” exactly?

I disagree with the UN’s definition. They’re not the final authority on such matters. A child doesn’t have to be exploited for it to have been trafficked in my view. If the word “trafficked” requires exploitation, then it’s treating children like chattel at least.

Money is exchanged. “Expenses” is a lose term. No one checks. It’s still money being exchanged to gain a physical entity, in this case, a child.