IVF, surrogacy, sperm donation, feminism

[loopdeloo]

Firstly, I should say that I have just had a second round of unsuccessful IVF and it looks like this is not going to work out for me and DH, so I am having a lot of emotional and confusing thoughts and I really hope people can bear that in mind if I say something offensive on what is a hugely sensitive topic and please forgive me if I get this wrong.

Because of our situation, we are now being talked to about egg donation (i.e. attempting IVF with another woman's eggs and my DH's sperm). I don't want to do this because it doesn't feel right for me personally for a number of reasons, one of which is it just feels too "Handmaid's" and that I would be a vessel to provide my DH with his own genetic offspring. He completely gets this, and the other reasons that resonate for both of us, and we are looking at adoption instead.

I have two sets of lesbian friends who have children through sperm donation from someone they knew. In one family, the father is involved, in the other he is not, although he is not being kept "anonymous". This has never seemed to be much of a problem to me. I also have one set of gay male friends who have adopted 2 children in the UK and they are wonderful parents and although it has been hard, their experience has really helped DH and I look at adoption positively.

And yet now I have a couple of male gay friends who have decided to go to the US to have a surrogate mother - who will be anonymous to the child - and it is making me feel deeply uncomfortable. The total cost is going to be near on $100k and they are spending time browsing through brochures of women's profiles. As I type, I'm not sure why the cost is relevant and yet it seems to be so I'm going to leave it in the post. This seems even more 'handmaid's' and I can't quite get my head round it.

Is this just a purely irrational and emotional reaction due to my personal struggle with infertility, or is there a feminist issue here? I am aware that I'm all over the shop emotionally at the moment and that there is the potential for great hypocrisy here and I'm genuinely interested in your thoughts and not looking for agreement or sympathy.

[DonkeySkin]

It's not her baby though. The surrogate isn't biologically related to the baby.

This is a patriarchal reversal, an attempt to reduce the female reproductive role to the male one (gamete supply).

Gestating and birthing a baby is not only, by definition, a biological process, it is the primary process involved in reproducing the species, and is both physically and experientially not comparable to gamete supply.

When people claim that a woman who has gestated and birthed a baby isn't the child's biological parent, they are engaging in a reversal of reality, because motherhood (the female reproductive role) is biological to its roots, especially in mammals, who are so classified because the females bear live young and suckle them ('mammal' from the Latin 'mamma', meaning breast). It is fatherhood that has little biological basis, beyond the initial supply of a single sperm. Fatherhood is a cultural institution, not a biological one - the males in most mammal species (including our closest relatives, chimps) have little to nothing to do with their offspring.

[Bear2014]

This is a very interesting thread. 💐 to you OP.

Both my babies are 'double donor'. My female partner's eggs and donor sperm. We chose to do it this way so we could both be physically involved. I breastfed my DD for 2 years and to me they are 100% my children; genetics being a non issue. This is a personal thing but for that reason I can't get my head around how surrogates can hand over the baby.

Having gone through 2 gruelling pregnancies and had 2 c sections, it's a very big deal and nothing like egg or sperm donation.

There is no easy answer and adoption is also problematic in many cases. I feel for anyone confronted with any of this through infertility.

[QuentinSummers]

Great post donkey. I was uncomfortable with some pps in a vague way and you just nailed why, thank you

[GuardianLions]

My friend who was a surrogate was paid $120k and put up in a beach house in Malibu for a year.

That guided cage sounds like a year long living hell that would scar you and haunt you for life. Gestating a baby away from everything familiar to you, going through all the emotions of pregnancy - the fears, doubts, hopes with huge emotional pressure and presumably controlling behaviour from people who feel entitled to rent and breed you like a human farm animal. Then having to give the baby up.
Horrific.

[GuardianLions]

Should be "gilded cage".

[Leilaniii]

GuardianLions, you know NOTHING about her. How can you possibly judge?

[fatberg]

leilanii, purely on the words you’ve posted here, I’m judging too. Not her necessarily, but certainly the situation, and definitely the parents.

[Jinglebellhell17]

I meant legally donkey. You can have the philosophical debate about whether a surrogate who has no biological link to the baby is stil it's mother but in the US she is not. A parental order is issued while the baby is still in utero. The surrogate has to be educated enough to properly consent and she has her own legal representation paid for by the parents. Most parents want the most educated surrogate possible. The surrogate must already have children of her own. No one goes into this blind.

