Famous men and surrogacy

[Annasgirl]

OK, so this is not to bash the specific person involved but last night I was heading to bed and a story came up on my phone - a person from Westlife was announcing the birth of their baby - through surrogacy (he is gay) and showed a pic of him, his boyfriend and the baby - there was no mother.

So, I totally lost it and poor DH had to listen to me rant for about an hour - but when, oh God, when, are we going to stand up and be counted and take back the rights of women and children?????

DH mentioned that there will always be women poor enough to agree to do this and I countered that you cannot sell a kidney (legally) or buy one so why should you be able to buy or sell a baby???????

BTW, DH agrees with me, but why do I feel I am the only person alive who is angry about this?

And I live in Wokesville (AKA Ireland) and I am worried that we are so keen to be woke and the most liberal place to be gay in the world, that we will soon legalise surrogacy or at least make it easy for people to legally buy a baby overseas and then take it home here. That is what the person was arguing for on his gushing post.

I fully and completely agree with you

I am the oven that is cooking the baby

Educate yourselves ladies

Erm

Twee language on a serious subject doesn't help. I agree, calling grown men 'boys' is not appropriate.

Nobody has a right to have a child. This applies whether they're straight or gay, female or male. Sometimes we have to face up to hard truths, even when it's extremely painful. Surrogacy causes many, many ethical problems. The more I think about this, the less I think it's ever justified.

Gardenman surrogacy pregnancies are more risky - I really think you need to look into the research on this. You are using situations you know about from personal experience without having read anything evidence or clinical research which is detailed in involved more than one person. Look at the statistics.

For the original topic
Ricky Martin
Elton John

Watch
Eggsplotation and Big Fertility
And this
m.youtube.com/watch?v=tgE3juldK-4

Read this and look up info on the very recent change to Indian surrogacy Law

www.nytimes.com/2019/06/12/nyregion/surrogate-pregnancy-law-ny.html

Do you know much about egg donation? Do you know the risks and the process? Do you know about secondary infertility?

Also, earlier you noted how posters here didn't address your question, how about you address mine?

I think you'll find that IVF in general can be more risky, which extends your argument well beyond surrogacy, and out of the realm of the original claims of 'exploitation'.
The point I've been trying to make, whether personal and/or evidence-based, is that the tone and content of this thread (in general) is fiercely anti-surrogacy, but lacks anything more than 'opinion', whereas if one is actually exposed to surrogate families and the world of UK Surrogacy (which is the position I've been taking all along), then from that informed position, much of the speculative shouts of 'exploitation' and 'buying wombs' etc, can be seen for what they are: complete nonsense and really offensive.
You still haven't addressed my question.

I am the oven that is cooking the baby

Referring to yourself as an object

there is no Mummy
There is, it’s you, the woman who gestated the child

And for the umpteenth time, men , gay or straight, are often very wonderful parents. However men are not, and never can be, mothers.
There are things that women do, that only women can do. Women are not replaceable with men.

IVF is risky, by the very nature of surrogacy it means pregnancies occur via IVF. Egg donors can be exploited too, do you know much about the advertising laws on this in the UK and how it works in the US? Did you know that agencies target US college students for egg and sperm donors?

I have answered your question. Keep up. Did you even read my questions? I guess you're just ignoring them.

I am, like others here, anti-surrogacy. As I said I once considered it and decided against it. I was 27 and childless at the time.

Renting a womb is offensive, it reduces a woman to her reproductive system, her biology that grows a new life, it is not nonsense. At least the Indian government didn't think so when they banned it.

If you don't like the tone of this then feel free to ignore - don't read, don't engage. I do it al the time. Maybe spend the time doing some reading and researching this topic further.

the boys deserve to be Daddies

Don't infantilise grown me. It's vile.

I find it worrying any time a woman is referred to as 'simply an incubator', and that isn't lessened by it being a woman who does this herself.

Its dehumanising. That language has implications and it removes women from the context of having human rights whilst being pregnant.

