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?!

This is the topsy turvy thinking I object to.

This is not a gay rights issue.

Claiming rights at the expense of another group is not a 'right' , it is a sign of extraordinary entitlement.

The focus always has to be what is in the child's best interest, and deliberately creating a child who will not know at least, maybe both, of its parents is wrong. Taking a new born from the mother it is programmed from its experience in the womb to recognise and bond to, is wrong.

Paying a woman to use her body to produce a child for you, is wrong. This is not about altruism. The surrogacy clinics are not full of rich woman generously offering up their bodies to benefit the poor and infertile, or even rich gay men.

They are full of poorer women producing babies for the rich. Ukraine was a popular country for people to procure a woman's body as Ukraine gave no rights to the birthing mother. That made it popular as surrogacy is inherently exploitative.

You very much doubt that couples will love a child less who is not as clever as they wanted eh? You tell that the the child with down syndrome, one of twins, who was left behind in Thailand by the purchasing couple who only took the non-disabled child back to Australia.

What happens when the baby born to a surrogate is disabled is quite a topic of discussion in this world. Because when you are paying for something you want to get your money's worth. Its not a topic of discussion about children born to their own parents. Figure out why that is.

I think that whatever your views on surrogacy, the rights of the adults who want the child are irrelevant to a discussion which should focus on the child, and the surrogate.

Yeah I'm fully anti it. I don't think I'd be able to be even fake supportive.

They'd simply be my gay ex-best friend as I don't think there's any justification for child trafficking and buying babies.

The fact they are using an American agency to get around British laws says enough in its own right about them as people.

Friendship would be stone cold dead as I wouldn't be able to look at that baby without thinking they'd been bought.

Feel for you OP, I don't think I could remain friends with them as I'd find it too distressing - I'm sorry that two men can't have a baby but surrogacy is intentionally creating an orphan. I feel very strongly about this after having DC. The mother is all that baby has every known, her voice, her movements, everything, and taking it from her at birth is beyond cruel. I don't think your friends are inherently selfish as they may not realise this, sadly very little thought is given to a baby's needs or experiences.

The right to family life? Not explicitly the right to a child but rather the right to privacy, autonomy, and legal avenues to bound relationships between intended parents and children?

By that accord, infertile couples and single people should never try to conceive because they can not make a child themselves 🤷‍♀️

But how many children are being raised in typically nuclear families these days? Very few. Young couples likely to split shouldn't conceive, single people shouldn't conceive, pregnancies with one parent not wanting it shouldn't continue? How far will you take that? Or is the main issue here a problem with two men raising a child?

And it's not an explicit right to a child, but a right to have the legal avenues to choose.

Plenty of babies every single day are born and separated from their mothers when surrogacy isn't involved.

Attachment and bonding develops towards caregivers. Babies born via surrogacy are not stripped away from a mothers arms and kept in a cold dark room. They experience love, affection, and care because they were severely WANTED.

I agree in part that 'rent a womb' surrogacy where payment and exploitation is present is wrong. But not all surrogacy looks like this. Much of it is viewed as a gifting service with host mothers willingly wanting to provide a baby to a loving couple. The view shared in this thread is skewed by minority stories that do not represent good surrogacy procedures.

I appreciate a sense of identity that can come from 'knowing' biological parents. But that can also come from a positive upbringing, feeling wanted by your family, creating traditions, etc. I 'know' both my biological parents, and I would be better off if I didn't 🤷‍♀️

Because legally, a child born via surrogacy does not belong to the intended parents until all papers are signed. It is a form of adoption with an added nuance of one or both intended parents who could be biologically related.

You are focusing on terrible individual stories without balance. There are plenty of disabled children surrendered by birth parents. Plenty of abortions happen due to fetal abnormalities. It is definitely not OK what that couple did, but stereotyping all intended parents as being capable of this and ignoring that this happens with many children, not just those born via surrogacy, is ignorant.

Yet what people are suggesting is that surrogacy should not be allowed. Therefore, there is no child to consider rights for.
A willing surrogate who is treated well and has support before conception during the pregnancy and after the birth is not a problem.

