Liz Kendall, baby by surrogacy

[womanity]

www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/24/labour-liz-kendall-having-baby-surrogacy

I love Liz. Disappointed she’s chosen to rent a womb and buy a baby.

Isn’t IVF also “commissioning” and “buying” a baby, though? Especially if it’s done with donor eggs, is it not similar to what you’re all describing as a child being taken away from the mother? Why is a woman carrying a donor egg baby for herself any different from a woman having her own egg gestated by another woman?

I’m just curious, I’ve always found objections to surrogacy a bit difficult to understand. Or are you mostly all against IVF as well?

'I would ask - were the 3 adopted children not good enough- were they not "real children"?'

Very good point. I understand the biological drive, I have been consumed by it myself, but they became parents to three children together. I find it really sad and strange that that wasn't enough

@minervas1

Isn’t IVF also “commissioning” and “buying” a baby, though? Especially if it’s done with donor eggs, is it not similar to what you’re all describing as a child being taken away from the mother? Why is a woman carrying a donor egg baby for herself any different from a woman having her own egg gestated by another woman?

I’m just curious, I’ve always found objections to surrogacy a bit difficult to understand. Or are you mostly all against IVF as well?

Yes I am.

Buying a child. Very unethical indeed.

I wasn't being aggressive. I was expressing surprise

@minervas1

Isn’t IVF also “commissioning” and “buying” a baby, though? Especially if it’s done with donor eggs, is it not similar to what you’re all describing as a child being taken away from the mother? Why is a woman carrying a donor egg baby for herself any different from a woman having her own egg gestated by another woman?

I’m just curious, I’ve always found objections to surrogacy a bit difficult to understand. Or are you mostly all against IVF as well?

I used to feel like you did. It helped that I loved being pregnant with my earliest pregnancies, always said that I'd absolutely have done it again for my sisters, even knowing how hard it would be to hand over a baby.

Then my last pregnancy left me with a lifelong disability, in addition to needing surgery to correct a multiple prolapse. My sister got an infected caesarean that put her in the hospital for weeks and is now permanently weak in the core, with a very disfiguring scar . I wasn't listening enough before.

Pregnancy is risky for women, childbirth is risky for women. The reality is that most surrogates have kids already who rely on them. If they are doing this for money, it's not nearly enough. If they're doing it out of a mix of obligation and naivety, as I might have done it for my sisters if needed, it's still almost certainly not enough.

The child bond argument is a tricky one. I do think there's a special bond with a child you carry, but also see great fathers every day, see great mothers who have bottle-fed from birth, see adoptive parents far better than many biological ones. I've not seen actual research either way, though would be interested in a link if someone has it.

But the physical impact on a surrogate is undeniable and too risky to be ok.

You asked "is three children not more than enough?" I would ask - were the 3 adopted children not good enough- were they not "real children"?

That is quite sad for her existing children. Like they were just a place mark, or replacement. Not saying she doesn't love them but like you say, they weren't enough to satisfy her. The fact that the bio child came after the others doesn't help.

I know there are adoptive parents who naturally concieve their own child and that's different to paying thousands for IVF.

@minervas1

Isn’t IVF also “commissioning” and “buying” a baby, though? Especially if it’s done with donor eggs, is it not similar to what you’re all describing as a child being taken away from the mother? Why is a woman carrying a donor egg baby for herself any different from a woman having her own egg gestated by another woman?

I’m just curious, I’ve always found objections to surrogacy a bit difficult to understand. Or are you mostly all against IVF as well?

There are ethical issues with donor eggs, but the difference is surely obvious? When a surrogate mother is used the baby is taken away from her birth mother. It is also the surrogate mother's body and mental health which is affected and put at risk. Neither of these things

It is absolutely right that not every women who volunteers to be a surrogate will be exploited, but each time we say that it is completely fine we are contributing to the normalisation of using other women's bodies to grow babies and for those babies to be taken away from their birth mothers by design. It is this that opens the door to exploitation of women as a sex class, because you are creating a market for a service that only women can provide.

