MN editorial on how wonderful surrogacy is

[anothernotherone]

This is on the MN homepage: www.mumsnet.com/pregnancy/surrogacy

Isn't this a massively controversial issue related to the exploitation of the female body as an incubator?

Are MN picking sides on a massively controversial issue, or has whoever's written and selected this rosey whitewash coverage of surrogacy not engaged their brain fully?

Anyway, sorry to derail.

I think surrogacy is too problematic to be anything but exploitative. It should be banned.

I think there is a biological drive to have children, but if women can't I really don't think it's healthy for anyone to have this attitude that they must have a child no matter the costs. It is possible to be in the life of children in a meaningful way even if you don't have them yourself.

And I think if you are able to accept this then that's amazing, but like many situations we face in life, not everyone can accept it.

I've nursed many patients as they die - some have left a huge mark on me in the way that they faced their deaths with acceptance and peace. Others raged and fought against it until they died and never accepted it. I really don't know how you achieve the former rather than the latter.

I have a serious chronic health condition - much of my drs time is spent urging me to accept it. He believes, much as you've said, that my life will be much happier if I can stop fighting it and learn to accept it. Except - I just can't. I can't move away from the "what ifs" - there might be that 1 treatment that changes everything. I can really understand how some people can never give up trying to have the longed for baby.

OK, but people aren't trying to accept it, they're trying to buy babies and risk huge complications for everyone instead. Better mental health provision would help and yes, there will be some who will never accept it. I still don't think that justifies the harm to the child.

Surrogacy is clearly driven by people who don't care about human suffering whatever the cause, it is driven by people who want to make money.

But that's what I'm saying - it's the not accepting it that drives people to look at donor eggs/sperm and surrogacy or adoption.

What I don't know is how you move people away from that non acceptance and towards being able to accept it.

For sure it's not as easy as just saying "you need to accept it".

. I still don't think that justifies the harm to the child.

Are there studies that show it's harmful to the children though? I've asked that several times on here. Is it known to be detrimental to the children?

There is an unpleasant implication from some of the posters on this thread that women who object to surrogacy have no personal experience of infertility, assuming that we would put all our moral objections aside if we were faced with a future without biological children.

It's insulting and it's wrong.

I was diagnosed with gynae cancer during IVF.
This likely saved my life though also put an end to our hopes tohave children.

My permanent infertility was sudden and abrupt though working through what that meant came after the shock & trauma of the neccessary treatments.

I had to work through my feelings & beliefs about surrogacy & having considered & questioned them deeply find the promotion of commercial surrogacy absolutely wrong.

vimeo.com/125756487

J Kern also writes "When you know that a huge part of the reason that you came into the world is due solely to a paycheck, and that after being paid you are disposable, given away and never thought of again, it impacts how you view yourself."

thembeforeus.com/jessica-kern/

The fourth trimester is also a known thing. You are depriving babies of a fourth trimester. Lots of countries have banned it - have a look into why. It's largely to do with the rights of the child, though the exploitation of women is also a factor.

Goosefoot I think this is important because where an editorial is unsigned it is always a reflection of the official view of the publication (or website). Is this strongly pro surrogacy view the official @MNHQ line on this very controversial and problematic topic?

Maybe, I don't know. I think sometimes there isn't an official view as such. If I were to guess (and it is a guess) I would say that MNHQ probably sees itself as providing information on any legal activities relating to motherhood without a lot of philosophical introspection about them. So if your family is one that involves a same sex couple, or a polyamorous co-op, or surrogacy, or international adoption, and whatever, they want those people to come to MN and won't take an official view against them.

They don't restrict discussion of the issues around surrogacy though, which is something.

We are in kind of a weird place culturally. Clearly what is legal is not the same as what is right, and to decide what ought to be legal there has to be some larger moral framework. But we seem to struggle to define what that might be for the purposes of discussion that involves the public as a whole. As a result, a lot of people and many organisations seem to default to what is legal to define what is good, and it becomes a circular argument.

So I don't see organisations like MN as the real problem, they are stuck in a difficulty that we have as a larger culture.

There is an unpleasant implication from some of the posters on this thread that women who object to surrogacy have no personal experience of infertility, assuming that we would put all our moral objections aside if we were faced with a future without biological children.

It's insulting and it's wrong.

^This.

Ineedacupofteadesperately

And that excerpt is really sad, but is that just one person's experience? If so, can you really extrapolate that to cover all children born by surrogacy?
We could find equally sad stories from children raised by birth parents I'm sure.

My husband doesn't know his dad, his mum and dad were very young and didn't stay together. 50 odd years later I know that still affects my DH now, the not knowing where half of him comes from - that doesn't mean that relationships outside of marriage are banned though does it, because lots of children have good relationships with both parents even though they are separated.

Last time this came up I looked it up and the studies I read didn’t show evidence of harm to the children involved. I’ll have another search see if I can find them again.

