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?

But if I have a baby for someone, surely I should be reimbursed for medical expenses, maternity clothing, vitamins?

I mean, if you do your shopping for an elderly neighbour, you wouldn't expect to not get your cash back, would you? So why can't money be a part of altruism?

Or are you saying poor people aren't capable of making a judgement when money is involved because they are, you know, poor and dumb and we must protect them from themselves?????

dittany I am wondering how many surrogates you personally know. To imply that all surrogates are poor and do it for the money is quite offensive.

I have had three surrogate babies and in no way did it for the money.

DD - interested to hear how you "got into" surrogacy, if that's not too personal a question to ask.

It's something I've always wanted to do. I adore being a mum, it's part of who I am, it's something I've always wanted and I was lucky enough to be able to have as many children as I liked.
A google search brought up the surrogacy matching 'agency' I used and went from there.
Had I not been able to carry my own babies I'd hope that I was lucky enough to find someone like me who would be able to give me the gift of motherhood.

DD - that is so nice to hear. My reasons were a bit more selfish (egg/womb swap) but were I not an ancient old croak, I think it would have been something I'd like to do in the future for purely "giving" reasons. Having been through the hideous pain of infertility, the ability to help someone else in that same situation just seems miraculous to me.

I suspect that some people get their views of surrogacy in the UK from the DM and made-for-TV movies, though. Hugely patronising to the infertile, poor, and actually to women in general (smacks of we don't know what's best for us and need people to tell us what to do).

dittany, any expenses over £10k need extra justification and to get those it would mean that either the surrogate has a highly paid job and therefore had much greater than normal loss of earnings or she had a time of extended bedrest and needed more to cover loss or earnings, childcare or both.

My own expenses fell well below the range you mentioned and there was only one thing in my expenses that could be contentious and that was for the girls a few months after they were born my friends paid for me, dh and dcs to stay in a cottage near them for a week. They live 5 hours from us and we all felt it important that my children see the babies I carried with their parents in their home so they could get some context on it. As it happened we also sorted much of the legal stuff while I was up there too.

justification to the courts I mean, for the Parental Order.

MIB - that's interesting, I didn't know that. I estimated my likely expenses as being under 1.5k, hardly the life-changing sum of money Dittany seems to believe surrogates get.

slouchingtowardswaitrose "I agree there are some tricky implications if, for example, random single guy buys donor egg and rents surrogate's womb, thereby depriving child of any mother at all."

So how is this different to a random single woman who has a child by artificial insemination, thereby depriving child of any father at all?

Not single guys but it has already been done.
Two dads

juule - because without surrogacy the single guy couldn't become a father by his own choice (ie not involving another woman who has the ability to use contraception etc). Whereas a single woman could, just be having sex rather than using AI.

I was thinking more about the depriving of mother/father bit.

juule - hmmm, not sure where I stand on single parenting by choice, will need to think about that.

Lenin - its such a personal issue, isn't it? I totally understand why some people can't do it and some are happy to.

I suspect this is just one of those issues where there isn't a black and white, just shades of grey.

Breastmilk - was never in the lucky position of having anough to share, but think I would have donated rather than sold if I had. But I do wonder if more people would do this if there was a nominal payment (eg the 60quid for a sperm donation)

I personally would feel a bit iffy about there being children "out there" who were biologically mine but in whose upbringing I had no say. So I don't think I could ever bring myself to donate eggs.
Surrogacy, where I was incubating someone else's embryo, I would have no problem with as it would be "their" baby, not mine IYKWIM. Unfortunately my uterus is fairly knackered now, so not a an option.

But I applaud anyone who would donate eggs, I think it's a fantastic thing to do.

I'm with Chipmonkey. I would really struggle with a biological child of my own growing up without my love and protection.

Single parent families are so common that being a single parent family by choice via surrogacy shouldnt be a problem in itself, IMO.

I wouldnt want to be a surrogate myself, particuarly if I was also the egg donor.

If others want to be altruistic surrogates then I'm sure (in the UK) that is not a decision taken lightly.

