surrogacy, Julie Bindel is right, it is human rights abuse

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www.byline.com/project/43/article/820
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www.byline.com/project/43

I have to say I didn't realise that surrogate clinics existed to provide service to rich foreigners.
It is exploitation on many levels.

MyCrispBag the thought of women being career surrogates really depresses me. A sister, friend or genuinely altruistic stranger doing it for a loved one or because it feels like a positive thing to do is surely very different.

Lostinmiddlemarch

What's interesting is that she doesn't sound exploited.

She's has that she has been left out of pocket financially and argued that the 'system' shouldn't allow that. She has also said that although she doesn't feel exploited she can see how others could be and said that even in the current 'market' there are troubling trends.

Also every single point you have made is all the same shit (word for word mostly) that is used to justify prostitution.

Also for the love of God stop throwing around made up statistics to back up your claims.

wickedlazy

Indeed I agree but I am not sure how the law could allow one or not the other. I am not saying it is not possible or preferable but I would rather have neither than both.

And odd is right about why IPs try to 'spoil' a surrogate. She is giving you such a huge gift and going through so much, it's a positive joy to have something you can actually do in return. That is how it worked with all the surrogacies I saw as well.

Crisp What an interesting interpretation of the thrust of miracles posts. Anyone would think she had been agreeing with you all evening.

lostinmiddlemarch

Can you tell me why the two biggest surrogacy services use the 5%-10% of expenses a month thing then and how that works in the context of receiving most of the expenses on birth? Do the IPs ask the surrogates to put all the 'treats' on their "tab"?

No matter what you say when you have demand driving up costs that's is a market. It's naive bordering on insanity to imagine that competition doesn't play a role.

Crisps points are valid though.

lostinmiddlemarch

It wasn't an "interpretation of the thrust" it was pointing out that even a surrogate who is emphatically happy with her choice still has some troubling things to say.

"I'm interested in talking about that ethical line, where it is, and what the consequences of that are for women. If women's bodies are commodities to be purchased and consumed, that is bad for all women, though it impacts wealthy women differently'

I am interested in talking about that ethical line, too.

Obviously, there is no consuming of bodies since they are not used up.

As for purchasing: Does hiring someone for services she provides with her body constitute "purchasing" that body? I think not. People provide services with their bodies in many different walks of life - modelling for artists, menial jobs such as giving massages, building, professional dancing, even professional sports people. When we watch Wimbledon finals, are we purchasing Nadal's body? I wish

You can talk about renting someone's body, and personally I don't see a problem with that as long as you are renting it from its owner iyswim. My body is my own to do as I wish with, and I'll rent it if I want to. Do you not agree?

Ethically, I don't see a difference between being paid to get naked and pose for many hours per day over months, and being paid to grow someone's baby in my body. Neither are jobs I would ever want to do, but if I find myself broke I might do them - I don't see an ethical problem with either.

The only difference between them could be if you assign a special (ethical) value to making babies as opposed to all other services provided by one's body, possibly via religious or spiritual reasoning. My mind doesn't work that way, so paying someone to gestate a baby, give a massage, dance on stage, pose naked for an artist, or strut on stage modelling some new fashion don't appear much different to me.

Hum. Well, once you have a pregnancy going on you're stuck with each other so the flowers and so on will not get you anything you're not getting already. Although it may seem hard to believe in the cynical world you're inhabiting, a lot of it is a trying to say thank you. However, I agree that deciding what you can afford to pay in terms of compensation (at the outset) may be a factor in getting an agreement. So there is an element of commercialism there. I don't have a problem with it but clearly you do.

I agree it would make more sense in some ways to pay expenses throughout the pregnancy and I think cots is trying to avoid situations where perhaps something goes wrong at a later stage of the pregnancy and the IPs have run out of money to try again. I don't know. We completely resolved financial issues pre birth to get it out of the way.

