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.

Not if they don't know what to ask Lol and if they trust and the doctors and if they live in poverty their decision making will be impacted by the need to survive.

Doctors are working on behalf of the intended parents, they have a responsibility to the mother but I don't trust that the women know all they need to. One watch of Eggsploitation tells me that.

For me, it's not about the rights of the woman over her body, it's about the rights of the child being traded as a commodity.

It’s about both. It’s about a woman being asked to give up her rights over her own body so a baby can be traded as a commodity.

Hmm so do women not have the bodily autonomy to choose whether or not to do this themselves, fully aware of potential consequences?

The moment the baby's born it ceases to be a matter of bodily autonomy. The newborn is a living breathing human being. No one has the right to sell it.

Also many women are unaware quite how dangerous and life changing just pregnancy is on their bodies. Even if a woman has had a previous complication free pregnancy pre-eclampsia is a higher risk with surrogate pregnancy.

Hmmm... Lola do women not have the bodily autonomy to choose to sell a kidney or a lung or a lobe of their liver?

Why no, no they don’t. Because everyone can see the harms in turning human organs into marketable commodities.

Simplistic neoliberal libertarianism is just that — simplistic.

It's sad. It's awful. And the crowds insisting that this is something to celebrate - a baby born to be taken immediately from the mother and the mother deleted from the baby's life - it's horrendous.

I used to this altruistic surrogacy was ok. No longer. Pregnancy carriers too many risks. Unless there is a very good reason babies should stay with their mothers through the fourth trimester and breastfeeding is the biological norm and should be supported as much as possible.

That photo was sad. A society celebrating that is very very sad.

What is also very sad is that all of the Facebook comments are pro the couple and what they did. The only dissent was quickly pounced on and condemned by the masses. Is it not terrifying that we now live in a world where to question the ethics of surrogacy, prostitution, porn, transitioning teens, IVF and gene selection is to invite an angry hoard with vitriolic abuse and often violence down upon you.

That's a really horrible photo. The triumphant gesture is just gross. They have taken the most important thing in that babies life away from her, but they have what they want so it's all good.

So incredibly selfish. I was reading something last week by a woman who had been adopted, and her feelings of grief when she had her own children.
Her birth mother had been a teenager and not able to cope with a baby, totally understandable reasons. How much harder will it be for surrogacy babies, many of whom will have been made with one woman’s egg and by another woman’s body.

I really cannot grasp how anyone can be so selfish as to make a child in this way, deliberately depriving that child of the most primal bind we have. How will girls born this way cope, when they grow up and have a child themselves ? What sort of parents will boys born this way be, when they have grownup learning that mothers are dispensable ?

Surrogacy should be illegal

I think there has been a bit of a shift on MN at least. When Tom Daley and Lance Black announced the birth of their child, there was a thread on here saying how lovely it was.

I was told I was a horrible homophobic person for saying that I fundamentally disagreed with surrogacy.

I know this thread is in feminism but I feels like the pro surrogacy voices are quieter (I used to think it wasn't too bad until I actually thought about it). Because the narrative is always about the adults, never the babies.

Surrogacy should be illegal

But egg donation is okay? Females pumping their bodies with artificial hormones that risk their health and which may have future negative impact on them to donate their genetic material for the express purpose of creating a human being because someone, including other females, fancy a baby?

Thanks for the prompt to fill in the consultation. Cripes, that was lengthy, even with the Nordic Model's help

Egg donation is a whole different ball game and the health risks are still long term, but I see this as slightly less inconvenient as it is over sooner and doesn't involve a risky pregnancy for 9-10 months. It still means another life can be created and I see it as giving away your DNA and creating a half-sibling for your child or future children.

If you never wanted children of your own and it was done for altruistic purposes for a family member or best friend who would then carry the baby, without payment (but expenses were covered) I would still think it's risky but find it morally acceptable but barely.

The Law Commission failed to cover this thoroughly in the consultation and much is not yet known about the long term health risks.

Egg donation doesn't involve permanently removing a newborn from the woman who gestated and birthed it, whom it understands as its mother. So not really comparable to my mind.

It involves artificial production of gametes for use in creating a child that is not biologically the carrier's, but somehow this is totally acceptable because someone wants a baby at the end of the day but altruistic surrogacy is not. And believe me, abroad, women sell their genetic material, eggs, for thousands, because someone wants a baby and can't have one. We're not even sure of the possible long-term health complications to these young women, but they're hailed as heroes and so 'selfless' for 'giving life' but surrogacy is absolutely awful. It's all about someone wanting a baby and using someone else to get one, yet according to MN, no one is 'entitled' to or has a right to, a baby.

Well done Stroppy It's hard work Isn't it!

But egg donation is okay?

