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

Sure

IcedPurple

I'm not comparing being a surrogate to a job. I'm responding to the conversation where the concept of choice within a capitalist society is being questioned. If we don't have free choice when it comes down to surrogacy, even altruistic surrogacy, then do we have free choice in any other aspect of our lives?

You say a police officer or fire fighter could leave their job - well yes they could and a potential surrogate could choose not to do it but according to some posters that requires choice and their argument is that we don't have choice, just the allusion of choice. The logical conclusion is that no one has choice then. A firefighter could leave their job - but can they if yo do so would risk the family's income and home? Do they have the choice then? Surely they gave as much choice, or not, as a woman considering becoming a surrogate?

Great posts thecatfromjapan and Barracker

I am so borrowing Because at the other side of the equation from choicy choice is always takey take.

Men do such jobs all the time and we don’t bat an eyelid.

No man has ever gestated or given birth to a baby

The US has pretty high rates of maternal death.

Higher than most of Europe, still very low.

Some more background information from Jennifer Lahl CBC

www.cbc-network.org/2020/01/breaking-another-us-surrogate-mother-has-died/

Everyone who thinks it's okay, wait until someone in your family does it and then you'll truly understand the horrors of it.

thecatfromjapan

I'm sorry for the loss of your friend.

That's what I was trying to ascertain - is this a philosophical argument that you apply generally or just to surrogacy. I see that you are applying it widely and in many ways I agree with you.

It is a tragedy, no getting away from that.

It isn't there with selling an organ though and it isn't the same as taking on a dangerous job but is somewhere between the two. We frown on the former but accept the latter as normal.

lydia thanks for sharing

"Recent studies have shown that surrogate pregnancies are different and are high-risk. Studies show that women pregnant with donor eggs (as in gestational surrogacy) have a more than three-fold risk of developing pregnancy induced hypertension and pre-eclampsia."

She could just has easily have died having her own child though, then there would have been three children without a mother. You don’t know that she wouldn’t have preferred to keep the children and would have done if it hadn’t been for the money.

But you are still more at risk from dying if you are pregnant than if you are a firefighter

Most people would see being a firefighter as a "brave" thing to do, they would worry for the firefighter selflessly working a known dangerous job to help save lives

The narrative is not quite the same for pregnancy , you are more likely told "it's natural" , how often are we reminded that pregnant women "it's not an illness"

I think some of you are actually doing her a disservice. You're assuming she was forced into this and was to weak to stand up for herself.

Please pick apart that sentence. I'm sure some of you will.

Happy Saturday folks

*too

"She could just has easily have died having her own child though"

Not necessarily - see above - surrogate pregnancies are higher risk.

I'm not comparing being a surrogate to a job

Sounded like you were doing just that, and are continuing to do so now.

I'm responding to the conversation where the concept of choice within a capitalist society is being questioned. If we don't have free choice when it comes down to surrogacy, even altruistic surrogacy, then do we have free choice in any other aspect of our lives?

But there are lots of things we can't legally 'choose' to do. You can't 'choose' to sell a kidney. You can't 'choose' to walk around naked'. You can't 'choose' to take certain drugs.

And the whole idea that we ever really have 'free choice' has been dissected quite brilliantly earlier in this thread. I suggest you take a look.

You say a police officer or fire fighter could leave their job - well yes they could and a potential surrogate could choose not to do it but according to some posters that requires choice and their argument is that we don't have choice, just the allusion of choice.

They could choose not to do it - but once they have so 'chosen', how can they get out of it?

The logical conclusion is that no one has choice then. A firefighter could leave their job - but can they if yo do so would risk the family's income and home? Do they have the choice then? Surely they gave as much choice, or not, as a woman considering becoming a surrogate?

I thought you weren't comparing surrogacy to a job?

So you think it's OK for a woman's family to depend on her gestating and birthing a child she will give away?

