Surrogacy in Mexico

[courageiscontagious]

I want LGBTQ people to have families but I am so conflicted about things like this. This article barely mentions the women that are pregnant. It also really grinds my gears when couples clearly value their own genetic ties (eg here it’s two men who by design will be the genetic parent of one child each who share the same genetic mother) but apparently don’t think their child’s genetic ties and sense of identity matter as much. They’ve chosen for their children to never know their genetic mother, and they’ve also chosen for their children to have genetic half siblings.

surely if genetic ties are important- then the children’s best interests should override the parents wishes? If you were the child in that situation wouldn’t you prefer to know your mother? And failing that, for your sibling to be a full sibling and not a half sibling?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2025/06/03/lgbtq-fertility-ivf-family-planning/83942271007/

I want to be feeling like this is good but it really rubs me the wrong way when they approach these things from an LGBTQ perspective only, glossing over the women and children in the story and what might be best for them.

this story is about how expensive it is. Should it be cheap to rent people to grow babies for you?

thats my rant, please point me to some literature that will educate me so I can get behind this and go back to being a better LGBTQ ally.

Exactly.

My point is that they are a) not good comparisons b) there's still problems with organ donation so we shouldn't pretend there isn't c) the problems are always related to financial payments and coercion d) healthcare systems with the strictest regulations always are best e) anyone going abroad for such care/treatment is inevitably doing so to knowingly get around these ethical safeguards

Side note:

i find it sooooo fucked up that these guys are in the USA, which has no problem legislating the absolute fuck out of women’s rights to their own bodies.

but America apparently isnt going to legislate against this.

brain dead woman on life support - no rights.
teenage rape victim - no rights.

but a gay man wants a baby- plenty of rights over women’s bodies for him- assuming he is rich enough.

Personally I think altruistic surrogacy is worse in many respects because it knowingly asks someone who loves you very much, to put their life and health on the line.

That's not ok. A good sibling wouldn't let a sibling do it for love, precisely because they love them.

It shows up that there is an imbalance of power in the relationship and there is an unhealthy dynamic of guilt and duty going on.

Correction - TWO impoverished Mexican women.

plus the egg donor whoever and wherever she is. Chosen because she looked like them and managed to pump out enough eggs for two men to have a turn at once.

Why can't they just buy a couple of kids from an orphanage instead?

@RedToothBrush imagine that my sister didn’t ask me, but I had the idea myself and volunteered.

does the same concern apply?

Thought experiment: how do you feel about puppy farming? Poor doggies being exploited, being kept in terrible conditions with pregnancy after pregnancy, making money for a breeder supplying an endless stream of cute ‘cockapoos’ for wealthy middle-class people whose lives won’t be complete until they’ve a bundle of joy skipping around their garden.

I mean, if they puppies aren’t perfect, they’ll just be disposed of. And if they’re not vaccinated and health checked, well, buyer beware. And if the mum has pregnancy complications, ah well. Plenty more when that came from. And if the dog is going to a completely unsuitable environment, that’s not on the breeder, they’re just there to supply the market.

If you’re not good with this, then substitute ‘agency’, ‘poorer woman likely from the global majority’, ‘baby’, and for unsuitable environment read ‘ripped away from birth mother, family and culture’ and then tell me surrogacy isn’t a vile commercial practice of end-stage capitalism that is profoundly anti-women and children.

Like the man who guilted his 66-year-old mother into going through IVF to give himself and his husband a child, as he reasoned that it was so the baby would have his familial DNA.

The selfishness is stunning.

You never see wealthy women choosing commercial surrogacy as a career option do you 🤔

No fucking way?! How the hell did we get here?

Your sister has the ability to say "no, I don't wish to risk your life or life long health even though I really wish I could have a baby. Its not for me to risk other people's health".

So yes, it does still apply.

If there is equal love and respect then an offer is followed by the sibling declining the offer. Otherwise there is an imbalance in power dynamics in the relationship.

There isn't an alternative scenario here.

I think if anyone's in any doubt about the motivations of the rich people buying these babies from impoverished women, just look at where they're buying them from. The medical systems are abysmal in those countries. Those rich people wouldn't set foot in those places for medical care for themselves. If the rich people valued the babies or mothers they wouldn't let them risk their safety in places with shit medical care. Given that those seem to be the only places where you can buy a baby these days, they'd just campaign for surrogacy to be banned.
The fact that they don't shows it's not about the baby. They don't care about the babies at all. It's alllllll about the parents and their status, and buying a baby has become the ultimate status symbol. They don't care if it has lifelong medical issues from that infection it picked up at birth in a 2nd world country, that's just more Instagram fodder isn't it?

@RedToothBrushi see your points.

that said- I risked my life and health to have my own five pregnancies and three children. When I told my sister I was TTC she didn’t say I shouldn’t because of the risk to myself.

likewise my husband loves and respects me and was also on board with me coming pregnant for our own reasons.

people have babies for all kinds of reasons, can we expect the law to wade into private decisions like that and say which reasons are good enough to risk a woman’s health?

