Rebel Wilson has had her first child via surrogate

[ShirleyPhallus]

Rebel Wilson (who I love) has announced via IG that she’s had her first baby via surrogate this week. Lovely for her to have a baby.

But the topic of surrogacy rears its ugly head and once again I’m wondering why so many rich and famous women choose to have a surrogate. Rebel has had significant publicity with her weight struggles and is currently in a relationship with a woman (she doesn’t name her as co-parent).

she hasn’t publicly said why she used a surrogate but I feel a bit uncomfortable by this as being a step yet again

In very general terms, yes

It's an interesting question. I think gamete "donation" (some donation is paid) is an ethical minefield. Imo kids absolutely have the right to know who their genetic parents are, and to trace those parents/any siblings, if they so wish. I believe anonymous donations, much like closed adoptions, are increasingly being discouraged. I will look for some figures when not on mobile, but the impression I get is that a sizeable proportion of donors are young men and women who do not (yet) have their own children and may not fully understand the ramifications of their donation.

There are also practical implications; how do you control the number of donations from a single donor?

It’s such a difficult issue. I personally don’t agree with surrogacy and think in 90% of cases there is probably some sort of power or wealth imbalance between parents and surrogate and it’s exploitative.

On the other hand, I had a colleague whose son was born using a surrogate (surrogate was in the UK and already had her own kids and didn’t seem to be desperate or impoverished) after ten years of trying to have a baby, multiple miscarriages and five stillbirths at close to term. She had to deliver them all on a labour ward, hearing other women’s live babies in the next room as she pushed out her dead children. Could I have said to this woman that she didn’t deserve a child of her own and that she’d done an immoral thing? No.

Perhaps others with equally sad infertility stories would have chosen differently, but I couldn’t judge her choice, knowing what she’d been through.

Life is complicated, especially when principles and desperately sad realities that really test those principles clash.

She hasn't bought a baby though. Rocked up at the hospital and looked at the newborns and said, hey I like this one will you take $xxx for it
In fact, it's all assumptions that anythings been paid at all (most likely it has, but again, assuming)
Shes unable to carry her own child so has compensated someone else for doing it for her. No one was forced into it (I'm sure in parts of the world it is forced, or at least coerced) and both parties benefit 🤷‍♀️ orrrr maybe someone close to her was her surrogate? I'd do it for a friend

"And this relates to surrogacy how Walkden"

Because it is claimed on here that separating a BBC any from its birth mother is inherently damaging to the child. All the literature I found says that adopted children for example are more likely to rebel, become delinquent, increased risk of drink problems, suicide even but attributes this to "genealogical bewilderment" rather than any trauma from bring separated from the mother at birth.

There must also be a difference by being adopted w he ran a few weeks old to being in adopted when older.

I find it hard to believe that a say one month year old child will remember the surrogate at say one year old let alone be permanently damaged by it.

Presumably children who lost their mum during birth would suffer similar problems albeit there would probably confounding effects there.

I'm sure over time there will be studies on whether surrogate children suffer the same problems and If so the law will change accordingly.

Nope. No surrogacy in any circumstances.

pregnancy is very dangerous to women, unfair on the baby and you shouldn’t ever be able to buy a baby

Walkden as distressing and life changing as it is for children who's mum died in childbirth I would imagine knowing your "parents" paid your mother to hand you over is as distressing but in a more cold and callous way.

Interesting how lots of celebs and Hollywood stars are pro surrogacy....but you never see them offering to be the surrogate....? (Same sex or gay couples aside)
I mean the Kardashians, there are several sisters who've conceived naturally....but none wanted to be a surrogate for the latest one who's just procured a baby....
As well as the baby's needs being low down on the list there is almost always an exploitative element to it, imo.

Perhaps you really are that self centred. Would you say the same thing about domestic violence ? So long as nobody is actually complaining. That'd presumably be just dandy. Is driving over the limit ok if you don't have an accident? None of your business, right? I'm going to assume you've just not thought this through. I get, though I don't agree with, the view that a woman could choose to do it. That at least seems like a thought-out argument. But doubling down on indifference, are you trying to be "cool"?

