The journey - New Yorker podcast on the surragecy mansion scandal

[CucumberCool]

I have been listening to this podcast and wondered if anyone else had heard it?

https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/in-the-dark/the-journey#intcid=0c206f38-d721-45c5-b0e1-b26790e4866e

It's about a woman and man in California who were found to have 21 babies in a mansion, all born via surrogate.

It's fair to say they are both pretty dodgy characters and the man, Gunjun Xuan, seems to have quite a few dodgy dealings, from illegal casinos, multiple real estate properties with many holding companies. Drank a lot and was incredibly controlling to his employees.

Mainly from the gestational carriers pov but speaks to other another surragecy agency too.

I'm most struck by how little the agency care for the baby they play a huge part in creating, the human life, but also the (perhaps misplaced) selflessness, or altruism of the women who are pregnant.

It's an incredible story and will hopefully completely abolish the western surragecy industry we have at the moment (unlikely I know) or at least ensure there is legislation around this.

Here are some news articles if you are interested but can't listen: https://abc7ny.com/story/arcadia-surrogacy-scandal-guojon-xuan-sylvia-zhang-arrested-child-abuse-charges/19914377/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crx23dvnp8vxo

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/couple-arrested-on-child-abuse-charges-in-surrogacy-scheme_n_6ac5479be4b0613dcc56f02c

Wasn't sure whether to post in here or the Radio section. I think it would be of interest to feminist supporting the fight against surragecy

This is horrifying and not surprising at all. Xu Bo has over 100 children, other Chinese billionaires have done similar. Musk has at least 14 (not all through surrogacy).

But stories about this usually focus on a woman who's infertile, desperately wants a child (or two or three), and finds a woman in the UK or USA to carry that child. If it's legal to buy a baby/purchase the use of a woman's body for "good" reasons then people will do it for obviously bad reasons too.

The part in episode four where the baby is forced to stay in hospital for the first month of her life because they won't let the birth mother take her home is heartbreaking. The idea of a woman giving birth to a baby and it being treated like a completely unrelated child is horrifying. I can't believe this is being considered in the UK.