Paris Hilton: the most vapid comment on surrogacy

[GandhiDeclaredWarOnYou]

To consolidate her triumph, Hilton is currently starting a family: having hired a surrogate to do the obstetric chores, she regrets missing out on a new wardrobe of “amazing maternity looks” and has no Beyoncé belly to document in selfies,

^From her ghost written autobiography

Not only is she renting another woman’s body, she’s moaning she can’t make pregnancy a fashion moment.

I thought I’d heard every misogynistic comment on surrogacy there is, but this took the biscuit.

Got curious and googled and now I feel pretty sorry for her. I wouldn’t wish her childhood on anyone (forced cervical exams used as a routine punishment?!), or the two years of failed IVF.

amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/mar/18/they-stole-my-childhood-paris-hilton-teenage-trauma-sex-tapes-having-baby-by-surrogate

Appalling childhood, but she thinks she can't conceive because of the trauma of it, though she does seem to have waited till she was over 40 to start trying to conceive.

Do the rich think biology just doesn't apply to them? Or is it that they know they can always rent someone else's body and buy someone else's eggs to have a baby?

On her sadness at not getting to rock a bump , she may well have had plans to monetise her pregnancy with clothing lines, now she's had to write a book instead to relaunch herself into the public consciousness.

I'm very against commercial surrogacy. And I've been pregnant 5 times, so I fully understand it's not just floating around and rubbing your belly for 9 months. But having a baby bump was one of my favourite bits of being pregnant, and I enjoyed being visibly pregnant (I was young and fairly self-involved at the time!)

If she genuinely means she's disappointed about the clothes, then she's being awful. But if it's just a clumsy way of saying she's disappointed she won't have her baby in her own tummy, then that's understandable.

She only met her husband in 2019. Lots of women don’t meet their husband until later in life, that part is hardly her fault.

And she’s now got a baby girl less than ten months after the boy. Money does indeed talk.

I understand and agree with the arguments about surrogacy

But on the specific critisim of of the phrasing however this is a woman who spent her teenage years being essentially kidnapped, tortured, assaulted and sexually abused. If it had been an individual who had done those things to her then they would be in jail. But because it was an institution her family sent her too it was somehow legal.

I can understand why she might not articulate her sadness around not getting pregnant herself and seeing her body going through pregnancy very well when her own body was weaponised against her. Never mind the fact that these aren't even her words but the probably heavily edited words of a ghost writer.

It would be better if surrogacy wasn't available. Because when you are infertile people can make you feel like you haven't "tried hard enough" if you don't jump through every possible hoop to have a child (I mean literally people telling you you haven't tried hard enough). Add in a crappy family, a traumatic past and far too much money and this is where some will inevitably end up. Taking away the option is better all round

She was also visibly anorexic (though denies it) for a lot of her younger years. I imagine no amount of trying, even if she’d started younger, would have gotten her pregnant.

The fact her comments about wardrobes etc don’t actually come from her but a third party indicates to me her own feelings may be more complex. Maybe not. But maybe, like many women who can’t conceive, she feels desperately sad about it.

Let’s us feminists start by giving other women the benefit of the doubt eh xx