Surrogate dies in childbirth, leaves behind two of her own kids

[ConfessionsOfTeenageDramaQueen]

"According to the post, Michelle and Chris decided to help another family who wasn't able to have children after they were done having kids of their own.

Michelle was on her second surrogacy for the same family when she lost her life.

Like any other pregnancy, surrogate pregnancies involve the same medical risks of carrying a child and giving birth."

This makes me really angry. Link below.

www.foxla.com/news/california-mother-of-two-dies-giving-another-family-the-gift-of-life?fbclid=IwAR2RgBrXZnWZa1DES4PQWDYMifkY7YCpLy6WVEOoHj6cD145L9Xof1Iy4mI

She wasn't selling (unless it was her egg). It's more like renting. She was selling her effort and her time - literally her labour. Same as a an office worker or a Brickie or a prostitute

Because prostitution and surrogacy are so comparable to building bricks or working in an office.

We've gone completely mad over the 'magic' of the word 'choice'.

Spot on. Great post.

Nemo

Does your sister ride the horse with another human being?
Is that other human at risk of injury or death too?

Can she quit at any point or move jobs?

Does she ride the horses continuously without any break for 9 months at risk?

Yeah no one who is independently wealthy ever seems to make this choice. Those we often see using surrogates, the very wealthy -they have the choices.

When I see an a married A lister with kids at the height of their career decide to be a surrogate...

Nemonemsis

If you really want the answer to your question, as regards your sister, might I (kindly) suggest you do the (I suspect) painful work of really burrowing down into the (I suspect, quite challenging) thoughts you block with the phrase, 'It's her choice'?

Seriously, hiding behind there will be nuances of your sister's negotiation of the paths available to live as a woman in a gendered society; a history both individual and social, of how she has come to understand and experience pleasure, joy, boredom, exhilaration in contemporary society; economic imperatives ... and also your responses to those (which will be complex).

Again: that's not exhaustive.

You could spend years in therapy working through it with an attentive listener.

The point is: it's not simple.

As a society, we seem to have an absolute mania for stopping thinking. And we do it through the deployment of this phrase, 'it's her choice'.

It's bizarre, because it goes hand in hand with a dominant discourse telling us we have never had more freedom about our emotions, never had more choice.

It's the strangest thing.

What are we - as a culture - so frightened of, that we (as a culture) insist on locking so much away behind this door charmed shut and barred with this 'magic' phrase?

What monsters are we too frightened to face up to?

Cat
I bet the bookmarking function is working overtime on your superb posts.

(And, yes, I can see - on this thread - that quite a few of us don't want to be part of this 'we' and 'us', and find this dominant discourse incredibly limiting.)

Selling your kidney to someone on dialysis would also be "seen as a good thing" but it's illegal.

Not illegal to give it away though. In fact an entire algorithmic system has been set up to find more matches for people to do so.

If she had been paid nothing, would that make it any better that she died?

It was her choice, how strange it makes you angry.

Where does this questioning end?

Taking it to the nth degree as some posters are must surely lead to the conclusion that absolutely no.one, in the world has, has had, or will ever have, free choice. So what does that mean for us all? Are we guilty of exploiting everyone?

Does your sister ride the horse with another human being? this doesn’t make much sense. The third party in this case would be the horse’s owner and trainer

Is that other human at risk of injury or death too?
No. Again, not sure I understand your point?

Can she quit at any point or move jobs?
She can’t quit mid-ride, while the horse is pissing off with her. So no, not at any point. Once the risk has been taken to get on the horse, she has to see it through.

Does she ride the horses continuously without any break for 9 months at risk
I see the point you are trying to make - surrogates don’t get an opt-out once they are committed. But then neither does anyone who gets pregnant (once they are past the legal limit of abortion)

This is why surrogacy should not be allowed. So many stories like this

So she was carrying a baby for a friend of hers. The second baby she had carried for the same family. In America it is also illegal to make money off of surrogacy. Only payment is the cost of the procedure from what I have read. Roughly $100k

It might be relatively rare for women to die in childbirth but serious lifelong impacts are very common and because they happen to women tend not to be discussed. Things like incontinence, prolapse, PND and all the other impacts on mental health etc. I had a high risk pregnancy and being in the ante-natal ward was a real eye-opener in terms of how common it is to have complications like placenta praevia.

@thecatfromjapan another round of applause here.

@thecatfromjapan excellent posts! Thank you.

Hearhooves

This, I think, is the whip.

I would phrase it like this: 'Either accept the coercive idea that women have full choice or we will take the idea of any choice away.'

Phrased like that, the coercion becomes clear.

And, of course, it's all wrong.

Questioning the notion of full choice, full agency doesn't lead either to a.) having my 'choices' and agency wholly removed or b.) immediately lead to the spectre of absolute choice less was, lack of free-will, agency-less, puppet-like automata.

All it means is to open the vista to the idea of nuance, of shading between black and white, of space between either/or.

It opens up the ability to speak, to ask questions - perhaps without a definitive answer ('and ... also', rather than 'yes/no').

Our ability to question, to push against doors, to refuse to accept the 'Trespassers will be Prosecuted' signs - and become trespasses who persevere, is at the root of feminism.

Utterly tragic

For all of you saying it's selfish...

Would it also be selfish if she chose to have her own child and died in childbirth?

I don't think she foresaw this happening, it's rare to die in childbirth. I doubt she intended this to happen 🙄

It's very sad. We forget the dangers of childbirth

How very sad for her family - but I don't think it's right to blame the surrogacy. She might have fallen pregnant again to her husband accidentally and the same thing happened - it's an awful tragedy whenever it happens to a mum, but it could just have easily been with her own child as someone else's.

I hope her family can find some peace from this :(

I'd still be gutted and possibly pretty angry to hear that a young person with dependents had died on the job.

This happens regularly. There are some pretty dangerous jobs that people choose to do after weighing up the risks.

Agree with cat .
Also it isn’t like “renting” a woman’s body, even when she uses another woman’s egg ( and what of that woman? Is that not buying a body part ? ) the mother grows that baby with her body, it isn’t like the baby is kept in a bag somewhere ! Making a baby takes a huge toll .

Thank you thecatfromjapan for your insightful comments. I've never appreciated why 'it's her choice' is such a thought limiting / silencing statement before.

We don’t know if she was paid or not. It’s sad but it was her choice and you should think of your motivations for being angry.

Surrogacy should be banned. I am heartily sick of the lefty acceptance of surrogacy as a good thing, while organ buying and slave labour are bad things. Cognitive dissonance from selfish people.