[GuardianLions]

Leilaniii
I am not judging her. But I do know about gestating and birthing - how it is the most radical, transforming thing that has every happened to me or my body and i've never heard any woman feel cavalier about it.
It is preposterous for you to imagine it was as straightforward for her as going to work for an okay-ish salary for a year. She will live with it for the rest of her life. I doubt those feelings and thoughts are ones she wants to share with the same people she convinced she was making easy money in a cushty set up - like you, for example.

[mustbemad17]

Haven't rtft but wanted to have an input. I was a surrogate in 2015 for a gay couple. The road to surrogacy for them was a long one; they looked into fostering & adopting but were turned down for ridiculous reasons (I've seen the paperwork). They got so far down the road to be turned down, it was devastating for them.

Surrogacy was their final option of having a family. In the UK surrogacy for profit is illegal, so there is no commercialisation of it & IPs definitely do not spend out £100k!! There are still many hoops to jump through. To me, surrogacy is no different to IVF with a donor egg.

[mustbemad17]

Sorry, caught up a little bit. Maybe I should give an insight into how we matched & did our journey.

I met my couple on FB (uh oh, seedy back alley route). You legally cannot advertise yourself as a surrogate in this country, so you either join a group like I did or you use an agency - using an agency is IMO slightly more commercialised because the agency run 'damage control'. They also set your expenses regardless & take a fee for 'setting up' a match. Not sure how that bit is legal but hey.

So, I met my couple quite innocently on the group, we were chatting on a thread about where we lived & realised we were close. There's no bikini shots, no looking at stastistics, you can gauge how someone is from how they interact with others & go from there.
We spent a few weeks chatting about things, what they were looking for, what i expected, what relationships would remain once baby was born. When we met up it was like I already knew them & we got on amazingly well.

Our journey was overwhelmingly amazing. They were actively involved in every appointment, every aspect of the pregnancy & they made sure i was happy with things through each stage. They were both there for the birth too.
Our CAFCASS officer wrote such a glowing report to the courts because of how well our journey worked & the courts told us that we were sparkling examples of how well surrogacy can work.

Two years down the line & whilst i don't see the baby as regularly (work changes mean we live quite away away) I get regular updates, speak to them regularly & consider them family.

Comparing surrogacy in the US to that in the UK is naive & insulting for those of us involved. The US boasts this catalogue of things that they can 'tweak' to ensure that every parent can get exactly what they want. Egg donation, sperm donation, surrogacy is all massively commercialised over there & in fact they use the money factor as a drive to increase donors/surrogates.

[tiktok]

I have a (fairly distant and we don't see them) family member who has two children, just a few months apart in age, both from surrogate mothers but both genetically the children of my family member and partner. The mothers were from the US and so there were legal issues with intercountry adoption. Apparently it cost a huge amount of money. The official line in their family is what a miracle, what a joy.

I know their journey through all the hoops of fertility treatment was awful.

I had my children with no problems so it feels wrong to judge them.

But there are huge ethical problems with commodifying conception, pregnancy and birth, involving another woman's body and life. I don't think these same issues apply to sperm donation or egg donation. Altruistic surrogacy is less problematic but I am still not sure about it - while it deals with the money side of it by making it unapaid, women are expected to 'behave' and relinquish their child.

We should not expect desperate would-be parents to somehow rein themselves in. Instead legislation - internationally agreed - is the way to go. I cannot see any way to protect women from this sort of embodied commodification otherwise. When it came out, I read Julie Bindel's report on what happens in India (linked to by a pp) and this affected my thinking. It's just not right.

None of us has a right to be a parent. None of us 'deserves' to be a parent. 'Nature' does not give a shit if some of us can't manage it - enough of us manage it to preserve the species. A worthwhile life, a fulfilling life, and a happy life - all possible without children of our own....but I know to say that from my position of having them sounds horribly cruel.

[mustbemad17]

I think looking at surrogacy as a woman having to hand over their child is wrong - if you're talking India (where i believe now surrogacy outside the country is illegal anyway) then yes, exploitation is high. In the US & the UK it is less likely to be something a woman is forced into. And indeed the law still supports the surrogate; by law the woman who gives birth to the baby is mum. IPs can really be given a rough ride during a pregnancy by HCPs because they literally have no rights at all to the baby until paperwork is signed.

