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

[antimatter]

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

The more risky a process is to the donor, the more uncomfortable I feel about it being a paid process. Being a surrogate must carry more risk to the surrogate's health than donating blood or sperm or eggs. Perhaps less than donating bone marrow, certainly less than donating a kidney.

Yet (I think) it's the only process with any such compensation.

certainly less than donating a kidney.

Is that really certain?

I know some women whose health has been permanently pretty seriously fucked by pregnancy.

And many whose bodies (not just aesthetically) have never been the same.

www.kidneylink.org/RisksInvolvedinLivingDonation.aspx

There are lots of general risks from surgery (which mothers - especially those who have the baby by c-section which seems to be common in surrogacy), the risk of death is about 0.06% apparently, whereas for pregnancy it's 0.01% (if I've done my maths right)

So pregnancy is less likely to kill you, but my feeling would be you're much more likely to have other health complications (since a kidney donation is just the operation, and you're closely monitored after - it sounds like for the rest of your life - whereas a birth means you've had a baby bouncing around your internal organs, you've had all the hormonal changes, your body's expanded and contracted etc)

"I hope we never have commercial surrogacy in the UK"

But you already have commercial surrogacy in the UK. What else is the 15K (on average) payment upon delivery?

Most of us here know what it is to grow & deliver a baby and so also know that's not "expenses".

"certain things should just not be for sale."

What sort of things and why? Is it the "yuck" factor? Or some sort of faith-based morality?

I am not playing the devil's advocate, just interested to explore this debate from the ethical perspective.

Thanks GreenTomato.

Or some sort of faith-based morality?

Why faith based?

As far as I can see most of us arguing against commercialisation of human body parts are arguing from a largely deontological position, not a religious one.

The Kantian idea that you must treat human beings as ends in themselves, and not as a means to your own end, is central to the ethics of surrogacy to my mind.

"Why faith based?"

I was just guessing. The distinction does not appear to be based on rational calculation.

"most of us arguing against commercialisation of human body parts are arguing from a largely deontological position"

I would like to hear that argument, if you can make it: Why is it 'right' (in itself) to give away my blood but 'wrong' (again, in itself) to receive compensation for it?

Most of what I have seen on this thread was not Deontological (an act is right or wrong in itself) but Consequentialist (an act is right or wrong based on the consequences) - i.e. if people are allowed to sell blood, they would be tempted to sell too much and damage their health etc.

Matilda - "I think certain things shouldn't be for sale. who here on this thread thinks slavery is OK?"

Slavery is not OK because the slave receives no renumeration for his labour and does it because he will otherwise be beaten/killed.

People who are paid for their menial labour exist everywhere today. Cleaning ladies, farmers, etc do what slaves used to do. The only difference is that they are paid for their labour.

"Bodily things and labour can make people ill, and keep them under the control of others legally and through poverty."

Like mining, for example? It is very physical labour that puts the worker in danger on a daily basis and in the long term. It is paid labour and it is legal.

"So my perspective on this, as with prostitution, isn't from the point of view of what restrictions we should place on what people do with their own bodies"

But that is the consequences, regardless of the POV you feel you come from. You want to restrict people from doing something with their body that they want to do, which does not necessarily harm them.

"it's from the point of view of what sort of society do we live in where powerful people feel it is defensible to use the insides of very bodies of others"

Why is it OK to use the outsides of others' bodies (the hands of a masseuse, for example) but not the insides?

"I'd place altruistic surrogacy for a sister or close friend in the same category as mutually consensual enjoyable sex... Paid surrogacy goes with prostitution, paid organ donation"

Unfortunately for that argument, many women do choose to be prostitutes (often temporarily) out of their own free will and it is mutually consensual. I have heard some say that it is even enjoyable and thrilling.

There are many surrogates who say they enjoy being pregnant and being able to help couples desperate for a baby. It is of course consensual, as well.

From where I am sitting, this is looking like you wanting to impose your morality and your understanding of these issues (sex for money cannot possibly be mutually consensual and enjoyable?) on others.

I think I made a list a few pages back of things I think shouldn't be sold.

People and babies
Body parts and bodily fluids
Women's bodies to bear children
People's bodies for sex

Why? One reason, is because I find it to be like agriculture. That we are commercialising what we are rather than what we make or do.

This is the sort of exploitation we make of other animals and we shouldn't be doing it to one another. It demeans us

"So my perspective on this, as with prostitution, isn't from the point of view of what restrictions we should place on what people do with their own bodies, it's from the point of view of what sort of society do we live in where powerful people feel it is defensible to use the insides of very bodies of others towards their own ends."

