OBJECT Dec activist meeting, central London

[amandadecabernet]

Hi all. I'm helping to set up an OBJECT activist group. We'll be meeting in central London in early December. If you'd like to come along pm me.

OBJECT currently focuses on 5 Key Issues relating to the oppression and objectification of women:

Pornography

Prostitution

Sex Encounter Venues

Surrogacy

'Transgender'

www.objectnow.org/
www.facebook.com/ObjectUpdate/

surrogacy is an interesting one! woke me of a few years ago thought it was OUTRAGEOUS that women here were not paid properly for it because it looked like hard work yeah? i could not see that the law preventing it was actually there to protect women and prevent surrogacy becoming a market driven product. i would say i was speaking from a position of privilege back then - and I guess i was as despite having endured most of the shit things men do to women uninvited, i've never been coerced or forced to sell my body or needed to do so for food or rent.

but i think it is more than that for me. if a woman decides to be a surrogate for her sister or for her gay friends that's a very altruistic and moving thing to do. but what is key here is that the woman is in a relationship with the sister or the gay friends. children are born of relationships, we shouldn't be able to purchase them off a shelf. babies become fully human through their earliest relationships, including the relationship with their mother in utero (a baby kept fed but not interacted with will grow up with extreme physical and mental deficits). the idea of a baby being a product seems to move away from acknowledging the importance of early relationships.

and of course the whole thing is open to terrible exploitation. what do you do if you can't keep up with demand?

Thank you, will do!

stillathing yes and another case of the law and science not being able to catch up with commerce. And as with prostitution there is likely to be a two-tier system where poor women do not have the same legal protection.

SaskiaRembrandtWasFramed pleasure. :)

Just to say that I tried subscribing to OBJECT using the form and no confirmation has come through (I've checked Spam).

I'll check again tomorrow.

Sorry to go a bit off piste and bring it back to the surrogacy thing - but you seem to have good stuff!

How would you articulate the differentiation between surrogacy and other work that people do that carries personal risk and discomfort but is paid for?

I suppose the obvious example is soldiers. But what about say people (by which I mean almost all men) who do say mining. I know that modern mining is a world away from the old days - so it might not be a great example - but you get what I mean I hope - a job that involves personal risk and discomfort and therefore people are paid for it.

Is there some sort of argument that the reason that surrogacy should not be paid for because women's work that involves risk/effort should always be done for free?

I'm not being goady by the way. I think commercial surrogacy is wrong. I'm just trying to get my intellectual knots untied.

Ignore if this is too annoying to respond to!

placemarking- had a long day and incapable of doing anything about this right now, but definitely interested.

on surrogacy, I was really struck by the tone of misogyny when Tom Daley and his husband went on the radio a couple of months ago to bewail the state of surrogacy in the uk (they’d gone to the us, I believe). They expressed astonishment that in the uk it was possible for the mother to change her mind and decide to keep the baby after all, when to me that sounded perfectly sensible. The US was so much better, it seemed, because everyone was contractually obliged so knew where they stood. This would benefit surrogate couples but not the birth mother necessarily.

Similarly place marking

arranfan do you mean you used the contact form on the OBJECT main website?

If you're trying to join the fb group or if you've sent a contact form please bear with us. There is one volunteer who is dealing with this and it takes time for us to contact each other and to deal with people contacting us. Give it a week or so and if you still have no joy please get back in touch (pm me here). Nothing is happening without you (ie you're not missing any special notifications or anything).

do you mean you used the contact form on the OBJECT main website?

Main website with email notification - that's OK then. I just thought that because they mentioned there's a confirmatory emails that the time to reply to those is normally

arranfan when I submit a form it says 'thank you' and I haven't got a confirmation email so I think you're ok, but do get back in a week or so if you don't hear from us. And keep an eye here, I'll possibly update from time to time.

FFSFFSFFS have you read the links I posted? What do you think might be some arguments against surrogacy, either free or paid?

Your examples of soldiers, miners are interesting as there is a case to be made that those are also exploitative. No one chooses between being a CEO and being a miner. Also anyone can be a soldier or miner (not to denigrate or say there are no skills involved, but women and men both have the physical capacity, whereas only women have a uterus.)

I didn't think you were being goady. :)

Just checked out the links. Some interesting stuff.

I think its the invasiveness and the emotional implications that is key for me. That is why the example of the kidney donation resonated.

