Is there any overlap between anti-abortion and pro-surrogacy?

[JellySlice]

It seems to me that what both views (denying women access to abortion and allowing people access to women's bodies to grow babies for them) have in common is removal of a woman's right to complete bodily autonomy.

Or are people opposed to abortion generally also opposed to commercial surrogacy?

The people I know who are pro life (Christians) are also fairly anti surrogacy as it’s not in the best interests of the baby and treats them as a commodity

I wouldn't think so. Catholics in particular are very much anti-surrogacy and it's common with many other religious objectors.

I think as long as you see opposition to abortion as being motivated mainly by lack of respect for women, you are likely to misunderstand the motives and logic of most people who take that viewpoint. For most the foundational belief is in the equal personhood of human life from conception, which doesn't lend itself to support of surrogacy which is then the outright buying of people.

So it's the personhood of the baby that they are concerned about, over and above the personhood of the mother?

In Catholic theology you can't elevate the personhood of one person over another. They are always equal. Regardless of age, developmental stage, wealth, social standing, profession, race, sex, criminal status, disability, medical status, psychological impairment, assholness, or really any other thing you can think of. The human anthropology is based on the idea that all human beings are in the image of God.

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There’s no need to pit the personhood of the baby against the mother in a discussion about surrogacy. It’s not good for either.

Yes and the implication that people are anti abortion because they don’t want women to have autonomy over their own bodies is pretty offensive

Great news today to see that anti abortion thugs are being kept 100yards away from at least one abortion clinic though.
www.theguardian.com/law/2019/aug/21/council-ban-on-protests-outside-abortion-clinic-upheld-by-court-of-appeal

Anyway - there are people who combine all kinds of ideas of course. Some people just aren't very thoughtful. But generally pro-surrogacy and pro-life aren't a typical combination of beliefs.

I thought open adoption was to all intents and purposes surrogacy minus the genetics? And the money.

Open adoption has widespread support in the US amongst Christian groups as an alternative to abortion.

Why pay for a service when you can get the same thing on the cheap?

In my experience the pro surrogacy crowd (who tend to be very pro the intended parent’s perspective and tend to be not deeply thinking about the woman’s needs beyond ‘she gave consent so it’s all OK’) are also pro choice on abortion.

However.. there are very different physical and mental risks and contexts between having a safe legal abortion (very low risk compared to pregnancy to term and birth) and undergoing assisted conception (or natural conception) then pregnancy and birth for the purposes of surrogacy.

Surrogacy also happens under all sorts of different legal controls and obligations to others (or sometimes with virtually no legal control and a lot of financial interests in some countries) and those really key differences don’t seem to really get much air time.

Plus there is a baby in surrogacy and obviously no baby in an abortion. Abortion is about returning the woman to where she was before, and you can’t say that about surrogacy. And I still haven’t seen any information on what people born from surrogacy feel about that circumstance of birth. So I feel in some ways we are trying to compare really different things here.

Are there enough people who were born from surrogacy and have reached an age to articulate their views yet?

It strikes me that there would likely be similar issues to those people who were born of donor sperm or adoptees* have in terms of questions about their origins.

It also strikes me that, as with safeguarding, this is an area where all the expertise in child welfare that has been built up over decades is being completely disregarded by the 'wokelier than thou' brigade.

In general there might not be overlap with anti-abortion stances but I can imagine the K Jenner's of this might be anti-abortion and pro-surrogacy.

(* My mother who is an adoptee would have my guts for garters if I failed to point out not all adoptees feel this way.)

Catholic doctrine is against ivf as it generally involves destruction of embryos so I imagine similar for surrogacy? Of course, many anti-abortionists are not motivated by catholic doctrine (US evangelists for example).

It strikes me that there would likely be similar issues to those people who were born of donor sperm or adoptees* have in terms of questions about their origins

Main ethical issue wrt to surrogacy is its commodification of Women's fertility.

Right wing western men are keen to commodify and control Women's fertility.

They are trying to ban our human right to abortion, and through building the surrogacy business based on women's economic inequity because:

a) capitalism
b) their sperm count has halved over the last 40 years, and demographically they will be a minority group within a few generations.

c) misogyny

Not necessarily in that order.

Catholic doctrine is against ivf as it generally involves destruction of embryos so I imagine similar for surrogacy?

I've seen stuff about the 'adoption of embryos' as a solution to this. Which does neatly fit with surrogacy without the genetic link.

