Single men have a right to start a family

[Thecontentedcat]

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/19/single-men-will-get-the-right-to-start-a-family-under-new-defini/
I have not seen a thread on this yet, so apologies if this has already been done - but I find this recent development deeply worrying. How can anyone have a right to start a family?
What if: man and woman have ons, woman gets pregnant, wants abortion, man wants to exercise his 'right' to start a family and compel woman to carry to term? I don't think we can grow babies in jars yet, so this is either nonsense or very worrying.

I think organ donation is perhaps a better analogy than adoption. If you are in need of a transplant you are placed on a waiting list, but you don't have the automatic right to an organ unless one becomes available. The state does not force any of us to be organ donors and many, many people sadly die before they are able to have a transplant. Even if there were some sort of official list of available surrogates, women aren't going to be snatched off the street and impregnated against their will. The vast majority of people would never reach the top of the list.

Although this suggestion by WHO is just ridiculous, the situation being described here by some posters is so far from being a reality that I can't find the headspace to worry about it.

Yes, that's a good analogy Bue.

Women are already being pressured in to being surrogates in places where surrogacy is treated as a commercial enterprise. This is the WHO making this statement, it affects women around the world. And if money is to be made out of women's bodies you can bet your last dollar it won't be them seeing the lions share of the upside.

Not really like organ donation though because organs can't be borrowed. closer to hiring a vagina I would say. Are you ok with that bue?

Also these things -women forced into surrogacy- are already happening. This opens to door to acceptability.

Why not introduce these single women who want a child to the single men who want a child? They don't have to be in a relationship to have and raise a child together.
The same with gay couples. 2 mums and 2 dads is even better for the child!
Agreed paid surrogacy should not be an option.
This isn't an answer.

Thecontentedcat It's obviously not a perfect analogy but I am referring to the waiting list aspect discussed upthread. You have a right to be placed on the organ transplant list (with some caveats), but you don't have a right to a transplant. Presumably we're talking about a similar system.

itsbetterthanabox if you read Yotam Ottolenghi's account in the Guardian of trying to become a father, he and his partner actually tried that option first. They found a lesbian couple who wanted to coparent. It broke down, IIRC, because one or both of the couples realised they didn't want to share their child with another couple. But yeah it seems a good option.

I also disagree that everyone should have the right to reproduce even if they're single. Some people cannot get a partner for very good reasons.
Should a man that has been convicted of child sexual offences be allowed to pay a surrogate to produce a child for him?
Should someone that is HIV positive be allowed to reproduce with a surrogate? Would that surrogate contract HIV?
Should someone that has shown in their adult life that they cannot manage their affairs and regularly feed, clothe and house themselves be allowed to reproduce through a surrogate and have a child that they then cannot feed, clothe or house?

This definition of 'infertility' is utterly ridiculous.

The wording from the WHO gives a 'right to reproduce' not a right to be put on a waiting list. Words matter.

Yes absolutely, good examples undersmile

I also worry that the way they will 'find' enough surrogates is that women will have to "pay" for their IVF treatment (for their own child, with their partner) by acting as surrogates for other people.

WHAT? Are they fucking crazy?

Not that it is anything new. It is "just" a step backwards.

Men invented patriarchy to be able to use women's bodies for their own reproduction in ways that suit them.

Then feminism fought that.

And now they are reintroducing it through the back door before it has even really gone away, framing it as "right" as though it is the same as freedom and, whoopsie, bodily autonomy, which WOMEN DO NOT GET TO FUCKING HAVE IF MEN HAVE A RIGHT TO REPRODUCTION!

I too am stunned by the response considering this is FWR. Can people really not see how this would be problematic just because the odd woman doesn't mind being a surrogate?

And why are people are so convinced that women wouldn't be forced against their will to surrogate for men, even in this country. Men already have form for using women as commodities whether they like it or not. It's called prostitution. And having sex isn't even a right.

And why are people are so convinced that women wouldn't be forced against their will to surrogate for men, even in this country.

I have NO idea. If there was a right to get a donor organ - not just to be put on a waiting list for some that might be donated, but the right to get one asap - everyone can see this would be achieved by exploiting poor people. Poor people in other countries at first, perhaps, so it wouldn't seem as threatening, but everyone with a brain can see where it leads.

From that article, Empress does anyone have the slightest idea wtf this even means?

Flaps They are referring to males who go back to producing sperm after stopping HRT as being "pregnant". It's delusional. That whole article is cringeworthy and quite disturbing.