Egg donation has been completely ignored in the consultation. There are no questions relating to it. When the lawyers were asked about this at a public event first they said they had just confined themselves to surrogacy, and egg donation was regulated by the HFEA. When it was pointed out that eggs are actually rather an important part of the deal one of them threw up his hands and said "we're lawyers not doctors"!

In the USA young women are targeted and groomed and coerced to be egg donors sellers - they can earn up around $10,000 and they are encouraged to look on it as a way to pay off their college fees.
They aren't told the risks.

Watch #eggsploitation to understand the harms.

The consultation recommends lifting the current ban on advertising. I wonder, if egg donation is left out of new laws if this will leave more room for manoeuvre to offer increased payments etc? Those lawyers aren't fools after all.

The risks of ovarian hyper stimulation syndrome are well known. At an anecdotal level, even though my hospital does not offer ivf services, it is the nhs that picks up the pieces when problems arise and in recent months I have had two young women come through my department (for entirely unrelated reasons) one of whom had nearly died and needed icu, the other was very ill albeit avoiding an icu admission as a result of ovarian hyper stimulation syndrome.
There are also risks related to the egg retrieval process that I hadn't even thought about, including haemorrhage, intestinal puncture, peritonitis, ureteric injury and ovarian torsion.

www.nap.edu/read/11832/chapter/5

I don't want my daughters, our young women, targeted and coerced into this. It absolutely is part of surrogacy and it's a disgrace that no attention has been paid to this in the consultation.

I didn’t state that egg donation was ok. So I don’t understand your response to me timshelthechoice ?

Another interesting link.

[[https://www.statnews.com/2017/01/28/egg-donors-risks]]/

By the way, I read Broken Bonds by Jennifer Lahl, it features a young woman who was totally groomed and exploited for her eggs. Now she has cancer of the breast, which may or may not be related to the hormonal assaults her body has suffered over a ten year period. One of the things that stands out in so many of the stories in that book (which is very upsetting to read) is the lack of care towards the women providing the product. It really is all about the money.

Broken Bonds: Surrogate Mothers Speak Out
by Amazon.co.uk
Learn more: ]]m]]]]w]]]]r]]]]p_]]

[Edited by MNHQ at posters request]

timshelthechoice

but they're hailed as heroes and so 'selfless' for 'giving life'

I don't know where egg "donors" are hailed as heroes except perhaps in the advertising material presented to fecund young women. Surely not on fwr/Mumsnet?
Apart from issues relating to the genetic implications I think most people have concerns related to the health of the "donor". Which, incidentally is a very different issue than when women go through the egg retrieval process for their own purposes for ivf.

Firstly there is the matter of choice, doing it for oneself.

More importantly, for a woman undergoing IVF if she produced 10 eggs that would be more than enough for several rounds of implantation (assuming they were all good quality) as they shouldn't have more than two embryos implanted at a time.

For commercial egg collection the more the merrier. Donors report having 50 eggs retrieved!
Clearly they are given increased doses of hormones to produce this extreme reaction with all the obvious risks attached.

Interestingly I have seen some threads on Mumsnet infertility board, women worried that only two or three eggs were retrieved but the consensus seems to be that a smaller number is more likely to give better quality, and as one doctor said, you only need one good one.

I'll see if I can find the link.

Thank you for that, FannyCann. I'll update my position accordingly: egg donation doesn't necessarily involve removing a newborn from its mother. Surrogacy always does.

Paid egg donation I'd put up there with prostitution and commercial surrogacy. Doesn't matter if some few are happy enough with whatever arrangements they make; enabling the practice is always going to result in poor women being exploited and suffering horrendous consequences.

I think there was another thread as well but this is one. I've been dipping in occasionally to learn more about the process. I'm no expert obv but it does seem that current thinking is to keep hormone doses low and retrieve a lower number of eggs and avoid problems with hyper stimulation.

5 eggs from retrieval :(
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/infertility/3694453-5-eggs-from-retrieval

Thanks, FannyCann.
My 20yo son was laughing at me. He kept trying to show me something on YouTube he thought I'd find interesting and I was all "I can't, I'm busy Feministing. Show me when I've completed another 3 chapters of this."

He was all, "They're making it hard because PATRIARCHY! You can do it, Mum, you take a fruitless stand against the inevitable capitalist and patriarchal juggernaut."

He mocks me but he knows I'm right, the bugger.

There's a thread going right now featuring a female OP who has poor ovarian reserve so is going for conceiving by double donation and nothing but 'go for it' and 'thanks to all those who donate' and such comments.

It's just interesting how MN considers the two.

Can you copy the thread over timshel? I will jump on and present an alternative view. Double donation, I don't know, it's just manufacturing isn't it? Yuk.