Surrogacy: Meghan Trainor

[MoreDangerousThanAWomanScorned]

I did a site search and couldn't see a thread about this - sorry if I've missed one. Meghan Trainor (of 'All About That Bass' fame) has recently had a baby using surrogacy. Although it is a particularly 'inflammatory' case (third child after two pregnancies of her own; she posted a picture of herself blatantly posing as postnatal) I still thought the largely negative reaction was interesting in terms of suggesting public opinion has turned a bit on this - a few years ago I am sure anyone criticising this would have got a much stronger, 'be kind' pushback.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/leylamohammed/meghan-trainor-third-child-surrogate-discourse?bfsource=relatedmanual

I have to say that 'We had endless conversations with our doctors in this journey and this was the safest way for us to be able to continue growing our family' particularly bothered me - safest for whom? Presumably not the woman whose womb was rented.

Nothing she does surprises me. Well known as the most obnoxious woman in Showbiz.

She posed topless with the baby in a hospital bed. I don't think anyone would see that photo without context and NOT see it as a picture of a woman just having given birth.

Why mothers are encouraged to have skin to skin contact after birth khloe kardashian did the same people are far far far to quick to judge mother's never mind mother judging mothers why cam no one be happy for bothering family. I hate this rent a womb nonsense 😒 she and her family have reasons to do this and personally if I had the money I would do the same. The important thing is that baby is going to be loved and cared for and supported beyond words

Thanks for the thread OP.
In my opinion this is absolutely awful behaviour. No one is entitled to have a baby but she already has 2 children.
Disgraceful to use another woman’s body for a third child.
Absolutely awful.
The just delivered a baby style pic is disturbing and disgusting.
Non binary baby - good grief!

Another example of surrogacy derangement is Skye Hitchcock on TikTok.

She is young, has multiple children herself and is clearly addicted to being pregnant. She has had multiple miscarriages in the past, had a transfer to become a surrogate, got pregnant and then lost the baby. Who on earth approved her for this?

Just a bit!

Sickening. Surrogacy should be banned. Poor child.

Almost certainly someone being paid by the company that the parents pay.

This article, which is absolutely horrifying reading for anyone who hasn't seen it, talks about the process for psychiatric evaluation of both the surrogates and the prospective parents - which is a requirement, but seems pretty perfunctory:

I spoke to the therapist Bi hired to consult with her and Valdeiglesias. She told me that, of the 792 intended parents she has evaluated for surrogacy or gamete donation in the last decade, she has declined to recommend only about a dozen. “I’m not gatekeeping,” she said.

In the next few months there will be pictures of her on a beach in a bikini with the baby, “post baby body” ie hoping everyone has forgotten the surrogacy.

I don’t understand why women hate the thought of their partners having sex with another woman, especially if the woman is a sex worker, but are perfectly prepared to use another woman’s body to carry a child for them. Both are ways that other womens bodies are exploited, but surrogacy seems to dip under the radar. Don’t get me started on gay men exploiting womens bodies for surrogacy, my blood pressure can’t take it.

It would be interesting to follow families like these over the years as a research project to see how, if at all, the relationship with the child she didn't birth is different to the one she has with her other children, the child's physical and mental health and outcomes etc. People are having these babies by surrogacy because they can but we don't know how it pans out for everyone involved.

But alongside the photo has she not explicitly stated it was surrogacy ? Surrogacy ethics aside you cannot say someone is pretending to have given birth themselves when on the very same post they use their words to clarify the did not?

Skin to skin is advised between new mother and baby as well as new father and baby. I don’t agree in womb rental either, but skin to skin with newborn is encouraged medically for the people who will be the child’s parents. It doesn’t mean she’s pretending she gave birth. This is what is considered correct and appropriate procedure within the context of surrogacy.

Terrifying.

I think a lot are done privately now.

Oh come on. Her other SM posts her hair is done, make up on etc. She’s tried very hard in these photos to give the look of tired mum who has just given birth after hours of labour with her hair tied back, no makeup, red face etc. There is also a photo of her in PJs….she obviously needs those to be comfortable after a baby has come out of her, maybe she had stitches…..oh no. It’s all part of the optics. Bleugh.

That would have been a lot easier to understand with a bit of punctuation.

The important thing is that baby is going to be loved and cared for and supported beyond words

Not the only important thing. There is plenty of research nowadays to show that children removed from their birth families are likely to be adversely affected by that for the rest of their lives. Why is it OK to ignore all of this and make it possible for some people to buy a baby who will be removed from her mother minutes after birth? The child's interests should be paramount but they very obviously count for nothing when it comes to surrogacy.

Money talks.

Indeed it does. Depressing.

Surrogacy is the intentional commissioning of trauma on a new born baby. Because being removed at birth from all you've ever known IS traumatic. We don't even do this with puppies and kittens FFS.

It's hard to be happy about it when you understand that.

Even if you're not fussed about the misogyny or class element of it (it's poor women's bodies that are used) anyone who "wants a baby" ought to care enough about babies not to support surrogacy.

The whole process is one of entitlement and exploitation. The fact that an actual newborn human being with zero agency over any of it is the end result actually makes my blood runs cold.

You are kidding?

And even aside from this, why is there an assumption that any parent who uses a surrogate, or donor eggs or sperm, is going to love the child dearly? In discussion groups for children born under these circumstances, people often say that the people who raised them always seemed indifferent to them, never cared when they were sick, and that everything clicked into place when they found out they were donor-conceived or born to a surrogate. Realistically, a lot of parents are going to struggle to bond with a child who isn't actually related to them, or whom they didn't give birth to.

Agreed. I am no expert on this area but from my own experience having 9 months to bond with my unborn children meant I felt a much stronger connection to them at birth than my husband did. He caught up pretty quickly but obviously I was the one they were most familiar with even before birth.

Yes, and it wouldn't surprise me if that imbalance is even stronger for women who've used surrogate mothers. The knowledge that another woman conceived, carried and gave birth to the baby is clearly uncomfortable for a lot of recipient mothers. That's why the term "gestational carrier" has become so popular.

I wouldn't agree that parents will love their children less if they didn't carry them - I know many adoptive parents who would disagree strongly. My point would be that loving your children doesn't mean you can do unethical things, or that you can justify them - and my view would be both that surrogacy is unethical and that it shouldn't be a choice legally available. I love my children and would do anything for them. I probably would buy an organ for them. I think it's right that the law doesn't allow me to. I had a very hard time having my children and I can imagine getting to a point where I would have considered surrogacy. I am confident if I had I would still have loved them as fiercely as I do. I am also confident that it would have been unethical and not a choice that should have been open to me, and that me loving them wouldn't justify that choice.

I can't believe people are justifying that picture by mentioning skin to skin (which I agree is massively important). So why couldn't she hold her new commission whilst wearing a vest top or bra? I swear she's got a hospital gown on, that is generally worn by y'know... patients.

(Surrogacy also wouldn't have been a choice financially available to me anyway - which seems to get overlooked by the people who say that criticising it is an attack on the 'rights' of infertile people. It's only a 'right' that the very wealthy can exercise anyway)