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.

Your "no"; which part of my post was that in relation to?

Can you point me in the direction of the research which states that surrogacy causes attachment disorder in the same way that adoption does? Because there are a lot of factors in the adoption process which would cause trauma, those same factors aren't always present in surrogacy.

Semantics. You’re now claiming women are nothing more than incubators because they’re paid for the rental of their bodies. Do you also view sex work as a legitimate career choice and think men have the right to pay to rent a hole?

Which organ is a baby comparable to?

I don't think it is the same, much as I would like surrogacy to end.

Yes. I don’t agree with surrogacy under any circumstances.

A baby is clearly dissimilar to an organ. As I said to another poster, the post I was replying to only concerned the health implications to the surrogate, not the baby so that's what was in scope of my reply.

Commercial surrogacy is illegal in the UK, you can't pay a surrogate or be paid as a surrogate. So I don't think we can say any UK women are being exploited because they are poor.

The human being trafficked is the baby.

The baby is taken from it's mother by force.

As anyone who has carried and birthed a human child will tell you, a baby absolutely knows it's mother and seeks her out as primary caregiver.

To remove the newborn from the mother for your own benefit is unforgivable, except in the case of the mother rejecting the newborn.

There is obviously no way of knowing what effect this has on the infant, but they are 100% starting their life in grief and unresolved longing.

Having a baby doesn’t endanger a woman’s life anymore than a taxi driver taking you somewhere, or a pilot flying you to Spain…everything comes with a risk to life if someone leaves their home, but if a woman chooses to, is not coerced, not doing it from desperation, but chooses to allow their body to grow life for a family who cannot otherwise have a child, then who are we do say they can’t do that.

I would have too, unfortunately my body is a bit shit and I was only able to hold onto one pregnancy and that was a 32 weeker.

This is the 2023 study about third-party assisted reproduction?

If so: the sample size of that study was 65 UK families, and it included children born by sperm donation and egg donation, as well as surrogacy.

Only 22 children born from surrogacy were in the study. Since commercial surrogacy is banned in the UK, I assume all 22 were altruistic arrangements.

You can't possibly draw any legitimate conclusions about the global surrogacy industry from that tiny, specific sample. There aren't 'decades of peer-reviewed developmental science' proving surrogacy does no harm. There's no 'rule of law' about commercial surrogacy, either; it's completely banned in some countries, and a total Wild West in others.

In California, where the fee for surrogacy is $75-95k, there's a businessman who simultaneously commissioned around twenty babies from different surrogates, none of whom were aware of the others' existence. The children, almost all under three, have recently been taken into foster care due to neglect. The birth mothers have no legal right to custody. Two women were sued when, learning of the situation, they refused to hand over the babies at birth. Those children are also now in foster care.

Imagine if these 20+ kids were the study's sample. Any genuine research needs to incorporate hundreds, if not thousands, of surrogate births in a wide range of countries, operating within multiple different legal frameworks.

Hey round this buy paying expenses etc . Dodgy deals also . Don’t be so naive .

Yes, surrogacy is horrendous

"exploiting individuals against their will." It is the child who is being trafficked - of course it is against their will - everything we know about child development tells us that.

Voluntary surrogacy is allowed. That doesn’t mean commercial surrogacy should be too. Also why do you keep conflating the two?
Do you also believe in the happy prostitute myth?

I think if someone wants to sell their body then they should be allowed to do so. Providing they ‘want’ to do that, not coerced, not desperate for money, not at risk of harm if they don’t…

If I wanted to help a couple who could not have a baby on their own, who are people on mumsnet to stop me? Would it be ok to donate eggs, sperm, a kidney? Where would you draw the line?

I would draw the line at selling a human being

Altruistic live organ donation is different as it is the person donating their actual organ to the individual in question.

With surrogacy an actual third person is created who had no choice in being created to fulfil someone els’es desire for a baby.

this is why with deceased donation the family are the ones who have the final say, because they are the ones who are living with the loss.

In the same way the surrogate child has no say in being born to strangers, ripped from their culture, even in the case of so called altruistic donation they’re born to someone who will never be their family.

I disagree with egg and sperm donation for the same reasons.

I didn’t actually say anything about commercial surrogacy vs non. I think that it should be allowed providing there is no exploitation, I realise that currently it is very exploitative in a lot of cases but that doesn’t mean that it is ALL bad - it isn’t that black and white

Actually @LavenderSweetPea we basically do have commercial surrogacy in the U.K. One British agency advises surrogate mothers here in the U.K. to ask for up to £35,000 in “expenses”. The average is about £20,000 per pregnancy. And the majority of surrogate born babies living in the U.K. are brought in after commercial surrogacy abroad.

Then all babies have been created without their consent haven’t they?

Are you going back a 100 years or so?

Adoption these days is due to care proceedings, very very rarely, so rarely because a parent doesnt want the child

Many children, but not all, have life long issues due to the poor parenting experiences they had in utero but also in the first few months of life if they're with an unsafe parent. Not all are affected by that

Its become a narrative that ALL children who are adopted suffer life long trauma, either from the adoption of being removed from their parent or the experiences as a baby with the parent(s), this is not a blanket application, it depends completely on the circumstances and the child and their personality and characteristics.

They aren’t selling a human being though, they are growing the human you already made when the egg was fertilised in a lab. It was already a baby before the surrogate got it, they’re just growing your baby and you are hiring them to do that

Nope they are selling a human being. It’s really as simple as that

Exploitation takes many forms; it doesn’t just involve money. When women are constantly instructed to be kind and submit to the needs of others they are being primed for exploitation.