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

Wombs should not be for rent, I am against exploitation and the sale of human tissue.

For those talking about adoption I would like to say it's not some great panacea. Both myself and my sibling were adopted at birth and the effects are something that run deep through both of us.

However lovely non bio parents are there is something disorientating about not being biologically connected to your family. Not being able to see your own features, traits, personality mirrored back in the same way that happens in other families.

I personally believe it leaves you with a slightly fractured sense of self. I ended up becoming a parent as a very young teen, driven in part I think by a desire to create a biological connection and somehow 'right the wrong' that I felt existed.

And I say all this knowing that I was one of the lucky ones who had good, kind adoptive parents.

I know in some circumstances separating a child from birth parents is the best option but it bothers me enormously when it is engineered.

I'm very disappointed that being against commercial surrogacy is seen as being gay-bashing

I put that down mostly to a blend of whataboutery and sealioning.

Its really simple for me. Should people be able to buy, rent or sell use of other human's bodies. Be it for sex, surrogacy or organs.

Dressing it up with baby pictures doesn't alter the fact that the objects of these transactions are found in the poorer groups of society and give their "informed consent" in that context.

The contracts I've seen around US surrogacy are shocking and I struggle to respect anyone from here going to the US to take advantage of them.

I am at a loss here. They obviously can't carry a child themselves, and everyone knows how gruelling and difficult adoption can be, so surrogacy is surely the last remaining option? What else do you expect them to do, stay childless forever? And we have no idea what the wishes of the surrogate herself are; it's possible that she asked them not to say anything at all.

Yes it is homophobia.

Yes it is. Many posts on here are SCREAMING it, and the faux outrage, and the drama, and the histrionics on here are pathetic.

I am done. This thread is vile and nasty and so are many of the posts.

Homophobia, accusations of using 'poor women' as baby-making machine's, ripping a child from its mother, child abuse, this thread has so much nasty shit I can't believe it. Some posters are absolutely vile and disgusting. Shame on you.

She might not want publicity

For the umpteenth time- no one is asking for her to be named. An acknowledgement she existed would be a start.

This is obviously because they are 2 gay men. This thread would not exist if a hetero couple did it
Commercial surrogacy has been discussed before in relation to hetero and homosexual couples. There is not a single poster on here who would have a different opinion were they a hetero couple.

Also, if it was a man donating his sperm, no-one would be saying anything

Possibly because there is not the remotest comparison?

No, shame on you.

I hate the term 'real mother' in adoption, it is so disrespectful to the other parent. Whether it is implying that the birth mother is nothing more than biology, or that the adoptive mother is nothing more than a childminder. Most people actually involved in adoption to their utmost to avoid it.

Does anyone know of any research that has gone on for outcomes of surrogacy for the child? It would have to be a 20/30 year study and distinguish between levels of ongoing contact, hetero/homo/single parents, and it would be interesting to know whether there are different outcomes in mental well being. My instinct would be that those with no / letter contact only could be disadvantaged emotionally, but I'd love to know whether that is true.
Also interesting would be comparison with donor eggs/sperm.

Please quote the homophobia. Or screenshot. Otherwise we might think it's all in your mind.

Then leave the thread and take your childish accusations with you little

You say she is a mother, as if that is indisputable fact. To me it isn't. Mother (to me) = genetic parent and/or the female parent who raises the child (as in cases where women have received donated eggs in order to have a baby). This surrogate doesn't view herself as the child's mother. I don't dispute that she has done a difficult and potentially risky thing in growing and giving birth to a human, but she did it for money, with the intention of handing that baby to the people who really wanted him. She is not a mother. She is a person who helped facilitate the existance of the child. Gestational carrier sounds cold, but what other term is there, if you genuinely don't believe a surrogate using someone else's egg is a mother?
To be clear, I am not in favour of the US system and I think Brits should not be allowed to circumvent our laws by going abroad where we do not know that a surrogate made a free choice, but what I don't like about our system is that the genetic parents have no automatic legal rights and a surrogate who may have no bilogical link to a child is the legal mother.
I agree there is a case to be answered that the child may well feel she is his mother and certainly as an adult the child should be entitled to all his genetic information.

You may object to what you see as commercialisation of a woman's body by men who view her as merely a vessel to get what they want and I do agree with you but otoh, if a woman freely makes a choice to enter into this exchange of growing a baby in exchange for money, is that not her right?

That was for Dynamite, who in no evidence whatsoever is accusing us of being bigots.

It's becoming very common these days for women who wish to discuss women's rights to be accused of being bigots.

@littlemissdynamite

But what are your views on the commodification of women's bodies? Especially if those women are poorer and so the element of 'choice' is much more of a grey area?

Do you have any views on that?

I'm very disappointed that being against commercial surrogacy is seen as being gay-bashing

I put that down mostly to a blend of whataboutery and sealioning

Or being a bit dim.

It's becoming very common these days for women who wish to discuss women's rights to be accused of being bigots.

Yes, isn't it just?

she definitely wanted to do it,

Do you know her? Because otherwise I’m not sure that you can say that for certain in a commercial surrogacy case.

Wait his husband is only 3 years younger than his dad, and then named the kid the same name. Talk about daddy issues

Gestational carrier sounds cold, but what other term is there, if you genuinely don't believe a surrogate using someone else's egg is a mother?

It doesn't sound "cold", it sounds misogynistic to the level of the Handmaids Tale. Women are not incubator vessels. She gestated and gave birth to the child. Of course she is the birth mother. People believe a lot of silly things.

if a womanfreelymakes a choice to enter into this exchange of growing a baby in exchange for money, is that not her right?

Doesnt the presence of payment stop it from being freely done though?

Are rich women being commercial surrogates?
Are women wavering the fee?
Or are they renting out their body via coercion, the coercian being the payment?

Why should any human be expected to sell or be sold to make another human feel better emotionally or physically?

His dad is dead, and they named him after him as an act of remembrance. Don't be vile Robo

It's becoming very common these days for women who wish to discuss women's rights to be accused of being bigots.

Isn't it just.

Are you suggesting mothers are paid to give up their child for adoption.
In the UK mothers who have had a child removed before often get pregnant extremely quickly, and one of the main factors is that when pregnant they get attention and care that they don't get the rest of the time. So not money, no, but a benefit that they wouldn't have otherwise.

What about the men's feelings again, the bigoted phobes. The sale of bodies doesn't matter it's all about the men.

Women and children matter too.

Gestational carrier is a concept in the breeding of high value/ high quality animals. It is used for top end racing horse stock and genetic modification of agricultural stock. The gametes from highly valuable parents will be implanted in a gestational carrier.

The carrier will be well looked after during the pregnancy but if the pregnancy has complications only the lesser value animal suffers.

Does that explain why calling a surrogate birth mother a "gestational carrier" is wrong?

And no before any one jumps on this I am not remotely intending to suggest they thought this way. This post is directed solely to the poster who used this expression.