Gay surrogacy

[Queenieoh]

My male gay best friend and his husband are using an American surrogate to have a baby. I am anti-surrogacy and finding it so hard to be supportive about it. I want them both to be happy but I really don't think this is the right thing to do. I know my opinion won't change their mind and most of our friends think surrogacy is fine. I guess I am not looking for advice, just some solidarity in the fact that buying a baby (for a huge sum of money) is wrong! They're even choosing the sex which is just so creepy IMO. Also, they're both very busy professionals so will undoubtedly have a nanny to raise the child... Why do people think they're entitled to have children?!

It is very very wrong, and illegal in many countries.

But lots of your acquaintances won't really think it through, they'll see it as adoption or if one of your friends supplied sperm it'll be no worse than das getting custody.

I don't think I could continue the friendship. I understand the desire for a baby but it's the ultimate selfish act.

Completely agree with you. I think I’d have to say something but I’d find that hard.

I find the idea of surrogacy abhorrent in these circumstances. It's literally buying a son or a daughter. I couldn't stay friendly with people like this.

I’m afraid I would no longer be able to consider these people my friend. I believe that surrogacy is the equivalent to human trafficking.

I couldn't speak to anyone who thinks that's even close to acceptable.

So many on Instagram it’s normalised. So many celebrity gay couples doing it every other week, the only couple I follow are two men in Brighton who have adopted their little girl. It can be done.

I work with a man who has a surrogate child with his husband. He is not a nice colleague, is a bully. When I found out he had a surrogate child it all clicked into place for me as I realised he fundamentally has no respect for women.

Just because men are gay doesn’t make them more likely to consider other human rights. I find their behavior abhorrent and I don’t think it be wrong for you to tell them what you think. It’s more for your own conscience than anything but if they have any respect for you, they would hear you out.

It’s a strange way of framing things. ‘gay surrogacy, my male gay best friend’. You sound anti-surrogacy anyway, so why the emphasis?

I 100 percent agree with you.

Buying use of a woman’s is wrong.

Buying a baby is wrong.

The commodification of babies and women’s bodies is wrong

No one has a right to a child.

I would distance myself and eventually cut off the friendship.

The line is too hard for me, best friend or not.

Surrogacy is revolting, as are these men who think they can so casually co-opt a woman's body to purchase a baby to order.

I am anti-surrogacy and finding it so hard to be supportive about it.

Do they know you are anti-surrogacy? What support do they need from you?

Up to you, I think I would slowly pull away. Very common though doesn't make it right I think more of us need to speak up against it.

That the child will have no mother in their life, that the woman who bore them was paid to do so, and that the woman who raises them is paid to do so?

I find it abhorrent for anyone, gay or straight, to use a surrogate 🥺

I understand strongly the concerns about adoption, but it’s not okay to lease a woman’s womb

youll be alone though, people will be too afraid to say anything and you’ll be judged as a crazy feminist baby hater xx

I stopped talking to a couple in my life who did this.

I had no issue with surrogacy or gay surrogacy and was supportive of this pre giving birth myself.
Presumably because I knew fuck all abpur birth and never thought abput the myriad of issues that can arise

Having had a child i did a full 180.

I think yanbu and believe its ethically and morally wrong

I am a nanny and I think a nanny is an invaluable resource for many families and offers so much that even the best nursery couldn't.
But I do think it bizarre that a couple would go to such extreme and morally questionable lengths to have a child and then not make the time to be at home with the child.

The child loses their connection to their birth mother entirely and then spends the majority of their waking hours in the care of a (hopefully) loving (usually) woman who isn't their parent in any way.

A nanny isn't at all a "bad" thing but not raising the child you paid to remove from its mother does suggest you want a status symbol rather than an actual human child with needs.

It’s wrong. No one is entitled to buy a baby but I especially disagree with paying women in other countries.

I couldn’t be friends with anyone who bought a baby. It should be illegal everywhere.

I would feel the same. Sorry Op, surrogacy is abhorrent.

I find it interesting, and a little depressing, that posters are mostly objecting to it from a women’s rights perspective.

I also object to deliberately creating a child who will never know their biological mother, or/and the mother who bore them.

Knowing one of your parents only conceived you for money must be damaging for most people.

it’s just wrong to do this. Commercial surrogacy prioritizes an adults right to parent over the child and I don’t agree with this.

It's just horrid.

I think it would be the end of the friendship for me. I couldn't support it and pretend. I would try to be brave and tell them why too. Other people will think the same, they will have years of it ahead so if they can't take hearing it now they need to get real.

I'm sorry you are in this position OP, I know it could be a big loss for you.