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.

Megan Trainor really wanted a girl after 2 boys and didn’t want to put weight back on during pregnancy having lost so much of it.

I find it appalling that celebrities can just rent out another woman’s body to carry their child for vapid, shallow reasons like that.

I did think the photo reminded me of Naomi in Handmaid’s Tale but that’s where any similarity ends for me. The surrogate has entered the agreement willingly and pretty much certainly for their personal financial gain. For that reason I have no issue with it personally.

And no concern for the child who has been sold by her mother whatsoever.

These are genuine questions - do you think I should be legally able to buy a kidney if the person selling it did so willingly for their own financial gain? Should be able to buy a six month old from someone if they were selling the child for money and I really wanted one?

Biologically the child will be with its mother won’t it? The surrogate didn’t “create it” biologically.

I have less concern for this baby who is presumably much wanted and will be in a loving secure family environment, than baby #6 for Keely and Kyle who spend their benefits on weed. For example. It’s all perspective.

It’s not the same at all. The baby is biologically MT’s.

If you need a kidney, hang around long enough and you’ll get a freebie on the nhs. Or some do-good relative will offer you one if you’re lucky. Would you accept that? Genuine question.

Is surrogacy ok then if no money changes hands? Genuine question.

So if a woman uses a donor egg to conceive, is it not her baby then?

The BIRTH mothers are encouraged to have skin to skin contact. Meghan is not the birth mother.

This, is about RICH WOMAN using a desperate poor woman's body, then wrenching the baby away from her! This is exploitation of poor women in developing countries who are struggling to eat and are paid to pop out a designer baby when children are waiting to be adopted! If you agree with this then your attitude is disgraceful, sexist, misogynistic, backward and belongs in the 1940s!

No. It is not acceptable because how do you rule out any emotionally coercive factor? This is an exploitive transaction that requires a woman to put herself at risk to produce a child on demand for someone. How is true consent judged when there is potentially either a financial power or an emotional power at play to influence that consent?

It is actually quite similar to the kidney example that you have dismissed.

In any case, this judge understands.

"Their ability to recall what happened, and in what order, has been impaired by the anxiety felt for the health of the babies, and by the tensions that arise when a woman's body is rented for the benefit of others and where the unit of exchange is measured in the life of a new human being," Judge Thackray said.

This judge says it like it is in this particular sentence.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-36012320

He also said:

Justice Thackray said the case "should also draw attention to the fact that surrogate mothers are not baby-growing machines, or 'gestational carriers'".

"They are flesh and blood women who can develop bonds with their unborn children.

and

"Quite apart from the separation of the twins, this case serves to highlight the dilemmas that arise when the reproductive capacities of women are turned into saleable commodities, with all the usual fallout when contracts go wrong."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-14/baby-gammy-twin-must-remain-with-family-wa-court-rules/7326196

Generally people only accept kidneys from "do gooding relatives" 🙄 because their life will with be saved on drastically improved from having it. I have no problems with that happening and would accept one gratefully if the circumstances dictated it and also donate mine if possible to someone I love.

I have never heard of anyone's life being at risk unless a surrogate delivers a 3rd baby to them.

pretty much certainly for their personal financial gain.

That's a dehumanising way of describing an impoverished woman in a developing country desperate for money for food. You act like she did it to buy a car or something. When a starving woman is used as a battery hen incubator, it's crass and disgusting to write off her desperation to eat as 'personal financial gain'.

I find it hard to understand why people feel so strongly about something that’s legal (I mean someone quoting a random judge upthread means nowt to me), consensual, mutually beneficial and ultimately, none of their business.

It wouldn’t have been for me and I wasn’t able to have more than one child myself, but I’m happy to let other women get on with it basically.

What about surrogacy for a male gay couple?

Slavery was legal at one stage.

I find it hard to understand why you can't use critical thinking and understand why exploitation of women, and innocent babies, is a bad thing.

Yep. Marital rape was legal until thirty years ago. So any poor woman who had to endure that pre the early 90s was obviously fine with it really, because it "wasn't illegal".

I'm not sure about American but it's illegal in this country to sell a puppy before they are eight weeks old. But a human newborn is fair game to the highest bidder 🤦.

So, you think that things that are 'legal' are moral and ethical? And that no one should be campaigning to change this and make it fully illegal and to protect women and children?

There are many things that were once 'legal' but are now no longer legal because people who recognised how harmful those law were campaigned to get the laws changed. That is what is happening now. People are recognising that exploiting women's bodies in this way and commoditising children is harmful.

You can dismiss it, but all your dismissing it does is show you not only lack understanding of the power dynamic in these situations but you also dismiss anything where someone gets paid as being ethical and moral. And your 'happy to let other women get on with it' is really an example of 'I'm alright, Jack!' where you think it is perfectly fine for another woman to be exploited as long as it is not you.

Surrogacy was introduced in the UK as a sisterhood thing - no one back then serioysly envisaged single men buying eggs and implanting them into impoverished women and going off with a baby (or if they did they kept that very quiet).

What has happened is that the old altruistic surrogacy has all but disappeared in favour of commercial arrangements and the law hasn't kept up.

And of course there are many interested parties pushing for it to be made easier here, for surrogates to be paid, for commissioning parents to be on the birth certificate.

Other countries like Italy and Germany have banned it. Itbis by no means generally accepted.

Nope, it just means I have an opposing viewpoint to yours. Everything else is an incorrect assumption on your part.

Ok, again - my view does not equal yours, does not equal I am not a critical thinker.

HTH.

I don’t have a problem with it, if they are a loving secure couple.

ETA before someone asks - no probs with a trans woman becoming a mother via surrogate either.

It's absolutely, utterly disgusting.
Renting wombs, buying babies, causing trauma immediately.
I say this as someone adopted at birth.

Is almost as if other women's bodies are less valuable than theirs.

That’s not a viable argument at all. How was slavery ever consensual?! That’s frankly offensive.

Then you're saying you are fine with women and babies being exploited. That's not a 'view' any compassionate warm-blooded person should have.

Well no - I’m not selling mine, so it isn’t is it?