Feminism: chat
CBeebies promoting surrogacy
agoodrabbit · 24/02/2022 09:16
On their instagram page this morning, CBeebies has got a post linking to a Hollyoaks actor talking about his "parenting journey". He has twins through surrogacy. CBeebies has hashtagged the post #surrogacyrocks and the article is totally unquestioning about how amazing surrogacy is. The caption under the post says "We'd love to hear your surrogacy stories!"
This isn't OK, right? The BBC is supposed to be impartial, and there are campaigns currently going on to legalise commercial surrogacy, trying to remove women's rights in surrogacy, and feminists opposing it... it's not a settled issue.
I love CBeebies and see it as a safe and inclusive place for families but this doesn't feel very safe or inclusive for the babies being commissioned, bought and sold, or their mothers.
It seems to be part of an LGBTQ month initiative. I don't care about the sexuality of the people who commission babies but it seems to be being used here shield the whole practice from criticism and frame it as some kind of fluffy, harmless diversity exercise.
Here's the instagram post. There are a couple of negative comments on it.
This is the BBC article it links to. The headline is "It's such an amazing thing to do" (talking about surrogacy) and there is no other perspective presented at all:
www.bbc.co.uk/tiny-happy-people/kieron-richardson-surrogacy/ztc4bqt
Clymene · 24/02/2022 09:26
She’d been through the experience before and just wanted to help a couple that hadn’t had it so easy to have a baby.
It's not 'so easy' to have a baby when you're a man, it's impossible to have one.
All about their journey and the difficulties. Nothing about the risks to the mother carrying multiples.
Grim
Porfre · 24/02/2022 14:51
I wouldn't want the message- surrogacy rocks being filtered out to my daughters.
I dont want them to be brainwashed into thinking that that's something they could do to 'be kind'.
Being a surrogate is not want I want for my daughter.
That is not the role model I want for my daughter.
They need to be more careful on the messages that they are sending out.
daftcatlady · 24/02/2022 16:12
I was going to start a thread on this ! CBeebies is not the right place for that at all in any way.
Also , some heavy moderation happening as well I suspect , the only comments up are a handful of positive ones - and I keep commenting how is this in any way appropriate and it keeps getting removed
IkaBaar · 24/02/2022 16:28
Showing families come in different forms is great, but do young kids need to know about surrogacy? Also the positive comments about what a wonderful thing for the surrogate to do for the parents, but is it wonderful for the child? Is it a wonderful gift for the child to be taken from their biological mother?
Pandai · 24/02/2022 16:30
Isn't cbeebies aimed at children under around 7ish, most of whom won't have an understanding of how babies are conceived anyway, so why on earth 
. I can get posting about families with 2 mums, 2 dads etc as some children will have families like that, but this seems really odd.
Danikm151 · 24/02/2022 16:40
Playing devil's advocate here.. maybe as cbeebies shows all different types of families they feel they have to show families from surrogacy too. After all, there will be children who were born from surrogacy that want more understanding.
it's not being show on the actual cbeebies channel, the people who like the facebook and instagram pages would be adults.
Clymene · 24/02/2022 18:31
@Danikm151
it's not being show on the actual cbeebies channel, the people who like the facebook and instagram pages would be adults.
Is there a donor conception rocks page? I don't think so. In fact I don't think I've ever seen CBeebies talking about that.
There are vastly more children conceived via donor gametes than there are children bought through a surrogacy arrangement. But they're not mentioned.
Oh! Because that's women. And we all know that LGBT is only about gay men and trans people.
agoodrabbit · 24/02/2022 19:20
Yes, I think we've got a lot of work to do in turning the tide on surrogacy being deemed socially acceptable, unfortunately.
What gets me is the people who describe surrogacy as "an incredible gift" or the like. They think they are being so nice and never realise they are describing a child as an object to be given away.
FannyCann · 24/02/2022 21:45
"In a same-sex relationship, it’s not as easy,” he said. “Neither of us have got a womb, so we thought, what do we do?
“Do we find a surrogate or do we go down the adoption route? Do we get a friend to carry the baby for us?”"
Ah yes, that perpetual problem that gay/single men have...no access to a womb as one so endearingly put it on a different BBC tv program.
NO WOMB. NO WOMB. WHAT TO DO????
Oh I know. Let's ask a friend.
They literally see women as walking wombs for rent. Or better still, if only a best friend will lend it out (for free). It's practically a compliment to be asked.
OhHolyJesus · 25/02/2022 09:12
@agoodrabbit
What gets me is the people who describe surrogacy as "an incredible gift" or the like. They think they are being so nice and never realise they are describing a child as an object to be given away.
May I suggest that complaints are sent in on their webpage?
To turn the tide we have to speak up, each and every time it happens unfortunately.
I complained when they featured a woman on the news who had a stillbirth who was having a surrogacy pregnancy - the BBC didn't see a problem with this.
agoodrabbit · 25/02/2022 09:13
Oh that's good that it's been deleted. I'm sure they thought they were being fluffy and kind, not realising they were endorsing a really dangerous paradigm for exploitation.
It's such a clever idea, really, from the surrogacy agencies and campaigners, to deceptively promote surrogacy as a simple "gift" and tie it into the whole toxic "be kind" imperative that it so often used to pressure women to act against our interests and benefit those with more money and power. People hear the words "kind" and "gift" and "creating a family", turn off their brains, and think "what could be wrong with that?"
I'm so worried about commercialisation of surrogacy becoming more legal in this country to the point where we start seeing more adverts targeted at young women to become surrogates. This felt depressingly like part of that complete normalisation process.
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