I agree that this is a dangerous idea.

Also, jumping in here because some posters have brought up egg donation and compared it to donating sperm. I hope everyone is aware that there are many ways in which the two are not analogous. Harvesting eggs poses very real health risks to the donor, and this is an important feminist issue.

www.cbc-network.org/issues/making-life/egg-donation-and-exploitation-of-women/

I don't think the numbers of single men seeking to excercise this 'right', will be all that large to be honest. Seeing how few men (proportionately to women at least) push for things like parental leave. The number of threads on here that involve a father not pulling his weight with childcare as soon as kids are on the scene. We just don't live in a culture where all that many men would seek to take this sort of thing on.

I do recognise how this presents an existential threat to women's (particularly in developing nations with a lot of poverty) bodily autonomy. However it doesn't necessarily have to if coupled with a global ban on commercialising surrogacy.

My primary concern is what about a child's right to live in an optimal environment with a pair of parents looking out for their well being? Statistically children do better when they grow up in stable family environments with two committed parents. Also without wishing to put too fine a point on it raising a child requires resources, where are the extra resources going to come from?

Would you have an issue with a single woman using a surrogate to start a family?

Yes I would.

If people are given the right to reproduce, women's rights are over.

Until I can actually find a statement from the WHO saying this is true, I am not going to believe it.

Because I cannot bring myself to. It's just horrendous.

Surely the "right to reproduce" does not mean that a single man would have the right to be provided with the means by which to reproduce?

I have a legal right to drink alcohol. That does not mean that the onus falls upon the government to buy it for me. I have to find somewhere that sells alcohol, who is willing to sell it to me, and then have the means to buy it. If the shop is closed or declines to sell it to me, that is my hard luck.

So a man's right to reproduce would mean the onus should fall on him to find a woman to carry his child, and if that woman declines then hard luck?

Or am I confusing a right to do something with the right to be provided with the means to do it?

I agree that the way it's been framed as the "right" to a biological child sets us down a worrying path. I do have a problem with commercial surrogacy, which I don't think is in any way batshit, because of the potential for the exploitation of economically disadvantaged women.

I'm reading "Backlash", by Susan Faludi at the moment, and I'm in the chapter about the move in America in the 80s towards granting rights and protections to foetuses. It is terrifying, and has a lot of parallels with this situation. These foetal protection laws led to horrific abuses against women, up to and including performing forced caesarian sections that killed the mothers in favour of trying to save the unborn child, prosecutions for miscarriages and numerous other horrors.

So what would happen if there was an unplanned pregnancy, which the woman wished to end, but the man invoked his "right" to fatherhood? Say it was in America with the foetal protection laws - you then have two sets of rights, the foetus' and the mans, in conflict with the woman's right to bodily autonomy. Game over. Forced pregnancy.

The WHO have completely overstepped the mark with this.

I don't understand how anyone can have the 'right' to reproduce personally.

In every case, it involves using some part of someone else - now for a woman, that's just sperm which is easy, pleasurably, and painlessly given (in massive contrast to eggs donation or surrogacy), but I still don't have the right to demand it from someone!

We just don't live in a culture where all that many men would seek to take this sort of thing on.

Actually, I think there are men who would exercise this right. Not necessarily because they want a child, but because it allows them to exert control over the woman. Top of the list would be domestic violence cases where reproductive coercion has been an issue, but also rape victims, a vengeful ex where an unplanned pregnancy has occurred. If true, this is a bloody awful development. After everything that has happened over the last few weeks, this is terrifying. Women's bodily autonomy and right to reproductive control are under threat. Will a woman's preference to delay starting a family and using contraception within a marriage be open to challenge? Brave new world, eh?

Does anyone have a link to any official WHO statements / guidelines rather than media reporting? I'd like to see the official position and how it is couched (I've looked and I can't find anything).

Also, like Flapstie I'd love to know WTF this means.

"What this means is that trans women who stop taking HRT for a few months can reverse sterilization and become pregnant with viable sperm"

Whoever wrote that article (I keep thinking of them as 'Loretta') probably needs to go back to school and learn some biology - they seem either confused or deluded. I also agree that the article was thoroughly offensive to women. Gawd what will be next? Accusing women of transphobia / misogyny if we don't act as incubators for the sperm of transwomen?

Giving men the right to have a child is giving them the right to womens bodies.

Wrong wrong wrong.

Abortion could very easily become illegal, couldn't it?