It makes women MORE not less vulnerable to potential exploitation.

And as is the case with all these things, just because one woman finds it fine, it doesn't mean that its ok for a vulnerable woman. The point is the law should be there to protect the most vulnerable in a situation and play to that as a baseless rather than the able, well off and 'educated' woman as the baseless.

As for the infantilisation of language... jesus wept.

No one DESERVES to be a parent or has a RIGHT to be a parent.

I always say that when we get into euphamisms and language distortion you should be wary and ask about what is being sanitised and for what reason.

Euphamisms are rarely done for no reason. You should identify WHY its being done.

Interesting pincer movement going on here. On the one hand, we're over emotional harridans who hate men, on the other we're unempathetic harridans who just don't understand the purity of the motives of surrogates.

When in fact what we're actually talking about here are changes in the law.

We don't frame possible changes to laws around assisted suicide, for example, round clear cut case scenarios only. (Lovely granddad dying of incurable, rapidly advancing degenerative disease, wants to go out at time of his choosing before suffering becomes too much, surrounded by loved ones). We take all possible cases into consideration (Neglected granddad who happens to live in house in home counties worth 3/4 of a million, suffering from slowly progressing chronic condition which can be managed with decent nursing, who is under pressure from offspring who don't want to see the proceeds from that 3/4 million house spent on nursing).

Likewise with surrogacy. A happy auntie prepared to step in for her dearly loved brother and his partner is not the only woman, nor is the child she's carrying (or "cooking in her oven" according to taste and tweeness threshold) the only scenario the law has to cover. It has to cover the woman in poverty who might be taken advantage of. It has to cover the rights and needs of the existing children where a surrogate dies, unpredictably and suddenly, from a placental abruption. It has to cover the child who is unwanted by the commissioning couple because the child is born with complex health needs.

We don't frame legislation round Mary Poppins best case scenarios, we frame it round the whole range of possible scenarios to make sure everyone in society receives protection.

We should not allow the process of framing new laws to be hijacked by wealthy, powerful interest groups (in this case, comfortably off people with multiple thousands of pounds to throw at surrogacy) with no concern for the impact on all potential host mothers (not just the happy altruistically minded ones) or all potential children (the ones with complex health needs, the ones who grow up and say "you know what, I would have liked to know about my host mother", as well as the happy ones).

Barbara says what I was trying to say in a better way.

Ewwww to 'the boys' makes it sound like you're providing them a doll to play dress up with

It's an unfortunate impact of their biology that gay men can't easily produce their own children. Many of us face limitations due to our biology. I don't feel the answer is to exploit women's bodies.

I was ok with the idea of altruistic surrogacy until I came under pressure to be a living organ donor for a family member and could see first hand how family dynamics put pressure on and minimise risks. That's why living donors have a confidential opt out. Not having children when you want to is terribly sad but it is not life threatening. Pregnancy and childbirth can be.

Exactly what @BernardBlacksWineIceLolly said

I am the oven that is cooking the baby

Referring to yourself as an object

there is no Mummy
There is, it’s you, the woman who gestated the child

..

I think Surro is being sarcastic. She is writing from the point of view of that woman who turns up on every surrogacy thread telling us that when they were a surrogate it was fabulous.

there is no Mummy

I bet there will be on the birth certificate.

Bravo Barbara

Top post, Barbara!

Brilliant post Barbara

They are same sex & the boys deserve to be Daddies as much as all us women on here.

How can women be 'daddies'? Anyhow, noone - male or female - 'deserves' to be a parent.

I am the oven that is cooking the baby.

What an absolutely appalling, dehumanising way to refer to a mother.

The baby will be going home with their Daddies, there is no Mummy.

Every human being that has ever existed has had a mother. No exceptions.

If you are not this child's 'mummy' then who is?

Well, hopefully 'surro' will come on to tell us who the baby's 'mummy' is, because apparently the woman who gestates and gives birth to it is not. Oh sorry I forgot: 'there is no mummy'.