I agree. If you rely on arguing (only) from the 'people we need to protect' line, then you run up against the 'my freedom to do what I want with my body' line. I find it morally reprehensible that anyone would be willing to buy sex. After all, if you were really so concerned, say, about the inability of disabled people men to obtain sexual release, you'd sleep with them anyway. Except most people don't want a pity-fuck. Making it a financial transaction commodifies it, puts the buyer back in charge! There is a vast difference between a gift freely given, and something you buy. Between sex 'given' out of love, and using the body of a prostitute, between being a surrogate for a relative out of love, and being an 'expenses-only' stranger surrogate. Which got me thinking about truly altruistic stranger organ donation.........except AFAIK there aren't groups of people organising themselves on the internet because they have the deep-seated need and wish and desire to donate (say) a third of their liver to a stranger (all expenses paid?). If there IS perhaps I'd rather not know about it! But people asking for a bone-marrow donor match to be found? That is different, in terms of who is originating the request, and the stakes involved (this child will die unless someone is kind enough..........).

"why is it so unethical to be paid for it". Is it ethical to be willing to pay, to advertise that you are willing to pay? Most people can see a big difference between being willing to do something totally for free, out of pure altruism, and being willing to do it, yet also willing to accept 'payment'. It alters the transaction totally for the recipient as well, from being someone who is accepting a gift which could have been withheld, to just being someone who is receiving what they have paid for.

Back to the organ donation case -- when asking for donors, the stumbling block for most people isn't the issue of payment (I hope). People in that case are asking for kindness, for someone to be willing to give something without payment, and something that won't directly benefit themselves, and might even inconvenience them severely. That is why it is so praiseworthy to be such a donor. Being willing to pay removes all that, then it's just the same old story of whatever you want, provided you can pay enough, there will be someone who is desperate enough to accept that payment.

Frankly, paid organ donation or bone-marrow would be more likely to win my sympathy as a financial transaction because at least there the stakes are higher -- people may die unless they get a transplant. It is difficult to see a wish for a baby as anything other than purely selfish. Yet it is also the high stakes in the organ donor case that means that in most countries, it is illegal to pay for organs, because of the potential for abuse and exploitation.

"commercialising what we are rather than what we make or do."

Sex is something we do, not something we are. Which means you should be fine with prostitution.

" find it morally reprehensible that anyone would be willing to buy sex"

I don't. Their customers obviously don't. Prostitutes themselves often don't.

Do you believe your morals should be imposed on everyone?

Matilda - I think I did. Feel free to show where I have misunderstood your post. And answer the rest of mine, of course.

I don't know whether kidney donation or pregnancy is more risky. It feels like the former because 100% of the time the donor will have to live with one kidney and will have to undergo surgery whereas far from 100% of pregnancies end with surgery and a missing organ.

I'm sure a health statistics specialist could do the calc properly, including major and minor effects and the risks of each.

Matilda - That is not a misunderstanding. You need to read my post and try to answer it.

I don't know whether kidney donation or pregnancy is more risky. It feels like the former because 100% of the time the donor will have to live with one kidney and will have to undergo surgery whereas far from 100% of pregnancies end with surgery and a missing organ.

Yes, that sounds right.

But I think pregnancy is far closer to kidney donation in risk levels than blood donation.

Your body is unlikely to be restored to its pre-pregnancy condition in health terms.

Although my third pregnancy probably did the least significant damage (and none of my damage was severe).

Do we think it's less risky, and therefore possibly less objectionable, after several successful pregnancies?

Probably not really. You can't tell in advance which ones will fuck you up a bit.

Society puts in place all kinds of laws to protect people - minimum wage, limits on children working, statutory holiday etc. Someone could say that they want to work somewhere that offers no holidays and that would be denied because it's illegal.

There are no 100% free markets.

"Do you believe your morals should be imposed on everyone?"

But that is what making laws does. No, I don't expect (or even want) everything that I consider immoral to be made illegal, but I do still think I ought to be able to say that i think buying sex to be morally reprehensible. I'm more than well enough aware that obviously many men think otherwise (else we wouldn't have a problem). Whether this is a state of affairs that should continue is another matter.

Why do you seem to find it so problematic that there are a range of opinions as to what is moral or immoral? Just because something is legal doesn't mean that it is morally desirable.

Actually, I'll go back to stating that I find the idea of someone willing to buy sex morally repugnant, whether that is a gay man or a straight man (since the overwhelming majority of punters are male -- hint, that might have something to do with why I am making that moral judgement.)

"I don't know whether kidney donation or pregnancy is more risky."

Papers I have found state that with carefully chosen live donors, the survival and risk of later kidney disease are the same as the normal population, although quality-of-life scores are higher in donors.

So I take that as with careful screening, no additional long-term risk for kidney donors(apart from the one-off risk of a general anesthetic and surgery?), whereas pregnancy involves several additional risk factors, both long and short term(?).

SomeDyke, I guess the health statistician would also factor in the small but serious risk of the donor developing kidney failure or being injured in the remaining kidney.

Either way, there's a certain risk with each procedure but a very clear overall view in society, I think, that kidney and bone marrow donations should be altruistic, and I'm not sure why there's the difference (other than, in general, the risks of pregnancy and birth are often disregarded)