I find the surrogacy debate very complicated. Firstly as someone who has conceived quickly for both pregnancies. I really cannot judge someone who is struggling with fertility I have a friend who after 7 years of IVF decided to give up only to conceive naturally at 40. Convinced that would be their only child, shocked to conceive number two at 43. Yes she was an outlier, but she was incredibly honest and open about the pain and frustration her initial inability to fall pregnant caused.

I can understand and sympathise with those women that volunteer to be a surrogate for family members whether their inability to conceive is due to infertility or sexuality. Yes volunteer may not always be the correct term because I'm sure there can be external pressures that could have informed their decision. That doesn't sit comfortably with me. Especially in the cases of paid surrogates. Those when people with an obvious economic advantage are paying disadvantaged women to basically be incubators.

A complicated minefield.

academic.oup.com/humupd/article/22/2/260/2457841

The long-term outcomes for children born through surrogacy are basically fine, and about the same as children born the "regular" way.

These outcomes appear to have nothing in common with the outcomes for children adopted at birth, where high rates of attachment disorders and other issues are noted.

The high rates of problems for adopted children most likely stem from other sources (genetic background, harm from drug abuse during gestation etc.).

I think altruistic surrogacy is fine, though I am against commercial surrogacy.

It was the studies by Susan Golombok that I looked at (I only skim read them and haven’t read any more wifey in the subject).

*widely

How do you define altruistic surrogacy though? That can be anything from a woman offering to help her sister, through to the case I linked above where a woman with learning disabilities and in financial difficulty was recruited via Facebook and offered a few grand expenses by total strangers, including £1000 extra if she needed a hysterectomy.

For sure it's not as easy as just saying "you need to accept it".

Yes, this is true, it's a very human problem and many people have to work at acceptance and many fail and probably always will. Be it death, old age, family situations, not getting into a particular career path, not being loved by the person who loves us, not having large breasts, the realities of being a mother, being the wrong sex.... some of those are more serious than others but they are all things people can feel are very significant to their happiness or their identity or ability to live. Acceptance can seem like failure or require a whole new way of thinking about yourself.

But I don't think we make it easier by opening up more possibilities. In many cases the opposite, the more possibilities the harder it is to get to a place of acceptance. I heard a very interesting interview a few years ago with the wife of someone I knew, she had MS. They were asking her about a new treatment that wasn't yet approved and whether it should be, and then funded. One of the things she mentioned was that people with big issues like that are very vulnerable to every new thing, new possibility, and constantly chasing those can be bother personally and financially draining. She saw that in itself as a reason for the government to avoid approving new things just to provide more options when they weren't in themselves well supported.

You do see the same thing with death - the possibility of doing one more thing can make it harder to do the psychological work of acceptance. Which is always required in the end.

GlitchStitch

I see it as being a spectrum. At one end is the mother who, without pressure or coercion, decides to be a surrogate for her daughter at the other extreme are the women, in an almost baby factory situation, exploited to be surrogates for rich women. At some point on that spectrum is where I would draw the line, although I'm not sure quite where but much much closer to the start than the end.

Yes there are @decomposingcomposers and one of them is referenced on here.

My dds were watching a programme where one of the contestants, a gay man , had children from a surrogate. They were both shocked, and asked how he could have had a baby. “So he bought them “ ?
I explained about surrogacy and why I think it is a bad thing. Seeing the reaction of my sensitive, thoughtful younger dd ( 12) made me even more convinced. She was upset that a baby could be taken from the mother like this.
We should be looking at countries where surrogacy is banned, not towards the cesspit that is the US.

And I’m a living, breathing witness to the fact that donor conception, at least, is not universally accepted by its products.

*Kokeshi123
*
These outcomes appear to have nothing in common with the outcomes for children adopted at birth, where high rates of attachment disorders and other issues are noted.

I follow Facebook groups for adult adoptees. They are furious that they were adopted at birth in closed adoptions. They all regard their birth mother as their mother.

Surrogacy hasn't taken place on an industrial scale yet, like adoption. If it does I'm sure we'll start to see similar stories as we do with adoptees. Once they're allowed to talk. Adoptees have had major issues with being silenced because their voices and stories don't fit in with the happy narrative.

But I don't think we make it easier by opening up more possibilities. In many cases the opposite, the more possibilities the harder it is to get to a place of acceptance.

I agree wholeheartedly with this. We often think of possibilities as being a good thing but the drive to keep trying until you've exhausted all options can be devastating.

What adoptees find particularly galling is the language used in adoption. They think it's especially gross that babies are thought of as "gifts" from the birth mother.
Imagine how the babies of surrogates are going to feel! They can't even have the "gift" narrative. Their birth story will literally be: we used your mother as an incubator

How do you define altruistic surrogacy though? That can be anything from a woman offering to help her sister, through to the case I linked above where a woman with learning disabilities and in financial difficulty was recruited via Facebook and offered a few grand expenses by total strangers, including £1000 extra if she needed a hysterectomy.

Quite. 'Altruistic surrogacy' from what I have read, seems to be the same as paid in many cases, just the cash is made out to be for 'expenses' instead of actual payment.