The mother of Tom Daley's child

[Pratchet]

Congratulations on a healthy baby! Hope the birth went safely and that you are recovering well.

I just hate surrogacy in case you can't tell

With advances in medicine we aren't that far from artificial wombs being used to produce children

As someone who had trouble staying pregnant and learned along the way that we still know so little about early pregnancy - we are a really, really long way from artificial wombs.

It is homophobic to state same sex couples shouldn’t have children.

So who’s stating that?

Couples should not be allowed to rent wombs under a system of commercial surrogacy. This goes for Kim Kardashian and husband as much for Tom Daley and husband.

@hallie29 according to whom?
There's a few weak studies suggesting they do okay academically.

There's an equal number of studies that disagree. Statistically those with 2 fathers rather than 2 mothers seem to do better, which I do find very interesting, I would have assumed the opposite.

In reality, not enough research has been done and all study groups have been too small to garner meaningful results.

Anecdotal evidence is pretty shit as evidence goes, I know, but I do have many friends in the same circumstances (as often happens!) and can share our experiences and opinions.

I just thought you might be interested, I never claimed to speak for everyone.
I just find it interesting to hear the experiences of those in more unusual situations that might make me think about issues I hadn't considered, and thought you might too.

You sound very closed minded and bigoted however, and seem to think you know what I'm going to say before I've said it.
The fact you wrongly assumed I was going to speak negatively about my experience, when I could have been about to back you up about gay parenting, says more about what you fear to be true and what you would like to silence than anything else.

It’s fairly obvious what you think broad

"Two men cannot have children together. That is fact not homophobia.

They paid for the use of a womans body again fact not homophobia.

The fact that they are gay men means they cannot be bio dads without involving a woman. That is not me denying them being parents."

I don't think she was referring to this. I think she meant the people saying that gay men should not adopt or use surrogacy(in other words not be parents unless co-parenting) because a child needs to grow up with a mother are homophobic.

There are certain principles that civilised society holds so important that it prohibits them entirely.
Slavery.
Murder.
There are two parties involved in the relationship - the murderer and the murdered, the slave owner and the slave.
You cannot grant permission to another person to enslave or murder you, no matter how freely you wish to consent to this. You cannot sell your organs.
Because the person on the other side of that relationship becomes a murderer or a slave owner, or a commercial organisations harvester - and it is THAT which is prohibited.

And even if make every effort to legalise and make valid your consent, the law will not allow this, because the very principle of owning another person, or taking the life of another person is so abhorrent that society forbids it. The focus is not on the wishes of the victim, but on the act of the perpetrator.
'But she freely consents' is not the issue.
'But a person's body cannot be bought, used, killed or owned by another' is.

I believe surrogacy is the same.
It isn't the consent of the surrogate that gives validity to the situation.
It is that we are contractually giving legal rights over another person's body to what is not really distinguishable from a slave owner.

If a surrogate CANNOT legally enjoy the same human rights of autonomy over her own body as any other pregnant woman, even if she were to change her mind about her pregnancy, then we have created a situation whereby we have expressly removed her human rights. For a price.

How is that different from legalised slavery?

There was an article discussed on here a while back about the Drewitt Barlow family. They are very rich gay men who own a surrogacy agency and have about 6 children.

The eldest daughter is around 18 now and she gave an interview basically saying she likes the idea of having a surrogate baby herself so she doesn't have go through pregnancy and birth.

It's very concerning that this is the mindset that occurs if commercialised surrogacy is pushed as a reasonable option rather than an exception to the rule under altruistic circumstances.

Add to that all the discussion around womb transplants for men and artificial incubators to gestate foetuses in and you end up with a society that is trying to disassociate the importance of a mother to a child.

Science still doesn't fully understand every single process of pregnancy and childbirth on a genetic level, new discoveries about the symbiotic relationship of mother and child are still being made.

We play about with the natural process without yet fully understanding it. I understand why we do in many circumstances because the empathy for childless/infertile people is strong, but we can't pretend to fully understand all the impacts on the child.

Except that isn't what is being said.
But people are also saying that growing up without a mother is harmful to the child. So in this way they are saying that gay men shouldn't have children(unless they involve a woman by co-parenting apparently)

Lass wtf are you talking about? I'm beginning to think you can't read.

It is a horrible concept which apparently you came up with all on your own
I told you, I heard this expression when it was used by Nicole Kidman years ago.

None of the terms you suggest are appropriate for differentiating between surrogates who use their own egg and those who don't.
I consider a woman who freely enters into this arrangement for money and has no bio link to the child to not be any kind of mother, genetic, birth or legal.

@hallie29
As I said, I find it very interesting when I've only verbalised my opinions on deliberately creating a child to deprive it of genetic parents, that you assume my position on gay adoption.
If anything, my posts up to this point would suggest my opinion would be that there was no difference between the caregiver an adopted child ended up with as the trauma came from genetic separation.