Must have been a donor egg and the husband's sperm?

Would add to this that there’s a disconnect where a woman uses donor eggs to carry a child for herself - the law is clear that she is the mother because to the baby she IS, the baby is born already knowing her as it’s mother and bonded to her, and the egg donor has no claim to the child.

The only difference is that when someone is paying enough, the (carrying) mother/child bond can be disregarded, and someone who is neither the biological mother nor carrier can claim the baby.

Quite shocking really.

I imagine people have many different views on what they dislike about it. I can also see why someone who is desperate for a child would want to explore every avenue. But, personally, I don't think it should be allowed because you shouldn't be able to buy a human being. If these women didn't desperately need the money, and there were more legitimate ways to earn it, do you think they would be selling their body, risking their life and damaging their future physical health by being a surrogate? If they just 'loved' being pregnant, or wanted to spread joy or one of the other dubious quotes some people spout, they'd do it for free and there would be studies confirming that being physically removed from your birth mother and denied all contact does not harm a baby and later that adult.

I also think the concept of using another person as a human incubator is vile in and of itself.

Also of relevance is all the people in Ireland (and the diaspora) who were victims of forced adoption and who are now, in their forties, fifties, sixties and seventies, still looking for their birth mothers. My great aunt's funeral, a woman came in and it turned out she was her first child, had been searching for her for decades, and saw the death announcement on RIP.ie and that was the first time she ever connected with her. At her funeral. It turned out my great aunt had been in a Magdalene Laundry in her teens and she never spoke about it. That sort of loss never goes away.
These people are people knowingly setting up another mass trauma like that.

Aside from the increased risk to the mother, the removal of biological connection to surrogate is also interesting because the idea that this will lessen the bond only applies to the surrogate (ie the hope that she’s less likely to want to keep the baby). The baby itself has no idea that it’s not biologically connected to its mother and therefore will have the same strength of bond to the woman who carried and birthed them, regardless of being conceived via donor egg.

Again, absolutely zero consideration for the actual baby, but the baby can’t talk so no one seems to care.

is that story about the 66 year old true? I don’t see how it would be medically possible?

It’s misplaced to worry about your status as a good ally to LGBTQ+ you need to think about being an ally to human infants and not condoning anything that causes them suffering or contributes to human trafficking. The rights of the women and children are more important in this situation than the wants of certain groups in society.

They are good comparisons in that the commodification of human parts is wrong.

Being coerced into donating a kidney and being coerced into a surrogacy are not worlds apart.

And as soon as you can buy babies, you'll have baby farms (kind of do already)

Yes, a kidney is just an organ, and isn't as morally reprehensible requesting one as it is a baby.

Poor, vulnerable trapped women are the ones being exploited.

I put it to you, if this was YOUR daughter in a bit of a scrape, owing money, finding it hard to feed her kids... would you support her with going through a surrogacy to give that baby to a couple within hours if birth, then the money transferred and hands washed?

Buying babies is abhorrent.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/06/us-woman-61-says-being-surrogate-was-gift-for-her-son-and-his-husband

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4062180/Heroic-grandmother-67-world-s-oldest-surrogate-mother-carrying-daughter-s-child.html

You do. And it's grim. And I think it sets a really awful example to young women that the most important thing is to keep your figure... not even having babies is worth loosing that.
It's selfish and ugly and should be illegal.

Surely the women in this case were doing it because they wanted something for themselves too I.e a grandchild?

It is something I have wrestled with myself. Even when I was in law school and had to write a paper about this (important note: Where I live ALL forms of surrogacy - commercial and altruistic - are outlawed).

One aspect is of course the question of consent. Or more specificially: can certain forms of consent / consent to certain procedures and services be purchased? Is it even possible to consent to surrogacy? (Seeing as women are able to consent to pregnancy I personally would answer the latter with yes, as long as certain requirements are met).

There are also issues when it comes to abortion and or medical care. The birth mother / surrogate obviously needs to be allowed to freely decide on all medical matters during the pregnancy (such as aborting due to concerns for her own health or keeping a baby even when certain medical conditions affecting the baby are already known). The surrogates rights need to be protected and enforced and there cannot be negative legal or contractual consequences associated with that. There are a shit ton of ethical and legal questions there, tbh.

There is also the issue of the child. How does it affect a child to be separted from the birth mother right after birth (as one random example)? That is a key difference between surrogacy and sperm (or egg) donation.

And pregnancy is associated with various medical risks and potentially permanent side effects to the birth mother/surrogate. Most women in financially secure situations do not want to take these risks. Which is why these men did not travel to Switzerland or Norway but to Mexico. So these people go to 2nd or 3rd world countries for this "service". Which comes with concerns of human trafficking, exploiting people in need etc.

Most surrogates already have their own children, btw. Will these men financially support their surrogate's children if the surrogate (aka mother of her own children) were to die during childbirth or end up disabled? I somehow doubt it.