I forget where I saw it. I think it was part of one of Louis Theroux series of three documentaries which looked at birth, marriage and death.

I thought open adoption was to all intents and purposes surrogacy minus the genetics? And the money.

No. In open adoption, like other types of adoption, the biological parents are generally unable or perhaps unwilling to care for the child. Now, is this ever fudged - I suppose, who knows, but there is only so much you can do to police people's intent.

With no biological parent to care for the child, his or her care would fall to the state, and the state through some mechanism allows that child to be adopted because it's really in the best interests of children to be raised by parents rather than institutionally or even in foster care.

Open adoption has generally come to exist in response to concerns about the rights of children to have a relationship with their biological parents.

It's really quite different than surrogacy which is about the creation of a child for the purposes of being given away or sold. (And most surrogacy isn't open so I am not sure how you see that as being related?)

Catholic doctrine is against ivf as it generally involves destruction of embryos so I imagine similar for surrogacy?

That's what gets a lot of discussion, but Catholic doctrine also has significant problems with other elements of IFV, even if no embryos will be destroyed. Anything that involves implanting one in another person for example is out, or using donor sperm would be right out. And many theologians would say that medicalising the process of conception at all is problematic. It's a fairly technical area though, it tends to be people that are specialists in theology associated with medical ethics that talk about it and so it's not that accessible.

It's really quite different than surrogacy which is about the creation of a child for the purposes of being given away or sold. (And most surrogacy isn't open so I am not sure how you see that as being related?)

I guess the process of involvement of the family through the pregnancy where the woman is treated as 'the carrier' rather than having her own needs.

Open adoptions can also breakdown in terms of the rights of the mother to access her biological children for a variety of reasons.

I think it depends on the surrogacy, but I was under the impression that some altrustic surrogacies do involve ongoing relationships.

So in terms of 'overlap' there is some common ground, that revolve around the rights of the child and the rights of the mother and how prospective parents might be putting their needs before both the child and the biological mother because they carry 'higher status' and privilege.

RedToothBrush

Ah, yes, I see where you are coming from.

I think it can be fraught when the potential adoptive parents are very involved in the pregnancy, even with best intentions. I think in some places there are regulations that limit that sort of thing. Where I live for example private adoption as such isn't legal at all, even where there is a fair bit of transparency there is a kind of distancing, and newborns aren't actually adopted at all, they live first with the adoptive parents as foster children, in case the birth mother changes her mind. There are downsides to this approach as well of course.

I think that is the crux in a way though, no matter how you slice it, adoption is making the best of a bad situation, one that everyone recognises is less than ideal for everyone. Sometimes it does come out to be very positive, too, but there is always potential for problems.

But no one is purposefully creating that situation where a child will be separated from it's birth mom or a mom will be separated from a child, with all the potential problems that come along with that.

In this country open adoption means that the biological parents have some ongoing contact with the child after the adoption. It's the norm now, albeit that sometimes that contact will be limited to written contact, or vis a third party. In the past up to around the 1980s it was unusual for the child to have any ongoing contact.

As far as I am aware in this country we don't have adoptive parents lined up for a baby before it is born. In cases where it is considered fairly certain that the baby will be removed from its birth mother at birth this will be because of proven very serious concerns about the parenting ability of the mother, for example where there have already been a number of children taken into care. It is incredibly rare for a mother to voluntarily relinquish her baby.

Although social services etc might have adoptive parents in mind for a child they almost certainly will take into care on birth, there won't be contact between the potential adopters and biological mother, unlike in the US. And the process of taking the baby into care and approving the adoption can only start once the baby is born and will take several months.

Sorry for derail, I just wanted to point out the differences, in this country at least, between adoption and surrogacy.

It seems to me that what both views (denying women access to abortion and allowing people access to women's bodies to grow babies for them) have in common is removal of a woman's right to complete bodily autonomy

I'm a bit puzzled by your question. Whilst I am utterly opposed to surrogacy I don't see how you can pose being pro- surrogacy as removing bodily autonomy.

The pro- surrogacy lobby would say it is the anti- surrogacy lobby which does that by denying a woman the right to be an incubator - if that is her choice.

The Catholic church opposes IVF, surrogacy and abortion. I support the right to abortion but oppose all forms of assisted conception.

Open adoption, certainly in the UK , has no comparison with surrogacy.