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.

These threads are so odd. You know nothing about their set up or the mother yet are judging away like she must be an enslaved child that’s had her womb stolen.

Do you feel the same about adopted babies? If the mother is willing to give the baby away, knows from the beginning that it will not be ‘her’ child (may not even be her egg) then why is it your business?

All this crap about being separated from mother, it happens all the time. Women get sick, they get PND, they can’t/don’t want to breastfeed. For whatever reason, it happens and two men can love a child just as much as a woman.

It’s not about women being ‘poor enough’ to do it in the UK, you don’t get paid. It will be women who have signed up to an agency who want to do it. Maybe because they enjoy being pregnant, maybe they want to give the joy of parenthood to someone else, maybe it’s one of their sisters who wants to help - who knows, either way it would’ve been her choice to sign up.

When will people learn that what a woman wants to do with her own body is nobody else’s business? People are so obsessed with controlling what other women can and can’t do. Give over. If you don’t want to be a surrogate, don’t be. Whilst altruistic surrogacy is illigal I cant see this as something worth getting worked up about.

‘Legalised murder’ bloody hell. When did mumsnet get so weird.

Truthontrial, please supply your sources where 'babies suffer permanent harm being removed from their mothers'.

Find a source that heavily suggests this. At bare minimum a clinical trial of children born to surrogates that have gone on to have permanent damage being brought up by people other than the surrogate?

I'll await your sources 👀

Welcome to Mumsnet Fox. Interesting first couple of posts.

Still waiting for anyone to address my questions and challenges. When I posted it on a previous thread they also went unanswered...

Abortion is ending a pregnancy - it's not obvious that a foetus is a person, or even if it is that it's "right to life" outweighs the pregnant woman's right to bodily autonomy (Janice Radcliffe Richards wrote an excellent essay on this back in the 70s).

A baby that has been born, however, is unequivocally a person in its own right, and should not be subject to being bought and sold.

I suspect this attempt to muddy the waters by spurious analogies to abortion is not a helpful one.

Children - full human beings, not commodities to be bought and sold.

JenniferM1989

You’re pro-surrogacy. Can you read the post of mine of previous page and advise how you would address those common clinical scenarios that would lead to a clash of rights. Thanks.

It’s not about women being ‘poor enough’ to do it in the UK, you don’t get paid. It will be women who have signed up to an agency who want to do it

complete and demonstrable bollocks Taxtaxtax. Read this judgement and then tell me that the surrogate wasn't manipulated and that you're sure she wasn't doing it for money.

www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/HCJ/2016/34.html

Taxtaxtax

Those are hardly valid reasons for supporting baby trading and harm to newborn infants are they.

Fox
What do you mean what do I mean? God so many!

What a lot of nonsense arguments for hurting babies deliberately.

Ooooo, we neeeeed a baby/can't have one, is no excuse for deliberately bringing harm to babies.

Its a horrible, devastating reality to not have children when they are so wanted, but its not an excuse for using women as baby trading vessels, or deliberately bringing harm to an infant. What a start, and what a life to have to live.

Theres no way murdering adults is comparable to abortion . Of course. No way.

also, if someone could provide guidelines to at which it becomes not OK to buy a person that would be super. so

in utero -fine to buy - kerching!
Under 1 - go ahead and purchase
up to 10?
Over 18?

Start another thread Fox

We’re talking about something else here

You’ve just linked to a court judgement in which the parents found the mother via Facebook and entered into an unregulated surrogacy agreement in which they paid her £8-£15k.
That is altruistic surrogacy. Agency’s which are legally run, you cannot pay the surrogate. They can claim back medical expenses only.
Using a scenario in which the arrangement was not done in the legal manor does not prove your point.

There will always be people willing to break the law to get what they want. You can’t change that.

*isnt

Alright someone give me a legitimate argument for how abortion and other forms of allowable murder are any different?

I think, oh brand new to Mumsnet poster, that you have just outed yourself as a goady fucker - I for one do not believe you are posting in good faith and will not be engaging with you any further. I suggest anyone else with similar suspicions does likewise.

When my DD was born by ELCS, she was lifted out and immediately wailed her little lungs out, like most babies do when they're born. She was taken from me for about two minutes to be wiped, weighed and have her vit k injection and those two minutes felt like a lifetime as she cried.

I'd undressed before surgery to accommodate skin to skin assuming all went well. The second, the literal second, DD was placed on my chest with her head on my heart she silenced. She stayed there, snug and calm for the whole 45 minutes it took to stitch me up. When I handed her over to DH for them to wheel me into recovery she yelled again until she was out back in what she evidently knew was her rightful position, on me.

To deliberately take that experience away from a baby minutes out of the womb is barbaric. And I say that as a mother whose first birth did not go according to plan at all meaning first DD got no immediate skin to skin and was wrapped and cuddled
by her Dad whilst I had urgent surgery. Sometimes these things can't be helped, but the intent makes all the difference. A child who is ripped away from its mother permanently at birth is bound to have effects in later life. Adopted children often suffer with attachment issues regardless of how amazing and loving their adoptive parents are.

I was all for surrogacy (as an act of kindness not for profit) until I had my own children.

Alright someone give me a legitimate argument for how abortion and other forms of allowable murder are any different?

One could only honestly attempt an answer to this question if one accepted the premise that abortion is "allowable murder."

Don't think you'll find many proponents of that position around here.

Agreed Barbara

Not interested in totally unrelated, thread derailing, overly-entitled demands on posters time and energy.

Using a scenario in which the arrangement was not done in the legal manor does not prove your point

what happened was not illegal. No-one from that sorry tale is in prison or has a conviction now The commissioners used a contract which is not enforceable in the UK, but that's not illegal. The commissioners to all intents and purposes paid for a baby, and if you squint a bit and make some claims about what the money is for, that's not illegal

so it does prove my point. Unless surrogacy becomes illegal, that will happen again, and again and again

anyone who can read that judgement and not come away with serious questions about surrogacy needs to take a good long look in the mirror

mytinyfiredancer. That is so true. Thats exactly how it worked for me too. They belong to your body, they feel safe with your body. I dont think babies should even be taken for a moment into another's arms and caused deliberate distress without good medical reason for intervention.

Its taken a long time to return to a state where babies are laid straight onto their mother to take their first breaths, peacefully, without alarm as the cord closes naturally. They belong to their birth mother is all they know, instinctively, and is it proven time and again to be the safest place.

Not interested in totally unrelated, thread derailing, overly-entitled demands on posters time and energy

Yeah

No please nor nothin’