I do think that it's not clear that the children will be completely happy with their origins. Adults who were adopted as children into loving families who wanted them have still gone on to struggle with the knowledge. I think genetic origins are very important. It's not insignificant that male sperm donors are nolonger anonymous to their resulting children.

KittyTN, you are absolutely right that adopted children can find it hard to come to terms with their birth circumstances, but I'm not sure that surrogacy is likely to be harder to come to terms with. And no-one argues that adoption is something that should be stopped because of it, so why surrogacy?

Juule, I'm not a big fan of single parenting by choice. I'm also not a big fan of 'anonymous' egg or sperm donation - but perhaps I should say 'uninvolved doner' egg and sperm donation, even when donor details are disclosed. It's very different to a co-parenting or open adoption agreement with involvement of genetic parents.

The men you linked 'fell out with the genetic mother of their children, Tracey McCune, who accused them of raising a bunch of spoilt brats.'

It seems she was unable, as PPs have mentioned, to completely let go of worrying about her biological children. I am having an emotional reaction to the thought of men paying a woman for eggs only and not valuing her contribution as a real mother. I own that, by the way. Just imagining how I'd feel. Not judging. I am all for good 'parenting' yet I believe that mothering is distinct and special and important. Mothering is parenting and so is fathering but mothering is not fathering. I think, as much as possible, we need to be going with nature and copying nature when we create new technology. However, anomalies happen and I certainly believe in interfering with nature to a great extent in limited ways. Yes to IVF, not to cloned meat at Waitrose. KWIM?

This is why I am most comfortable with the idea of surrogates donating the use of their bodies, but not their own eggs. Preferably the eggs of the woman seeking a surrogate. Next in my comfort queue is surrogates using their own eggs and being involved in the child's life as open adoption.

ps having my own comfort zone doesn't mean I support bans or laws to keep everyone else in it. I'm against abortion but think it should be legal. Etc.

ps Lenin, re breastmilk - I too consider us (my family and most Western people) very privileged, however I do need to work for a portion of our income and I'd rather pump milk than do what I do now.

I've been BFing a long time. You can't donate to NICU after 6 months as your milk is too mature.

However, you could give it to older babies.

The WHO has a queue: best milk for babies = 1, baby's mother's breastmilk from breast, 2, babies mother's breastmilk from bottle, 3, another woman's breastmilk, 4, formula.

And yet the formula companies are making all the money, by offering an inferior substitute for 1 and 2.

Why shouldn't I earn my living providing a useful, health promoting product to a baby whose mother can't or doesn't want to breastfeed?

It doesn't make me any less altruistic, I spend a significant proportion of my free time doing volunteer work.

Donor, not doner. Obviously. Cringe.

I had bags and bags of EBM at one stage because ds3 wouldn't drink it and there was no facility to donate it (or I thought there wasn't.) Part of me thinks it should have been worth more than formula because (a) EBM is better than formula and (b) It was fecking hard labour pumping all that and boring as hell and the pump alone cost me a fortune!
But I don't think I could bring myself to sell it even if someone was willing to buy it.

I don't know how I feel about any of this or that there are any easy answers.

I don't think it is helpful to compare surrogacy in developing countries to options mentioned on this thread such as being set on fire or working for long hours in a sweat shop. Surely we should be working to end up such misfortune, not proposing other dubious options like surrogacy.

I don't think it is helpful to compare surrogacy to adoption. Adoption is about dealing with children that cannot, for various reasons, be looked after by their biological parents. Surrogacy is generally about deliberately creating children who will not have a relationship with at least one of the biological parents, even if such a biological parents is not a genetic parent.

I also don't think it is helpful to compare use of a woman's body for intrusive sexual or reproductive purposes to other forms of work such as 'thinking' or building houses. It is simply not possible to remove sexual or reproductive tasks from the commodification of women's bodies that exists in wider societies or from the biological reality of the toll that is taken on women's bodies.

While an individual woman may feel happy to give away a child she has carried in exchange for money, I feel that such an example (particularly if it became more widespread) is damaging to women as a group.

So, I suppose I feel the same way about pregnancy as I do about sex. As an act of love, desire or altruism - fine. As a financial exchange - damaging.