We found it was a balancing act in which we were thinking about the surrogate and she was thinking about our interests. If she wasn't going to be able to hand us a baby, she would have preferred to be out of pocket than have our money. So she wanted it late on. We dreaded the thought that she could go through all the trauma of a late miscarriage and be uncompensated because she was say two days off the payment date. It's got to go in on a date and it's surprisingly hard to work out what that should be. Our surrogate also preferred to spend her own cash and then be reimbursed.

lostinmiddlemarch - "Cote, I have seen you bring horrifically insensitive and rude, without let up"

Again, show where I have been rude on this thread or take back your passive-aggressive "Are you always so rude?"

If you can't, you might consider apologising.

Fwiw, I wouldn't stop an adult becoming a prostitute but I would work hard to help create a society in which it seemed like an unattractive and unnecessary option.

Not on this thread- on others. Cote referenced another thread so I was referring back also. No, she was very rude to insist on personal details that miracles had already refused to give, so I'm not sorry!

"I wouldn't stop an adult becoming a prostitute but I would work hard to help create a society in which it seemed like an unattractive and unnecessary option"

Why, if it is perfectly fine to rent out one's body?

Surely if surrogacy is ethically and morally fine, prostitution should be, too.

Both are about allowing others the use of your body for money.

No, you were the one who came up to me and said "Are you always so rude?" out of the blue.

So what if you saw me being rude to someone else on another thread? No relevance whatsoever to this thread and the topic being discussed here.

Cease and desist or I will report you to MNHQ for harassment.

"Cease and desist or I will report you to MNHQ for harassment."

I don't think you'll get very far with that report...

Isn't paying for blood or bone marrow donation a closer analogy for paid surrogacy than prostitution?

Dr Suess Yes I would agree with that and egg donation also

Yes, and people donate as well as sell eggs, semen, and blood. There doesn't seem to be any ethical controversy there.

Why does surrogacy look ethically dubious whereas selling/donating semen, eggs, or breast milk doesn't?

And what is the difference (ethically) between receiving payment for temporary use of one's womb and the same for the temporary use of one's vagina?

Selling blood is massively problematic ethically.

And legally in the UK.

I feel there is also a difference in normal prostitutes and those who prostitute themselves to the disabled. A normal prostitute sells her vagina for financial gain, the other does it not solely for money but out of a sense of empathy for the clients they provide the service to.

I feel more unsettled about egg and sperm donation because you don't know the recipient...stirs up all sorts of horrors in my mind of doner children meeting and getting together as a couple later in life. You are allowed to create 10 families/ten pregnancys so although unlikely it is possible that could happen.

But selling hair is OK? Why?

Do you feel that there is a difference (ethically) between selling one's blood and one's hair? The body grows/replenishes both.

Please explain why it is massively unethical to sell blood. I donate regularly. My body makes more blood to compensate. It doesn't harm me. If I were to sell it, why would it suddenly become unethical?

I don't think anyone runs the risk of dying whilst donating semen, blood, breast milk, bone marrow or eggs. The first 3 of these are quickly, easily and painlessly done. The latter 2 I imagine involve a degree of temporary discomfort.

The UK, quite rightly, assumes there is a huge problem ethically in paying any of the donors.

So far as the difference ethically between paying for the temporary use of a womb or a vagina- not a great deal -and neither seem particularly desirable.

"I feel there is also a difference in normal prostitutes and those who prostitute themselves to the disabled. A normal prostitute sells her vagina for financial gain, the other does it not solely for money but out of a sense of empathy for the clients they provide the service to."

I don't know if you have ever spoken to a prostitute in your life, but I think you will find that most have able-bodied as well as disabled clients. I doubt if you can find a single prostitute who only has disabled customers "out of a sense of empathy".

What would you say is the difference (ethically) between temporarily renting one's womb and temporarily renting one's vagina?

Ethically the difference between womb rent and vagina rent is that usually only one creates a living child. And with that brings along many an ethical issue. I winder what happens if this birth goes wrong and the mother refuses intervention which could have a negative effect on her body?