Sweden bans surrogacy

[Placebogirl]

Sweden has taken the viewpoint that all surrogacy is exploitation and banned it outright. I'm not sure how I feel about this, because truly altrustic surrogacy feels like something a woman should be able to do with her body if she so chooses to me, though I understand the arguments they are making here www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/25/surrogacy-sweden-ban?CMP=share_btn_tw

that article is three years old

" This week, Sweden took a firm stand against surrogacy. The governmental inquiry on surrogacy published its conclusions, which the parliament is expected to approve later this year. These include banning all surrogacy, commercial as well as altruistic, and taking steps to prevent citizens from going to clinics abroad."

did this happen?

Wow I’m surprised to read an opinion piece like that in the Guardian which usually fawns over the likes of Tom Daley (nothing personal against him). I do happen to agree with your later opinion though. I’m thoroughly against exploitation but it’s also an outrageous inference of the state to prevent people doing it completely effectively trying to own peoples bodies and preventing freedom of choice (when it really is a true choice as opposed to being by force or out of desperation). No more babies for gay men it seems

3 years old doh. Yeah I reckon there is a different tune now

Oh...I suck! Should have read the date! Sorry, my bad!

Still wonder about the ethics of limiting altrustic surrogacy though.

(apparently it is still banned, too www.euronews.com/2018/09/13/where-in-europe-is-surrogacy-legal)

A problem with altruistic surrogacy is the problem of family members coercing others. There's the potential for a similar problem in live organ transplants (kidney, partial liver) except hospitals always allow someone to say they are incompatible as a get out even if they are.

A problem with altruistic surrogacy is the problem of family members coercing others.

This. Remember how Jazz Jennings talked about how he was working on convincing his sister to be a surrogate in the future (and they could just put his partners sperm up there and mix and voila!). This is not a unique sentiment. In Canada ALL surrogacy is altruistic as it is illegal to pay for it and I have seen women exploited repeatedly anyway.

Close family surrogacy sounds very sweet and cuddly but it is fraught with potential pitfalls. Pregnancy and birth is not without risks even for someone who has had previous trouble free pregnancies.
How would you feel if the sister who carried a baby for you developed a severe post natal depression or psychosis. Or had a 4 degree tear affecting her continence for life? Or worse - because things can go wrong and women do occasionally die in childbirth.
Or maybe the close family bond is damaged by disagreements over the raising of the baby?
I would be appalled if a sister of mine suggested I do this for them. I have two daughters and I would strongly discourage them from doing this.

I think it is fundamentally wrong to remove a newborn from its biological mother (and by this, I mean who carries the child in her womb) at birth. There is evidence that it is very traumatic for them.

It is illegal here. If you carry and birth a child here you are it’s legal mother.

Most of the laws here are child centered. Most great (hitting children is illegal) some more problematic (it’s almost impossible to get full custody, even from a sexually abusive man, and the courts will force a child to visit a father even if he has abused them as long as the sentence is spent, because the child has a ‘right’ to both parents.)

It’s a mixed bag here, and it’s absolutey not the utopia that the Uk media present, but it’s good they ban surrogacy.

littlecabbage
Totally agree. It's another example of adults seeing babies as things they can own rather than as beings with the same rights and expectations as themselves. Babies need their birth mother, not just any mother.

Ultimately surrogacy is still the commodification of babies whether they are sold or given as a 'gift'. It's not just about the exploitation of women - it's also about the rights of babies not to be an object traded amongst adults.

I also live somewhere where it is illegal and I'm happy with that, though some people try to get around it by sneaking abroad. Which is also illegal but once the people have the baby the courts are understandably reluctant to remove it from their custody, since the alternatives can be reasonably assumed to be worse for the child.

If gay men want to be fathers they can come to a co-parenting agreement with a woman or adopt or get over it. Reproductive biology is not 'fair' and it never will be and children are not a right.

Even if the mother agrees to be an altruistic surrogate, the baby doesn't consent to be taken away from its birth mother and the transaction can not be seen as in the babies best interest as it is with adoption.

Some women are also nieve to the dangers. As with drugs, driving without a seat belt, motorbike helmets, sometimes people need to be protected from themselves.

Surrogacy is deeply rooted in patriarchy and I don't see any way to extricate it. Women's bodies shouldn't be used as incubators and children shouldn't be bought, sold, bartered or indeed given as gifts.

Meanwhile on Victoria Derbyshire men have created a set of twins with different fathers. I’ve said this before but as a twin mum I am very aware of the high risk nature of twin pregnancy and am appalled at the frequency with which you see twins produced artificially within surrogacy. No thought at all to the womb-for-hire.

Even if the mother agrees to be an altruistic surrogate, the baby doesn't consent to be taken away from its birth mother and the transaction can not be seen as in the babies best interest as it is with adoption.

Yes. I totally agree.

It's not just about the exploitation of women - it's also about the rights of babies not to be an object traded amongst adults.

Yes, a baby should have a right to their birth mother. There are plenty of children without families to adopt if you can't have any naturally. It's pure unadulterated selfishness and narcissism and treats babies as possessions to use a surrogate, if you can't have children and your siblings can maybe throw yourself into being an aunt / uncle? I suffered from infertility, it's shit, but I wouldn’t separate a child from its mother no matter how much I wanted a child.

someone said on another surrogacy thread - at what age does it become not OK to buy and sell humans? 1 hour old, 1 day, 30 years old?

I agree with banning surrogacy. I see the grey area with altrusitic surrogacy, but agree that coercian is likely within families, and that the baby also needs to be considered.
Women and babies should not be commodities .

I agree. I can see two sisters wanting to enter in to this arrangement and there are obviously grey areas but on the whole it's a GOOD decision.

Having read the various arguments here, I'm against all types of surrogacy.

Thanks all for your viewpoints. I think for me the persuasive one is about the rights of the (putative) child(ren), though again that sits slightly uncomfortably given my stance on women's reproductive rights (which is VERY pro choice).

I don’t think it should be banned. It should be very highly regulated so that it’s not possible to make a profit from from it (so that economically vulnerable women never feel compelled to do it) and it should be possible for the birth mother to back out with no penalty of any kind up until the point of formal adoption (which should take place after a cooling off period). That way there is still scope for altruistic surrogacy from women who are genuinely free to make that choice and wish to do so, but exploitation is avoided.