I was answering your question about believing if gay couples have a right to have children. I think that’s an irrelevant question.
But I disagree with your premise that if you are against surrogacy there are no rights of the child to consider. Considering the rights of the potential children comes first, and may lead people to believe that surrogacy shouldn’t be allowed.

Thre is practically no altruistic surrogacy in the UK. Kim Coton had to shut down her agency because she couldn't recruit surrogates. The agencies operating in this country are mostly involved in overseas surrogacy where you eg buy eggs in America, use an Israeli lab, then pay a poor surrogate in Mexico. They do not actively recruit surrogates in the UK because it is such a tiny, tiny market.

BTW surrogacy is banned in many European countries.

It's male entitlement. They won't be considering the morality of it or the rights of the child. I wonder how much they even want a child. Is it just something they can buy and thus they will? What men want, men get (whether gay or not).

It depends on where you have the baby.

Most cases involve the father being the biological dad. This is how they get the babies into this country.

Plenty of babies every single day are born and separated from their mothers when surrogacy isn't involved

That's not a good thing though, is it? Its not something we should create institutions to replicate.

The ' well shit things happen elsewhere, so that means we should replicate them here' is the most rubbishy of rubbishy arguments but one that is often trotted out on threads like these. Presumably because proponents of these practices inherently realise they are problematic and so can't advance positive arguments for them.

'But they really, really want a child and that justifies everything' is not really a sound moral argument.

The point is suggesting that removing a child from its birth mother and placing it with the intended parents is going to be deeply traumatic and have longstanding impacts on the child is not at all true. Children separated from their mothers after birth continue to thrive and develop well. My own child went to NICU after birth. Wasn't touched by me or dad for 36 hours. Absolutely no impact on her whatsoever.

www.mifertilityalliance.com/mfablog/the-kids-are-alright-surrogate-born-children-are-speaking-out

Useful read for those focused on the impact surrogacy has on the child.

We had friends who did this. Well, my DH’s work colleague and his husband.

We went to see the baby when they returned to the UK, from memory, about 2 weeks after the birth.

They spoke at length about how awful the 10 hour flight was with the baby screaming and inconsolable the entire flight.

I could barely bite my tongue. All I kept thinking was of course the baby was inconsolable, she wanted her mum!!! The only person she has ever known!

That was about 6 years ago and I haven’t seen them since. I just couldn’t stomach it. Completely selfish and morally abhorrent.

Much of it is viewed as a gifting service with host mothers willingly wanting to provide a baby to a loving couple

This is so naive. Are wealthy women inherently more horrible people than poor people? Is that why they are not gifting their bodies and babies to the infertile poor?
Is this is a gifting service, why are lobbies of purchasers and potential purchasers arguing to remove the legal protections for birthing mothers who do not want to hand over the baby they carried? Why do so many go abroad where the legal rights of the birthing mother are non-existent?.
Why are they paid? Even in the UK where there is not meant to be payment, there is no sanction for purchasers for paying exorbitant ' reimbursements'. Effectively, its a paid for service, not a gift. With UK purchases lobbying to reduce the ' gift' aspect even further, as I outlined.

I didn’t have a problem with it before having kids, then you realise the connection your unborn baby has with you before they’re even born. How they learn your voice, movements, smell etc and how your body creates life sustaining food specifically for them and their needs.

A baby being born only to be put onto someone else’s chest and kept away from the one person they are intrinsically bonded to is barbaric to me. Obviously there are circumstances where this arises naturally due to trauma to the mother but that is unavoidable.

I would have less of a problem with it if it was a truly altruistic surrogacy and the birth mother was kept with the baby for some time (possibly a year or more) and then gradually weaned off being a primary care giver whilst remaining in the baby’s life. That would feel more like centering the needs of the baby. But it would never happen.

I wholeheartedly disagree with a blanket ban. Regulation is important.

@CJones11 do they try and get mum as close to baby as soon as possible when in NICU etc?