Another appalling surrogacy case

[LordSnot]

Article

A 72-year-old Scottish man and his wife commissioned a baby in the US. COVID then hit and they were unable to ship him over so he was "cared for by a professional nanny with no contact from his birth mother."

The man's wife died last year and he petitioned the courts for them both to be named on the baby's birth certificate, which was granted.

How can anybody defend surrogacy?

Unfortunately the woman who gave birth wasn't the child's biological mother so legally can not be referred to as such. American donor egg and another rented womb for a twisted old man, the only legal parent.

Abhorrent.

Is this one of those things that will never happen happening again?

If people are given free rein to do something like surrogacy you can bet there will be someone who takes it to the limits like these selfish imbeciles.

They commissioned a baby as you would a painting or a piece of furniture. Grim.

I can't defend that woman's decision to put her sister's health and life at risk to carry a baby for her. I can't defend her willingness to deliberately take a child from its mother at birth.

So someone who gives birth via a donor egg isn't the mother? Or does that change if you can only get pregnant via a donor egg ie otherwise infertile?

Donor egg + payment on delivery = gestational carrier

Donor egg + keep the baby forever = mother

Have I got that right? Do donor eggs have different stamps on them depending on who gets them?

Yes. Gestational carrier 😢

This is satanic.

I actually think it's worse that the egg came from one woman and another carried and birthed the baby - at least when the surrogate is also the biological mother, the child has an actual, named woman who is their bio mum, even if she isn't the one to raise them. With the whole donor egg/gestational carrier thing, neither woman is really the mother. It's just a way of cutting any potential bonds and claim and is such a selfish thing to do to a child.
Everyone has the right to know who their biological parents are and to have a mother and father, on their birth certificate, who are actually the real genetic parents.

People forget that the birth certificate belongs to the child, as an accurate record of who they are - it shouldn't exist to appease the ego of adults!

Unfortunately the woman who gave birth wasn't the child's biological mother so legally can not be referred to as such.

I did not call her his biological mother. I called her his birth mother. The woman who carried him under her heart for 9 months, who fed him and protected him with her body for nine months. Whose body will have tried to continue feeding and protecting him after he was taken from her - even if she gave him up willingly.

Apart from that contract, how is she any different to any other woman who has a baby via donor egg IVF? Whether those babies are conceived through love or by commission, they all have birth mothers.

It's also much more risky, healthwise, for a woman to carry a baby made with another woman's egg. Even our bodies know there's something deeply wrong with that situation.

Well I guess its a good thing that no one's asking you to defend it then, isn't it.

And it isn't being taken from its mother, itsbeing given to its mother.

It's very easy to sit and judge from way up high on a subject that doesn't affect you.

Don't assume everyone's cool with buying someone else's egg (or sperm) to make a baby, regardless of the circumstances.

This 100%

I am not 100% against surrogacy although feel very conflicted.

However, why on earth someone would do this in their 70s I have no idea- totally selfish and that makes me so angry. Money does not give you the right to do this- what arrogance would lead you there? and this child is going to be so traumatised. This is very different to a child being created to be in a loving home by a young same sex couple for example (still tough issue). A child is not some sort of status symbol created to be dressed up and paraded and money doesn’t mean love.

I would be curious if the surrogate knew they were carrying for an elderly couple? It seems a strange choice when there are so many young couples who would be asking.

As for the child being taken away from the birth mother- maybe she didn’t want to keep it?

I feel like surely this poor kid should be put up for adoption where it can find a loving family.

You said surrogacy is defensible in this woman's case. I strongly disagree.

Your response is very childish.

She was in a nursing home where the baby visited her, so I doubt it.

I hate the exploitation of women as "gestational carriers" and the prioritisation of "commissioning parents" desires above the child's needs and welfare.
But I would seriously have considered being a surrogate for my sister if I was able to carry a child and she wasn't. I'd have been quicker to agree to it prior to having had children though.

I don't. I was just pointing out the double standards on who is regarded as a mother.

I didn't say surrogacy was defensible or indefensible as it's nothing to do with me. It isn't me that's doing the surrogacy, it's the woman in question in the scenario that I gave, and women have autonomy over their own bodies, or so we keep saying. Her body, her choice and all that.

Not up to me to say it's right or wrong what she chooses to do with her own body. I simply said cases vary and not all surrogacy cases are like they are in the OP.

"Her body her choice" is too simplistic to be anything but a soundbite, and it cannot apply in this situation where another person (the baby who's been commissioned) has no choice.

So it's only 'her body her choice' in circumstances that you agree with?

This is the third thread running about this now. Here's the one in Chat: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5117760-surrogacy-aftermath-as-wife-dies?latest=1

Here's the one I started a few days ago in AIBU: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5114925-to-think-that-a-couple-of-nearly-70-should-not-be-commissioning-a-child-through-surrogacy?latest=1

Re language, in recent years we've been told we're hateful bigots if we refuse to accept people for what they say they are, even if it's perfectly obvious it's at odds with reality. So here we have a group of women who don't identify as the mothers of the children to whom they give birth, and another group of people who identify as parents because they have taken on the hard graft of sorting out the paperwork. Meanwhile, the baby knows one woman as her mother and she is taken away from her forever immediately after birth. When this happens because the mother dies or because it's been agreed by a court that it's not safe to put a child in that woman's care we talk about what a tragedy it is for the child never to know her mother. But in cases of surrogacy we just airbrush the mother out of the picture as if she never existed. It turns my stomach.

So you think a woman should be able to choose to do anything, regardless of the consequences?

Childishness again. Disappointing.

When it comes to surrogacy the impact on a resulting child should come first. They have the right to know who their birth parents are. Being separated from them can cause trauma, if you then add in additional biological parents, it could cause huge issues with them. The desire to have a child should be secondary to the impact on a resulting child.

It's not childish at all, you simply can't defend your point, so you resort to insults.

Childish. Disappointing.