And even less time for anyone who deliberately sets out to remove a child from their birth mother.
I did this as a social worker and it is hard enough when there is a clear safeguarding reason.
It is shockingly self centered to set up a situation where this is done deliberately.

There's no comparison.

neither of these things applies when donor eggs are used by a women carrying a baby for herself.

You are also creating a market for the production of and selling/gifting of babies.

When we talk about a woman having a choice to do with her body what she wishes, this argument always brings up prostitution and organ donation, IVF and abortion.

Rarely do we discuss consent in the true sense. Consent can only ever be consent if freely given, it can't be bought as paying for it would incentivise consent being given and it wouldn't be free. Consent is only truly freely given if it can be withdrawn.

We have no idea that the woman currently pregnant with the child Liz Kendall and her husband have commissioned is happy and not wanting to back out of the entire arrangement and that she doesn't deeply regret the pregnancy. Or that she is thrilled to be heavily pregnant with a child she isn't genetically related to at Christmas time, or that she isn't terrified of birth, has she has children before, did she have easy pregnancies and labours? We don't hear much about her.

For all those who say it is a woman's choice, ok...what if she changes her mind?

In the UK as a ‘surrogate mother’ I believe you can change your mind up until you’ve physically handed the child over.

I completely agree with the above points about consent. There can only be true consent between equals which is uncommon in the situations described above.

Surrogacy also leads to the commodification of children and the expectation that people have a right to have a child. Such arrogance.

she can only been trying for a baby with this partner, at most, since she was 44.
That's the likely time frame for try on your own for a year, have tests, have IVF on your own for a year, have IVF with donor eggs for a couple of rounds, and look for a surrogate.

I did not know that about Oona King and I am also thinking this has to be AWFUL for the children she adopted first. You aren't good enough, we want to have a baby that's related to at least one of us.

(Another adopter here).

I felt quite a lot of dismay when seeing this headline as I felt that it's another surrogacy story glossing over it's exploitative nature.

As a previous surrogate, I am now completely anti-surrogacy as I don't believe that women can make a fully informed choice about being a surrogate. We just don't know how pregnancy will affect us and so the risks are really uncertain.

I read that a lot of women freely consent to being a surrogate however I really don't believe that you can consent to something that you have very little idea of how it will affect you.

In my situation, I was really naïve and didn't know much about surrogacy. All the stories that I had seen were positive and so when I started to feel uncomfortable, I felt that I was the problem as surrogacy was portrayed to be this amazing thing. I didn't have the confidence or support to speak up and so continued with it which has in turn caused an incredible amount of trauma for everyone involved.

I hugely struggled with giving up the baby (I am also the biological mother) and have since fought to remain in the child's life. The commissioning parents are financially better off than me, which is so often the case with surrogacy and so they were able to pay for legal representation whereas I couldn't and represented myself.

In theory, in the UK, the surrogate can change her mind however the reality for me was a lot different. There was a huge amount of obligation and pressure to hand over the baby. I was also legally told that the courts would not have looked favourably at me wishing to keep the baby because of the surrogacy agreement which is not legally binding.

I've spoken to a couple of surrogates where the commissioning parents have literally cut them out of their lives once the baby has been born and so this 'friendship first' ethos that this sold in this country is a false narrative for many, many surrogacies.

In the UK where it is supposedly altruistic and where the surrogate receives expenses rather than a lump sum, is also misleading in my belief. Expenses can cover so many different things and I found in my case, that the judge and Cafcass really didn't care what was being paid. Commercial surrogacy is taking place behind the scenes.

I hope in this instance, this opens up the discussion more and encourages surrogates who haven't had a great time or have felt exploited, to speak up and tell their story.

@Hazbot, thank you so much for sharing that. 💐

I think so much of these things that really need to be talked about just get hidden behind a #beeeeekiiiind facade.

