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?

slouching - do you really think that donor eggs make that big a difference? When its sperm from the husband of the mother (ie not the surrogates partner). I'm not sure it would have made a difference to me - I mean I was contemplating raising a DC without any of my DNA, but am completely convinced that I would have been that DCs mother through the act of raising rather than through giving it my DNA or carrying it.

And how do we ensure it doesn't lead to exploitation? It seems like what's OK for a rich person isn't OK for a poor one, which is an uncomfortable distinction to make.

OMG, my capitals sounded much more ranty than I wanted them too. Sorry.

I didn't want to click on this thread, because, like the trans thread, for me it's just one of those topics. ...

I really shouldn't have clicked on this thread.

I'm going to hide it now.

It was a great rant though sakura.

Money is the root of all evil, is the real lesson of so many of these threads.

Sakura - for various reasons, social services indicated to us that we were highly unlikely to be approved for adoption for several years (mixed race issues, age issues (DH), fact that i wanted to continue to work, possibility of moves abroad through work - all against us). Adoption isn't that easy in the UK.

I'm really sorry I upset you with this thread - it wasn't my intention at all. I was really interested in your view, which is why I posted the question. Really sorry to have upset you

I realise for many women it is a very emotive topic. But I was desparate for a baby, truly desparate, and if you can even for one second experience what that feels like, you might understand how the thought of surrogacy comes up.

We would never have been approved for adoption, either

Sakura, stick around,you are entitled to your rant

sakura is there any logic at all to your POV?

people sell the most precious thing they have - their time - as a matter of course.

we all spend years doing things we don't want to do in the name of earning money - some of these things are risky to us physically, some mentally, some deeply upsetting..and we never get back that time.

Personally i don't mind expressing, and would happily sell breastmilk (I'd be happy to donate also)

Also, I would donate eggs - and if it was in my judgement to sell them - surely if i am willing to do that i am not being exploited any more than i am by turning up to work (probably for less money) ?

Surrogacy - yes it is very physically involving, but if a woman says she can handle the emotional/physical strain and is willing to take it on for the money - why shouldn't she get paid for it?

I think getting on your high horse about third world mothers being paid for this is frankly being completely blind to the nature of life in the third world - an Indian surrogate may earn from one pregnancy several years of pay - pay she would otherwise get from long hours of low-paid labour that, if anything could be far more harmful to her than carrying and giving birth to child.

Feminism isn't about making other womens choices for them.

Eek! Saw that comin'.

I really don't see how being a wet nurse is that much different to being a nanny or childminder, frankly.

Even better than wet nannying, if I could simply spend half an hour on the double pump every morning and make that day's food money for my family, I'd be getting the legos out and telling the children to get on with it while mama did her work.

When I worked in a statusy, feministy profession, I sold my thoughts. I felt exploited and immoral every day.

But this thread is about surrogacy, and honestly, I just don't know how I feel.

I hate the idea of women having to sell their own babies. I hate the fact that adoption is used as a solution to poverty. It is heartbreaking and wrong. I suppose this is why I make a distinction between a surrogate using donor eggs and using her own eggs. Using her own eggs, it's baby selling really. Not using them, it's womb rental, and she has no moral or biological claim on the child.

Or something like that. I'm just not sure.

Sakura - rant away, I posted the question to learn and discuss, not just to hear nice things (although its nice to hear those as well).

Everything can be bought, the woman who can rent her womb could just as easily die of starvation....these women are sometimes from hte same cultures where people burn, torture or sell their children for cash. And perhaps the white rich can't hide so well from their involvement but it is rather high and mighty to say it's worse to rent a womb than to let a woman die of poverty.

I'm very tempted to start thinking about whether we should be messing with Mother Nature/the ecosystem, etc. There is so much potential for exploitation and pain.

Stopping surrogacy would mean some people would have to live with the horrendous pain of infertility. Terrible. Heartbreaking. Yet allowing surrogacy risks transferring that pain to a possibly exploited, emotionally damaged surrogate. Yet surrogates are grownups who should be allowed take responsibility for managing their own risks. Does this make any sense?

Honestly, I think I would never have looked at my friends DC and thought of it was "my child" because I carried it. So for me, I don't think it would have been destructive. None of the surrogates I met talked about that either, but not sure they would have done in the circumstances.

Given for some adoption is not an option, maybe the issue is the root of the belief that we should pursue motherhood at all costs. If adoption had been an avenue, I probably would have preferred that to surrogacy (we explored it first), but it wasn't, and isn't for a lot of people. Which then condemns people like me to never being parents. Maybe that is something we should have worked harder to accept.

Out of interest, do people feel the same way about sperm donation? Is that as morally dubious, given that many men (students) used it as a way to raise cash?

Lenin, ITA. I would say choices are never made truly freely. I have a naturalist view of free will - that there is really no such thing. This is why blanket moral judgements about whether something is or isn't feminist are never appropriate IMO.

Lenin - it's that kind of subject. The soft-lighting, lovely fluffy experience of almost-surrogacy I had isn't, I appreciate, the only kind of surrogacy out there. I'm just struggling with the fact that my head says its terrible and immoral and just hideous to pay someone to have your baby for you, but my heart says I want a baby and if they want to do it, who am I to judge their choices? That's just my hormones talking though, I suspect.

I have the same reaction about adoption, and obviously about surrogacy using one's own eggs. It makes me feel sick, but that is because I imagine the pain I would feel having to give up my own children for financial reasons.

I have no visceral reaction to the idea of selling my breastmilk though, for some reason. I just think about all the stuff I could buy for my family with the money, and the time I could spend with them instead of 'working' in a job I don't like doing.

Lenin - very luckily for me, it isn't current anymore - we conceived DD now 2 via nothing short of a miracle. And as much as I'd love No2, I think I'm counting my blessings and letting it go at that. But we were soooooo close to going through with the surrogacy, so, yes, its very personal, so much so that its only a few years later that I can actually talk about it.

You haven't been insensitive in the slightest - you've been very articulate and very interesting I wouldn't have asked the question if I wasn't interested in a frank discussion - not that type of poster.

why is surrogacy seen as exploitative?

if i, as a reasoned human being, see it as doing something very positive to help another woman, which (perchance) one could also get paid for - why should anyone say i am being exploited?

to my mind this is based on two things -

1. Horror at pregnancy - seeing pregnancy and conception as in some way dirty or demeaning. this is an essentially mysogynist perspective.

in surrogacy women are generally getting other to do something they would dearly love to do themselves - surely not demeaning?

2. the personal feeling that pregnancy must in every case be a spiritual experience -

you know, where you bond emotionally with the foetus before birth. Plenty of women don't feel like this about their pregnancies, and can't wait for them to be over. I think it is perfectly possible not to feel emotionally attached to the child you carry. Essentially, this persective is bsed on presuming everyone feels the same way about their genetic material /their pregnancy - not everyone does.

if you don't have probs with paid blood donation, sperm donation etc - why is it only women who are expected to go through donating bodily matter/ time for free?