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's the thought of the poor baby ripped away from their mum. Babies need their mum. End of.

As a foster carer, adoptive parent, and friend of many gay couples, I disagree. I don't think all children necessarily need their biological mum, i.e. abuse, neglect, criminal activity and abandonment are all valid reasons for a child to be removed. I will say in most scenarios of surrogacy and def all cases of commercial surrogacy, I don't like the idea of a baby being completely separated from their mum. Plenty of children have thrived and done loads better with someone other than their biological mum. Though most kids in the system after 9 don't have that outcome.

I am quite overwhelmed by the response to this! I hugely appreciate the spectrum of opinion on this issue and you have all given me much food for thought. I will not change my mind about surrogacy but I do also love my friend dearly. Though I think he is being completely naive and entitled, utimately, I can't control the situation. I will, however, be completely honest about what I think. Time will tell if the friendship can endure! Thank you all for your responses.

The mother being unfit to care for a child is the only reason to remove a child from her care.

Gay men using/abusing women so that they can have biological children is unethical for the child who is deprived of a mother who could care for him/her and for the mother who is usually a vulnerable woman or one that is trafficked which is becoming more and more common in poor countries such as Nigeria.

No adult has a right to a child but children have a right to know both parents.

I have no respect for any gay man who uses a woman in this way.

Agreed!

Yes!

I'm sorry but you could have adopted. Instead you went down a route to parenthood which prioritised your needs.

I adopted and it is my experience of seeing the importance of genetic connections which make me opposed to anything that involves playing around with dna and treating it simply as a sort of ingredient.

You may maintain a relationship with the surrogates but there is no obligation to do so and you could withdraw contact at any moment. Many do. I'm not clear if your surrogates used their own eggs - in most surrogacy situations the surrogate is not the egg "donor", so there is another mother out there. In the UK children can get her name at 16 - not before that. Whose benefit is that for? Not the child's.

Adoption is not easy but imo it is the ethical choice if you cannot have a child naturally. You cannot say "my surrogacy is ethical" while you are part of a large and growing international industry with extremely dubious practices. People in their 70s are commissioning children. Women are being exploited. Children's needs are bottom of the pile. It's all about the adults.

Your personal decision has wider implications. Adoption rates are declining for starters. People are commissioning children with very little oversight. Imo it is going to be the next scandal.