Explaining surrogacy to kids when I'm anti surrogacy

[Sussyknowsthemeaningoflife]

Apologies for the clunky title. We have just found out a member of extended family is expecting via surrogate. I am deeply deeply uncomfortable with this, but I'm capable of keeping my views to myself ( forever more?) But how on earth do I explain surrogacy to my own kids?
I'm not anti this new baby who is due any day, I'm not anti this family member. But I very strongly disagree with the route they have chosen to take.
My dd in particular (12) is going to watch me very closely and ask how I REALLY feel. We have age appropriate feminist discussions all the time. How do I discuss this with her?

On the genetic point even if the embryo is not genetically the mothers, being the source of food and heart beat, the umbilical cord and placenta means a biological connection is made either way.

I've just remembered something OP, this blog dropped into my inbox last week and there's a link right at the bottom, it shows there is some talk about 16 year olds being surrogate mothers.

That's only 4 years older than your DD. It's really shocking, I think I actually put it out of my mind as I thought it couldn't be true but it's in the APPG report that is linked. It was connected to a question around a capacity assessment but I assume that as a 16 year old can consent to contraception and abortion that the next step is consenting to surrogacy (as we've already had the case around consenting to experimental 'gender affirming' treatment).

There are no limits as to what women and girls can be 'used' for, it's not just their eggs anymore, they want their bodies as well.

stopsurrogacynowuk.org/2023/03/02/surrogacy-reform-letter-to-mps/

Absolutely this.

This is absolutely chilling.

Yes chilling is the right word. I'm having to explain The most unexpected and alarming issues to my dd, genuinely things I never would have imagined discussing with a 12 year old. I thought it would be all periods, boys and mean frenemies. Not this crazy dystopian world where up is down and wrong is right. And the truth is a lie.

It's a scary place for teens to grow up as it is, I can't imagine having to tackle this aged 12 or as a mother of a 12 year old girl.

The letter on the blog actually outlines a lot on proposed surrogacy reform (as that what this org is about) and even without the bit about 16 year old surrogate mothers being discussed at the APPG, the proposals are really shocking. I'm worried about where this is heading.

I haven't written to my MP yet but I think I'll try to. The reasons to write to him are never ending at the moment!

My DD at 18 watched the Kardashian surrogacy episode with the baby taken and brought to perfectly coiffed parents in paid for hospital room. DD had real tears imagining the baby from its mom. She hadn't thought much about surrogacy but that episode really opened her mind to the exploitation and elitism of it. She's no longer a strong Kardashian fan (which gladdens me for many reasons...if only she'd stop wearing those awful nails like Chloe!)

@FannyCann what this woman is describing is pretty normal for IVF.
IVF is harsh, there is no way around that. And yes OHSS can be pretty dangerous. But then with the symptoms she is describing, she should have been back at the hospital. And she should have been getting treatment, like all the other IVF patients who experience severe OHSS.
(btw it also means the consultant didn’t dose the IVF right….)

What isn’t right is the fact the care she received was crap. Not the fact she donated some eggs.
It’s also the fact that many many times patients in general are NEVER told about the potential issues associated with a treatment/procedure. Only ONCE have I had a consultant properly explaining what she wanted to do and the risk associated with it (think so we will do XXX and this carries a risk of 1% of bleeding and then will do YYY and that carries a risk of death if 0.001% etc….).
Getting consent by consultant isn’t great tbh.

IVF has some serious complication associated with it (one of which is an increased risk of cancer btw). In the same way that bone marrow transplant has risk. But we don’t tell people not to give bone marrow.
(Same also with people who chose to become living kidney donor etc….). So in itself, I don’t think the fact it has side effects should be the reason not the become an egg donor.

Good points about the lack of education regarding the health risks. My sister went through IVF and wasn't counseled on the risks. She had to do her own digging. She did IVF once, had one embryo (her egg, her DH sperm) and said she'd never do it again as it was pretty awful.

Unlike egg "donations", bone marrow and kidney donations save people's lives and it's illegal to pay someone for their bone marrow or kidney. Egg "donation" is a business where young women get paid and no one's life is saved; someone's life is made with the express intention that they won't know their genetic mother.

I'm not against a woman going through IVF for her own genetic child and her own health risks, it's pushing young women who've never had children that makes my blood boil. It's 100% taking advantage of a young woman's vulnerability and naïveté and risking her future health and fertility.

That’s why I said that whether egg donation is right or not is another question.

I know a couple if women who did that. They both had different reasons to do it but it was totally altruistic, just like bone marrow. They didn’t feel pressured at all. One if them did it in France and said she was basically treated like royalty because egg donation like this are pretty rare.

I think the ethics are completely different in countries where women are paid.

And then there is the question of whether the baby has somehow still a ‘link’ to the egg donor etc…

Are the rules about egg donation the same as sperm, ie can find out at 18? Or do they just not exist legally as they are not the birthing mother?

The rules are the same for eggs and sperm - the resulting child can find out information about their genetic parent when they turn 18. The rise in home DNA testing and the resulting databases means that even those donors who still have a right of anonymity because they donated prior to the law change could be traced because relatives have put their DNA results out there. Donor born children under 18 could potentially find genetic matches this way too.

There is a public consultation on donor gametes and areas of science and there is a conference on this in London this week.

www.hfea.gov.uk/about-us/modernising-the-regulation-of-fertility-treatment-and-research-involving-human-embryos/

Part 2

www.hfea.gov.uk/media/qfljx3i2/2022-06-27-hfea-the-regulation-of-scientific-developments-part-2.pdf

Part one

www.hfea.gov.uk/media/sg4k244q/2022-06-27-hfea-the-regulation-of-scientific-developments-part-1.pdf

Article
amp.theguardian.com/science/2023/mar/08/scientists-create-mice-with-two-fathers-after-making-eggs-from-male-cells

@MyriadOfTravels

The problem is that women undergoing IVF choose to do this to their bodies as they are hoping to have a baby.
Women who donate eggs are typically younger and inveigled to do this either to be kind or to be paid or a combination of both. They are healthy young women who have no need for this treatment and are put at risk as a result of it. In fact it's my understanding that they are at greater risk of OHSS due to their youth and fertility.

Furthermore there are concerns around the extent to which they are stimulated to produce multiple eggs. For a woman undergoing IVF she only needs a few eggs for her personal use. NICE guidelines are that the minimum amount of hormones to produce the desired result should be used, with doses kept to the minimum as far as possible.

For a woman undergoing egg "donation" the more eggs she produces the better for the egg bank. An obvious conflict of interest.
There is clear evidence in countries with commercial donation that egg donors are exposed to increased risk through excessive stimulation.
I have tried to clarify with the HFEA whether this is also the case in the U.K. The HFEA don't keep as close an eye on things as we might expect or hope and do not have this sort of information around the medical treatment of these women. However they did supply statistics showing that egg donors did produce slightly greater numbers of eggs (average numbers which no doubt hides some extremes). They explained this as being likely due to the comparative youth and fertility of the egg donors.

It is not good enough to say Oh well that's standard for IVF. Egg donors are not going through IVF.