I hate this patronising attitude to women. It's an absolute tragedy that this woman lost her life, as it is when any woman loses her life in childbirth however that doesn't mean we should ban any activity that carries any risk. I would be prepared to be a surrogate to a close family member or friend. I enjoyed being pregnant and childbirth was OK for me. I would understand that the process carried risks and be prepared to accept those risks (just like I was when gestating my own child). Is some shrill MNer wanted to decide for me that actually I don't enjoy being pregnant, that actually she understands the risks better than I do and that she knowing nothing about me is better qualified to make that decision then I'd be very unimpressed.

There does need to be legislation around surrogacy to protect all involved but one tragic case shouldn't inform that legislation. In the same way one tragic car accident shouldn't inform our ability to drive cars.

I have mixed thoughts and feelings regarding surrogacy.

That said, while you cannot sell your own body or body parts you can donate your organs, blood and bone marrow, eggs, sperm... There are also medical risks associated with donation of some body parts and fluids while alive. Some people still chose to do so (reasonably freely), and it is usually celebrated and not condemned as exploitation, provided only medical expenses are covered and nothing is being bought.

Equally, one cannot sell a child who has been born (I can see how some could see surrogacy as also buying a child), but you can give up a child to another family via adoption.

I don't like the sort of surrogacy where rich westerners pay poor women from another country to carry a child, because of the arguments already made around 'choice'. There is a power and economic disparity.

However, surrogacy where the economic situation is more equal, especially something done for those known to the surrogate, I do not see a problem with. I think a woman should be permitted to create and birth a child for another if she wishes, say for close friends, in the same way she could give blood or a kidney to another. If one of my female cousins required such support, I would gladly do so, knowing the risks, out of love (though I suppose love is not always a choice, either, but in a rather different way than when money is exchanged). I'd also do it gladly for a gay couple I know who are as close to me as family. I would expect and want nothing in return. Again, an act of love.

But I do not think such services should be sold, in the same way body parts should not be sold, because that feels wrong in all sorts of ways already discussed.

I respect entirely others views either way, as I do not think it a simple matter, though I expect in a relatively, even frighteningly, short time it will be possible to grow babies in bags (artificial wombs are already being developed for premature babies), and the whole issue will become outdated. Perhaps, future humans will one day be amazed anyone risked their lives and health in such a way before hand, as pregnancy and childbirth?

Regardless, I find the story is extremely tragic.

Equally, one cannot sell a child who has been born

That is a good point. Would supporters of surrogacy be happy if the mother had sold her newborn for $80,000? What about her other two children? Would it be ok if the dad now decided to sell them for a few tens of thousands of dollars each?

I'm with catfromjapan and others. I don't subscribe to the 'her body, her choice' school of thought. This is a tragedy for her family and it's scandalous that society views buying women's bodies in this way as being 'kind' and 'selfless' instead of the exploitation that it really is.

Taking it to the nth degree as some posters are must surely lead to the conclusion that absolutelyno.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?

I agree with this. I'm really not comfortable with this idea that women are never capable of making a choice.

Having said that I am wholly opposed to surrogacy. It's buying a woman's body and buying a child. I dislike intensely the sheer magnitude of entitlement that everyone is entitled to have a baby no matter what.

I don't think so called altruistic surrogacy is any better and would ban that too.

citti you are doing humanity a diservice by associating conforming to societal or peer pressure as weak. Its isn't weak it is a completely normal and even essential part of being human. We are social animals who have evolved to respond to such pressures to increase our chances of survival.

Where ever this particular woman fell on the scale from full on coercion to a (societally preconditioned) love of babies/pregnancy, she would not be weak to have responded the way she did, she would be human.

Selling humans is never right. It should be illegal. It's not about 'consent'. There's plenty of things that are illegal and consent doesn't trump that.

I don't think so called altruistic surrogacy is any better and would ban that too.

Why is that?

I hold a different view (dislike paid, but would find this acceptable), but am genuinely interested in your reasoning so I can better understand this viewpoint.

ITs not just women who can't exercise true free will / choice in our currently vastly overconnected acho chambery society...the problem also affects men.