' I hugely struggled with giving up the baby (I am also the biological mother)'

I'm so sorry. That sounds torturous

Consent can only ever be consent if freely given

Absolutely agree with this. And we should not forget that birth mothers in the 50s, 60s, 70s were all deemed to have freely given their consent for their baby to be placed for adoption.

Many years later it is now glaringly obvious that that consent was obtained under duress in most cases.

Hazbot I don't have the right words I hope you are in a good place now, thank you for sharing.

My God Hazbot I'm so sorry

I'm so angry on your behalf, your story is exactly what the pro-surrogacy media don't want us to hear. I wonder how many women have had experiences like yours. I understand why women would want to stay anonymous, for celebrity or well known commissioning parent/s I understand it is a requirement in commercial contracts (Kim Kardashian, Amber Heard, Cameron Diaz etc) but I remain sickened by these women being reduced to 'the surrogate', if they get a mention at all.

My heart sort of sinks when I see these announcements if I’m honest.

I mean we can speculate all we want on possible ‘honourable’ reasons behind this such as a long infertility struggle etc, but to me, none of them justify taking a newborn from the only person they’ve ever known and leaving another woman with permanent physical changes from pregnancy. And let’s face it, it’s more likely that she didn’t really want children but has now had a change of heart due to a new relationship or the prospect of growing older without them.

It seems that surrogate babies are the new plaything for women who have exhausted their career fantasies.

@Glassofshloer

My heart sort of sinks when I see these announcements if I’m honest.

I mean we can speculate all we want on possible ‘honourable’ reasons behind this such as a long infertility struggle etc, but to me, none of them justify taking a newborn from the only person they’ve ever known and leaving another woman with permanent physical changes from pregnancy. And let’s face it, it’s more likely that she didn’t really want children but has now had a change of heart due to a new relationship or the prospect of growing older without them.

It seems that surrogate babies are the new plaything for women who have exhausted their career fantasies.

Brutal but accurate I think! Didn't Naomi Campbell use a surrogate this year?

Seems to be a running trend of menopausal women realising after their childbearing years that they actually do want a baby

@Glassofshloer

My heart sort of sinks when I see these announcements if I’m honest.

I mean we can speculate all we want on possible ‘honourable’ reasons behind this such as a long infertility struggle etc, but to me, none of them justify taking a newborn from the only person they’ve ever known and leaving another woman with permanent physical changes from pregnancy. And let’s face it, it’s more likely that she didn’t really want children but has now had a change of heart due to a new relationship or the prospect of growing older without them.

It seems that surrogate babies are the new plaything for women who have exhausted their career fantasies.

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

We need to be normalising having a successful career at the same time as raising a family, not normalising commodifying babies so you can do one after the other.

@Hazbot
I'm so sorry. Thank you so much for sharing your story - your voice is so important and so often not heard

@PaleBlueMoonlight

It is not just the risks and long term health challenges and bodily changes resulting from pregnancy that are an issue, but surrogacy also promotes the commodification of women's bodies. This inherently gives rise to a high risk of exploitation of the woman as an individual but also of women as a class as only half the population can provide the "service".

Promotions of surrogacy also very often attempt to decouple the concept of growing a baby from motherhood in order to support the idea of a baby being taken away from its birth mother at birth. (Rather than adding to the concept of motherhood when women become mothers in other ways or take on a mothering role.)

Totally agree with this. It is also commodification of babies.

It’s awfully sad that some people are unable to biologically produce their own babies, but they don’t justify unethical practices.

I think it’s also well and good saying the small number that do it for altruistic reasons should be allowed (though I’d question if many were altruistic), but what about the baby. Why should we as adults design a situation where a baby is removed from their mother at birth as part of the process? Obviously in safeguarding some babies need to be removed from their parents, but to purposely design a situation where babies are removed from their mothers feels very wrong.