I have seen surrogates withold babies (it isn't a wisespread thing in my experience but it does happen) from IPs, & I have seen IPs act as complete c**nts to their surrogates, but it's few & far between.

[SylviaPoe]

So many situations are currently getting worse for women, and it can feel very disheartening. It is always two steps forward one step back for women’s rights.

The legal protection around surrogacy is our two steps forward- because all around the world countries are banning commercial surrogacy and tightening up surrogacy regulations.

[SylviaPoe]

‘IPs can really be given a rough ride during a pregnancy by HCPs because they literally have no rights at all to the baby until paperwork is signed.‘

Why are they even seeing an HCP?

[mustbemad17]

I mean HCPs in general connected to the birth. IPs attend appointments, scans etc with the surrogate just as your partner would in a natural pregnancy.

[SylviaPoe]

Well then their rights are neither here nor there. Most of the appointment is about the health of the mother and supporting her.

[mustbemad17]

At every appointment I attended with my DD my partner was treated with respect & actively involved in things. I expect the same attitude towards my OH this time. I expected similar with my IPs.

[mustbemad17]

I think from reading through this thread people have very misguided views on surrogacy based purely on what they see from celeb mags & the skewed media.

In the US, social surrogacy is perfectly legal. So is choosing an egg donor based on looks, IQ etc - and in fact the more desirable a donor the bigger bucks her eggs cost. It is also very commercialised, so yeah money is a massive factor when a woman decides to be a surrogate.

In the UK it is illegal to profit from surrogacy & expenses are checked by CAFCASS & the courts before any PO is granted.

In India it is completely different, hence why they changed the laws so that IPs from outside the country cannot use an Indian surrogate. Exploitation is massive, the checks are non existant.

In the UK social services get involved if/when needed. Hospitals have policies for surrogacy & SS are informed routinely. This means that should a prospective parent raise concerns, those concerns can be dealt with.


I completely understand people having reservations about surrogacy, it's a massive thing to get your head around especially if you only really see what the media portrays. All I can say is try to have an understanding of the differences between different countries before passing judgement on things like commercialism, social surrogacy etc.

[SylviaPoe]

I don’t see any misunderstanding at all - study after study shows the human rights violations and exploitation involved in surrogacy, and governments use those reports to ban commercial surrogacy. Sweden would be a better recent example of a country reviewing this than India, because Sweden has a social situation more similar to the UK. A few anecdotes on here from pro surrogacy people does not mean feminists misunderstand the situation.

[grannytomine]

I don't think these same issues apply to sperm donation or egg donation Maybe the issues aren't the same but there are issues. The child can have issues as they grow up, I mentioned the woman I know up thread and it has certainly caused mental health issues for her. It can also cause issues in a couples relationship, one parent can feel pushed out or 2nd class and it can affect the relationship with the child (this was the root of the problems with the person I know.)

[SylviaPoe]

I would also expect people attending an appointment with a patient to be treated with respect, regardless of who they are. I can’t see that their rights have anything to do with it.

[blue2014]

I can't fully form my opinion on this but I feel uncomfortable with the idea of telling women what they can't and shouldn't do.

My DS was conceived as a result of IVF. I would have used donor eggs if needed. I feel like the luckiest thing in the world that my body could hold a pregnancy and still hold sadness for my MN peers who didn't just hit a lucky "win" like I did. Having seen that heartbreak I seriously considered surrogacy.

I decided against it because I'm getting on (39) and because I had a pretty awful pregnancy (getting 1 hour sleep each night with extreme anxiety) which was actually manageable without a child - I just genuinely couldn't cope now. However, if I was younger my heart would really really want to do it.

I don't like the idea that based on feminist principles you would tell me I can't. That I can't do what I want with my own body. I don't like it, it makes me shiver.

[SylviaPoe]

You’re not being told you can’t become pregnant by anyone you want though. You can do what you want with your body. The law governs payments and claims to parental responsibility.

[mustbemad17]

Sylvia you would hope that anyone involced would be respected. Unfortunately my experiences with some (worthy to mention it of course isn't all) HCP's are that IPs are somehow second class.