Surrogacy and feminism

[TheBossofMe]

Just picking up on a point that Sakura raised a little while ago on another thread about surrogacy. Is it anti-feminist? Will confess to having seriously made surrogacy arrangements with a friend (her egg, my womb, baby for each of us) in the past (not needed by either of us in the end). Did my desire to have a child blind me to the oppressive nature of surrogacy, ie reducing women to a talking womb?

OK, that clearly should have said walking womb.

However, talking wombs also welcome.

How would there have been a baby for each of you?

Were you going to share the baby?

I need to think about whether I think surrogacy is oppressive.

I have serious issues with it when the 'surrogate' is actually the mother, using her own egg, so that she is effectively selling her baby, and/or giving up her rights to it.

When I was living through my years of infertility, I would have considered many ways to have a baby

the feminist viewpoint would not have entered my head

does egg donation come under the same umbrella then ?

Why is it a feminist issue? One woman helps another woman to become a mother.

anti feminist is the last thing that enters my head when i think of surrogacy.

SGM...there are laws in this country to prevent women "selling their wombs"

Am I being naive to think that most people rightly have a moral issue with such a practice and are glad that the laws are in place to prevent it?

Does it happen despite the laws to protect women ? I really don't know the answer to that.

slouching - no, we weren't going to share it! I have less than one ovary and severe hormonal issues which meant getting me to ovulate or produce any useable ova was very very difficult. She had two working ovaries, loads of eggs but uterine/cervical issues which meant she repeatedly miscarried around the 12 week mark. So we were going for two pregnancies, two babies - had it all worked out, and then I became pregnant rather miraculously, she underwent IVF in the US where she essentially stayed in bed pretty much on IV drugs for the whole pregnancy, and three babies later, no need for surrogacy.

But had the above not happened, we would have gone through with it.

Posie - have talked to a few people since Sakura's interesting (and BTW very thoughtful and unjudgmental) comment about surrogacy being devastating for women in some countries who rent their wombs out to rich women in order to feed their existing family. I appreciate my position was different, but does that mean its oppressive if you're poor, but OK if you're rich? Double standard?

Very confused by this - feminist/anti-exploitation principles colliding with personal desires in a way I've not experienced before.

SGM - what do you think is the answer then? Laws like ours the world over? Doesn't that only work when you also have an NHS which covers the cost of antenatal, childbirth etc?

Haven't really thought about it.

I think the reasons that many people feel uncomfortabe with it are the "what ifs".

What if the woman who carries the child doesn't want to give it up
What if the woman who carries the child gives it up and regrets it for the rest of their life
What if there is some kind of problem with the child and the people who were going to have it decide they don't want it
There are loads of what ifs.

I think most people's objection isn't on moral grounds as much as the idea of giving up their babies horrifies them and they can't imagine how anyone could do it.

The fact that some people are genuinely prefectly happy to do this does not impact on that very fundamental emotional response.

The idea that women are renting their wombs out for cash out of desperation is horrible as well, and it is certainly happening abroad.

I think it's like anything else maybe - as soon as money starts to change hands it all gets really dodgy.

ISNT - I know what you mean about the what ifs but there are so many what ifs in having a baby anyway (as many women who contemplate surrogacy already know):

What if I can't conceive
What if I have a miscarriage
What if my child has a major health issue
What if my child is stillborn

I guess in that situation a few more what ifs become more palatable and liveable with.

The only what if I didn't think about explicitly (because it was horrible to think about) was what if only one pregnancy was possible due to health reasons....

Also depends on how you think about motherhood - ie is it giving birth or raising a child?

Rent-a-womb isn't something I thought about, but I was very lucky (or unlucky) to have someone who was willing to enter into a reciprocal arrangement. What about those who aren't in that position?

That wasn't aimed at you TBOM.

It was more thinking about whether most people don't agree with surrogacy for moral reasons. I suspect the true reason is that most people simply can't understand the motivation of the person carrying the baby and the thought of them giving up a baby is unimaginable - so most people assume that the person carrying the child much either have psychological issues or be paid - and that makes them say "no it's wrong". Does that make sense?

ISNT - its fine, am really interested in people's views on this and promise not to take anything too personally!

I can't comment on anyone else, but I would have been the person carrying the babies. I guess its different because it was IMO-at-the-time the only way I was ever going to be able to have a child of my own - by bearing two babies and keeping one. I did meet some other potential surrogates, including three who had previously been surrogates for others.

The motivation seemed to be a desire to help others to achieve what they already had - genuinely altruistic. Interestingly, all of the women I met said they were motivated to it after seeing the pain that a close relative or friend endured trying to achieve parenthood. So often triggered by personal experience.

I would also say that those people who don't "agree" with surrogacy have never felt the pain of infertility

but that is going off topic, I guess and begs the question as to how far would you actually go were you in that situation

I met the other surrogates, BTW, through a self-help group that my OBGYN mentioned when I said I was thinking about the arrangement with my friend, so that I could talk to women who had been there, not because I was trying to find one.

SAF - that's exactly how I saw it.

But then someone else I was talking to about this said its just the thin end of choice feminism and essentially selfish.

Which made me think that I've been ignoring part of the debate. She actually said its no better than saying you choose to be in porn (she's fairly outspoken!) and it your body and you can do what you want with it. Ignoring the vast numbers of women coerced into it, exploited etc.

Gosh, my head's in a real muddle on this one.

TBOM yes. I suppose a good question would be - are the majority of people actually against it? I have no idea what the public at large make of this issue at all.

I was responding to "Am I being naive to think that most people rightly have a moral issue with such a practice and are glad that the laws are in place to prevent it?" and questioning whether the issue most people have with it is moral. And then in fact I have no idea whether "most people" have an issue with it at all.

From my perspective, I have no problem with genuinely altruistic surrogacy. But I think there is a huge potential for hurt and bad things with it worldwide.

Swallowed, I agree re the irony.

It actually bothers me that I could not choose to rent my womb for cash.

I was flamed badly once for daring to admit I'd like to sell my breastmilk.

I get we don't want third world women strapped to breast pumps all day in sweatshops.

Yet...for a Western lactating woman, selling milk could be a great WAHM business.

Ditto surrogacy.

But I'm talking about surrogacy using donor eggs.

I think it's a SHOCKING DISGRACE that rich, white western women use the spoils of imperalism, to impregnate poor Russian and Indian women with their fertilized eggs.
A SHOCKING ANTI FEMINIST DISGRACE.
I knew it was a disgrace even before I conceived my first. But as conceived and expanded into pregnancy, suffered from hyperemesis, got bigger and waddlier, worried about the labour, before finally giving birth in a world of pain(the ring of fire!!!!!) , the one thing that kept me going was the prize at the end.
In rent-a-womb they rip the baby away at birth. The mother is not even allowed to look at her baby in many cases. Some rent-a-womb companies "reassure" the rich mother that the birth-mother is not allowed to hold the baby she's just given birth to in case the wealthy woman is worried about the poorer woman bonding with the baby her flesh has borne in any way.,
I think selling eggs is an absolute disgrace, I put in on par with selling kidneys. Just because it comes from women doesn't make it less important or vital or more "saleable".
Selling breastmilk!!! WTF Surely breastmilk is one of the last things capitalsim can lay claim to. But then again, you can buy and sell vaginas. Rent-an-orifice is big business.

TheBossofMe, the set up you wanted to organize with your friend sounds very humane and nice, but it's the same debate as the prostitution debate: Just because one woman enjoys prostituting herself doesn't mean it's ok. It doesn't mean the industry is ok.

What's wrong with adopting one of the world's million orphans?