But those are examples of people being in very real, imminent danger. I don't see that in this situation.

"Walkden as distressing and life changing as it is for children who's mum died in childbirth I would imagine knowing your "parents" paid your mother to hand you over is as distressing but in a more cold and callous way"

Quite an emotionally manipulative way of phrasing it. I imagine the parents would say that they were unable to carry the baby themselves and someone else helped them bring them into the world etc.

More likely than that surely is simply not telling their child they were surrogate at all, especially if the egg came from the parent, not the surrogate.

I think people would be shocked to know how many celebrities use a surrogate, but pretend to carry their own child. There’s a family owned company in LA that does belly prosthetics along with other props. It’s a great way to get the positive headlines and cute mirror selfies, without the pain and weight gain and stretch marks.

The most blatant one I know of is a real estate reality show star - didn’t even bother to change the bump size. And the audacity of the music video dancer turned Instagram feminist, who rented another woman’s body.

I think Rebel posted on Instagram last year that she had medical issues around becoming pregnant

You're probably just sharing this as a fact rather than a supportive comment but I also want to say that her medical issues are irrelevant and in no way justify surrogacy. It is sad if a woman wants to have a baby and can’t but it never gives her the right to purchase one or hire the body parts of another woman.

The egg thing is irrelevant time as well. Women are not ovens, keeping someone else’s egg warm until it magically turns into a baby. She creates that baby through her flesh and blood. The egg is simply the blueprint,

@ShirleyPhallus the very same!

There is 5 months between baby no.5 and her surrogate baby. Then about 18 months between that baby and her next one.

Of course it will really help the surrogate baby to have siblings so close in age and I'm sure Hilary will be able to give 7 very young children all the attention they need, in between yoga and posing in her knickers.

Quite an emotionally manipulative way of phrasing it.

It's just the facts.

More likely than that surely is simply not telling their child they were surrogate at all, especially if the egg came from the parent, not the surrogate

I thought the days of hiding children's parentage were gone when society realised how damaging it is?
Yes much better for the child's birth and mother be a dirty secret...not damaging at all....

Maybe in the Baldwin case it's to cover up an affair the husband had? Who knows really!

Urgh. Can't be bothered to have a baby yourself: just outsource it. Grim. You can't buy a five year old so why is it ok to buy a baby?

"I thought the days of hiding children's parentage were gone when society realised how damaging it is?"

But if the adults are the genetic parents then you're not hiding it are you?

Adopted children have the issue that if they take some DNA ancestry they may find their parents are not their genetic parents at all, so the family members they know are not their genetic family at all. The aforementioned genetic bewilderement I suppose.

This is not an issue if the parents are their genetic parents.

It's not a matter for all people involved though is it?

What about the baby at the end of it who has a physiological connection and relationship to the woman who gestates it, suddenly being torn away from that very same person who is all they've known.

It does cause trauma.

That's why it's disgusting whether altruistic or for profit.

Rebel Wilson hasn't had her first child by surrogacy.

Rebel Wilson bought a baby cos she's rich.

But if the adults are the genetic parents then you're not hiding it are you?

There is not point in talking to you. Carrying and birthing a child is not just a case of genetics and it has already being explained to you the connection between mother and child.

Adopted children have the issue that if they take some DNA ancestry they may find their parents are not their genetic parents at all, so the family members they know are not their genetic family at all. The aforementioned genetic bewilderement I suppose.

So no pictures of their pregnant "mum" no story of how they rushed to hospital waters breaking at 3am, no tales of what mum craved during pregnancy or how bad morning sickness was?
Don't you think their child will find this odd that nobe of this history exists?

"What about the baby at the end of it who has a physiological connection and relationship to the woman who gestates it, suddenly being torn away from that very same person who is all they've known"

I'm sure for the mother there are very strong connections to the child they gestated. I'm not convinced there is for the new born child and neither are the people who wrote the laws on surrogacy either as it would not be allowed otherwise.

I'm not convinced there is for the new born child and neither are the people who wrote the laws on surrogacy either as it would not be allowed otherwise.

You are not a mother are you?

"You are not a mother are you?"

What difference does that make. I thought you were arguing based on facts on emotion?