AIBU to say that surrogacy is human trafficking?

[Finderskeeepers]

I’ve just read the story of Kyla Simpson who acted as a surrogate to a single man in China and I’m horrified. The article is behind a paywall so I’ve copied the synopsis below. Surrogacy is human trafficking and should absolutely be banned. Hopefully more stories like this help our governments reach the same conclusion.

In November 2024, Kyla Simpson carried triplets as a surrogate for a single man in China named Ted Zhou. He and Simpson had entered into the contract with joy and optimism. But after his sons were born, in November 2024, Zhou never arrived to pick them up. Then Simpson learned he hadn’t applied for a visa. She agreed to take the babies home until he could come retrieve them.
Five months later, Simpson was surprised when two Chinese strangers appeared at her door and demanded she give them the triplets. They’d been dispatched by Zhou, who was still waiting for his visa interview. Running out of money for the boys’ care, he’d hired them as a last resort. Now, as his calls went ignored, he feared the surrogate he’d hired had fallen in love with his children and would never let them go.
To Simpson, the handlers’ arrival confirmed her own suspicions. She’d started piecing together a theory that Zhou was part of a trafficking ring that commissioned surrogate babies who would be separated and sold. Over the next year, she would call the FBI, accuse Zhou of abandoning the babies, try to terminate his parental rights and file for adoption.
American women gestate thousands of babies every year for overseas parents, almost half of whom live in China, yet no federal or international regulations govern surrogacy. With cultural differences, a language barrier, and a patchwork of conflicting state laws, it can be hard to tell in a dispute who is a victim and who is a perpetrator, who has been scammed and who is the scammer. Now, as the two parties face each other in court, the ruling could threaten the status of thousands of parents and define the future of international surrogacy.

So does giving a lift to someone.

Look, if you can pay for it, if you can select desired features and more importantly if you can change your mind and wash your hands off the whole thing(or worse endanger a woman’s life because she signed a contract) it’s that callousness that makes it just like buying a product .

Yeah because that's exactly the same thing as them allowing a loved one to risk their life to give them a baby 🙄

I don't agree with surrogacy.
But by what you're saying, no man should ever want his partner to get pregnant

There are so many words I could use to describe surrogacy. I just wish that one of them was the word "illegal".

It’s a big ask, yes!

No.

The majority of children who are adopted in the UK are not adopted in babyhood, but after there have been multiple attempts to keep the family together.

This is because research shows that, despite families having problems, in most cases where they can be helped to overcome them the child staying with the birth family is by far the best for the child.

There are huge issues with attachment disorder for many children who are adopted, even when they are adopted into very loving families. Adults who were adopted as children have written about this.

Deliberately to cause these issues in children simply because adults want to treat children as commodities is (in my opinion) immoral.

A lot less than half of the surrogacies in the UK are voluntary surrogacies.

Apparently the risk of death is from pregnancy/childbirth in the UK is on average 0.0128% personally I’d risk that for my sister/niece/nephew. I understand if others wouldn’t but the world’s not so black and white.

In stark contrast, legal surrogacy involves competent adults giving fully informed consent

It is, unfortunately, an entirely adult-centred process, and in my opinion unethical and immoral.

If you can't see the difference between giving someone a lift and having a baby for them you've been on netmums too long.

But we have had surrogates in the UK who are NOT paid for it. So how's that taking advantage of " poor" woben

So niave to think this. There are literal surrogacy farms in poorer countries like Nigeria.

Please educate yourself.

Even if you were correct and it's all sunlight and rainbows and everyone is a willing participant and it's all equal and these people are so happy doing this kind thing, can you not see how this 'acceptable surrogacy' opens the floodgates to the even darker side of this practice?

Because the overwhelming majority of global surrogacy is rich people renting poor women’s bodies to grow a baby in.

Where does the baby, the little human being being purchased, give its consent?

Which are a minority of all surrogacies. Funny that.

Trafficking babies and exploiting vulnerable women.

But some people are willing to risk that, especially if they've had uncomplicated pregnancies and births themselves. I've volunteered to be a surrogate for my sister and I'd do it gladly (she declined). There's also the fact that altruistic surrogacy in that case doesn't just provide a child for my sister, but a niece/nephew for me, and a cousin for my children. A new baby in the family would be a joy for everyone.

Do you also oppose altruistic organ donation to a close family member or bone marrow donation which carry risks for the donor too?

YANBU. ALL surrogacy is cruel to the baby who bonds in utero with mother - regardless of egg used in the pregnancy - and exploitative of the woman who usually always (including in the U.K) receives financial benefit for the arrangement.

Surrogacy agencies don’t tell the women that the pregnancies are higher risk for complications either. It all needs to be banned.

I'm not talking about how common each are because that's not really relevant to the point I was making that commercial and altruistic surrogacy each have very different moral implications.

@FreezeThePicture there’s no such thing as well regulated surrogacy. Again, you're completely failing to consider the rights of the child.

@horchatatresleches a donated kidney isn’t a sentient being with thoughts or feelings of its own.

Surrogacy is wrong for so many reasons. The idea of a single man being able to buy a baby is horrific

Renting an incubator? What a disgustingly misogynistic take. Women are living, breathing humans, not fucking objects to be renting out. They face real risks of harm, injury and trauma in doing this, and you reduce them to an incubator?

Dehumanising women just makes it easier to argue for their exploitation though, doesn't it?

The post I was replying to was replying to a poster who only discussed the implications to the surrogate, not the baby so that's what I talked about. I wonder what you think of @FreezeThePicture's reference to the study that finds that children born through surrogacy show no difference in psychological wellbeing or quality of family relationships than children who don't. Given that data then it's surely similar to any child who also doesn't consent to being born at all, or to the parents or situation they're born into. I also think that altruistic surrogacy has a difference in that the surrogate is part of the child's life.