Soldiers sign up for the potential risk of harm - but not the guaranteed removal of a body part.

I also have big issues with egg donation. The process is nothing like sperm donation (I went through it for egg freezing) and has not insignificant risks.

And I think it is AWFUL that women are offered a cheaper option if they donate half of the eggs that are retrieved. I think this is HORRIFIC and should be illegal. Imagine if in a cycle you weren't successful but another woman was with the eggs that you had to give away to be able to afford to even do it. Or you donated and then could never have children.

Interesting stuff. Many thanks.

And I think it is AWFUL that women are offered a cheaper option if they donate half of the eggs that are retrieved. Yes, that looks like pressure being applied. It's a kind of bait and switch. 'This is a very pricy service (which we know you're prepared to pay for as you've already shown your hand), but look how we can make it more accessible.'

archery2 I didn't hear that but I recognise the sound of a man who thinks women should make their bodies more accessible to him because he says so. 'It's so hard to get consent for something she has that I want when she doesn't want to give it to me. Can I just take it?'

Yes, that looks like pressure being applied. It's a kind of bait and switch. 'This is a very pricy service (which we know you're prepared to pay for as you've already shown your hand), but look how we can make it more accessible.'

Its horrible. But absolutely routine at all the clinics I visited when investigating egg freezing. I can't think of any other medical procedure when you can get it cheaper if you offer to reduce your chances of success to give someone else a chance of success???? And these are incredibly vulnerable women. And yet in all the research I was doing I never came across anyone questioning this.

The blog subscription button wasn't working but it's fixed now!

www.objectnow.org/subscribe/

HumanPerson1 thanks for letting us know. :)

I read a long time ago that when a woman "agreed" to egg donation, the doctors would actually try to take ALL of her eggs which triggered a much earlier menopause. Which of course, elevated risk of cancer.

So giving women less money still doesn't seem reasonable. Mostly because, the amount that women get is already far far too low considering all the invasive appointments, the risks of pregnancy, the uncomfortableness of being pregnant, pain of childbirth, the lasting negative effects on the woman's health. Even if I needed the money (and I am poor) I wouldn't even consider it for less than $200,000.

I can't think of any other medical procedure when you can get it cheaper if you offer to reduce your chances of success to give someone else a chance of success????

It's all exploitation because everybody involved including the woman, thinks that exploitation is what women are for.

I read a long time ago that when a woman "agreed" to egg donation, the doctors would actually try to take ALL of her eggs which triggered a much earlier menopause. Which of course, elevated risk of cancer.

That doesn't really make sense? You;re born with all the eggs you're ever going to have. Every month you release a small number of those What happens is that when you ovulate each month you release a tiny amount of those - one or two which might grow to the size that is capable of fertilisation. What happens when doctors retrieve the eggs is the medication makes more of those eggs grow to a larger size which makes them capable of fertilisation - which they then retrieve. So literally no way a doctor call take all eggs. There may be a risk of menopause from the medication - but certainly I was never advised of that or heard of it. I understand there may be a risk of cancer but there is not significant evidence of this as far as I'm aware. There is also a risk that if could fuck up some other way and ruin a woman's fertility. A small risk. But a risk.

So while there is a physical risk. For me its more the emotional and psychological risk.

The thing about surrogacy that bothers me is the possibility of the baby being traumatised, I don't think we know the impact on the child of being taken from familiar sounds and smells and put in a completely unfamiliar situation. It can be easy to assume the child knows little but there's increasing evidence about birth trauma impacting on a child for the rest of its life, I guess a sort of PTSD.

More like selling a kid(ney).

Quick update re next week's OBJECT meeting: Jan (the chair) now has a 30 day fb ban (which she says includes messenger) so if you're waiting for an update via fb or messanger that may now be a bit hit or miss. The update may be posted on the friends of OBJECT fb page by someone else. Feel free to pm me if you want to connect via email. And as always do prompt me if I was supposed to get back to you and didn't.

Hope to see some of you next week. :)

I think there was something in the news recently where the government was considering paying women in the UK. Whatever the reasoning, I was dubious because the article next to it was about a couple who were pissed off that they didn’t get to take the baby off the birth mother as soon as it was born. Something like ‘if we had paid for it we could have taken it straight away’

Bumping this as a reminder of the meeting Dec. 5 and to admit that (shamefacedly) I don't know the time (the venue won't be notified until the day of the meeting).