If it's "obvious" that I would feel negatively about it, then I really suggest you change your opinion on gay parenthood yourself.
If it's "obvious" without my saying that I was unhappy with it, then clearly it's dreadful.

I think we need to look at this from the point of view the child.

The child should have the right to know who their biological mother and father are. They should actually have a defined mother and defined father. They may never meet them, nor want to, but if they do want to know, I find it deeply unethical to have this erased.

It certainly is not erased in adoption and children frequently trace biological parents. Artificial insemination laws have changed to allow fathers to be traced.

I believe a child should be abe to say who are my biological parents? We, as a society, should not purposefully set up a system where this is not possible. I think UK law agrees with this principle.

Creating a child to bear your pain so you don't have to, is just not on.

Wow. Very powerful.

So either

Women and men are the same, a man is as capable as a woman is of raising a child, and so on.

Or

Women are able to raise a child with another woman, but a man can’t raise a child with another man

Or

Same sex couples shouldn’t have children at all.

How about women and men are not the same. It is physically impossible to create a baby without significant imput from the mother's body. The mother is the world to the baby. Men also perpetrate the majority of the world's violence, so a lot of children are better off having very little contact with their dad. There's a difference.

Most lesbian parents I know started off with a heterosexual relationship (and gay dads too for that matter) but it is more common for custody of the children to go to the mum, so a lot of kids of lesbians still have a relationship with their dad.

I wonder how many people here who support surrogacy have birthed their own children? I think that can change your perspective, it did mine, before I had my own kids I wasn’t ever planning on having children and would have considered surrogacy, and now I would never ever consider it.

Echoing the pps who have said Being a parent is not a human right and there is something deeply unsettling about people who live their lives on social media and their use of children as props in their very carefully staged lives.

Also a lot of new posters with interesting usernames popping up to tell us that we are being shrieking and hysterical because we are discussing women’s biology

We see you

There is no homophobia.

It would be the same for heterosexual single people. A single woman could, if she wished, use a friend or a sperm donation clinic in order to conceive. She would carry the baby and give birth to the baby. I don't disapprove of that.

If a single man were to pay a woman to carry his baby, give birth to his baby and then hand the baby over to him...I would disapprove of that.

It's about bodily autonomy.

@slashlover
Yep as an adoptee I find those comments pretty abhorant too.
It's the same as when I see people moaning about how stringent the adoption process is, it really needs to be. These are traumatised children, and adopting a child is infinitely more challenging than birthing one. There are so many issues to contend with, such as birth parent contact etc.

Saying "why don't they just adopt" minimises the trauma of the child, and also assumes that the adoptive parent can emotionally deal with many of the issues - I truly don't think I could.

There is, sadly, no solution for those unable to adopt that satisfies the need to protect the child from trauma. I truly hope that one day, there will be such a solution.

It's about bodily autonomy.

Yes but what about the child, and it's children? These decisions ripple through generations and producing motherless children, where there is not a mother but a donor and a gestator paid and secret with neither male parent saying who donated the sperm ( or knowing) is ethically problematic and deeply unfair for the offspring.

I think every child has a right (if possible) to know of any medical/biological history which could affect them and their children.

I know very very little of my biological father, beyond that he was Spanish, had brittle bone disease (I don’t know if that’s the correct term, it’s what was written on my paperwork) and wanted me aborted.

I know some of my biological mother’s history, but not a lot.

I wish I knew more.

@nakedscientist
A million times yes. Thank you for recognising this.

The effect my lack of genetic history has on my daughter is profound in a way I never could have imagined.
Doing her family tree at school, for instance, resulted in much upset. I'm ashamed to say I didn't expect it, as I've only ever answered her questions about my adoption and never talked about the negative aspects (I guess I didn't want to worry or upset her).
She was honestly bereft. It broke my heart.

(My son on the other hand couldn't care less once he realised this didn't mean he was due another set of grandparental Christmas gifts )

It is a horrible concept which apparently you came up with all on your own
I told you, I heard this expression when it was used by Nicole Kidman years ago

Oh apologies I missed the fact you were copying what Nicole Kidman said and lack the critical thinking needed to work out why the term is so offensive, even if one were unaware of its use in bloostock breeding.

There is nothing wrong morally, ethically, factually or legal with the alternatives unless of course you are determined to find a reason to continue to use the dehumanising term.

It is homophobic to state same sex couples shouldn’t have children.

Nobody is saying that.

It is misogynistic and patriarchal to rent a woman's body and possibly destabilising for a child's identity formation. This has nothing to do with orientation.

Adult human beings don't have the right to buy anything just because they have enough money, including a child.

Yes, naked scientist, I'm in agreement with you.

@soddingunicorns it sucks, doesn't it?
This thread has reassured me that (most, sane) people are beginning to see this is an issue. For a lot of my life people have primarily expected me to feel gratitude towards my adoptive parents. It's a welcome change to see that people are beginning to recognise the pain those children who are separated from their parents suffer.

I heard Toms partner talking at length on 5 live. I have to say he was extremely articulate and savvy and rather scary.