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

This Australian Law Society lecture looks at some of the problems. I was going to post a screenshot but the cases quoted are so horrific I decided to give you all the choice of looking or not.
Scroll down to page 9 "Commodification, abandonment and abuse", I'm afraid cases quoted are very shocking.

https://www.actlawsociety.asn.au/documents/item/3222

God how patronising some of you are.

Who really enjoys being pregnant? I did - I loved it.

If surrogacy was banned, no gay male couple could have a child who was biologically related to one of them. Those who want a ban on surrogacy, are you happy with that scenario?

Yes. I would be happy that no heterosexual, lesbian or gay couple could have a baby by surrogacy. And your point is nonsense anyway. Many gay couples come to an arrangement with a female friend where the mother remains the mother - there is no need to harvest eggs from one woman and implant into another.

No it doesn't. Several readers have pointed out that surrogate pregnancies carry significantly higher risks.

I must've missed that. I actually didn't know I'll have a read

no gay male couple
Do women have an obligation to provide children for gay men?

People posting that surrogacy, using donor eggs, is more dangerous than natural pregnancy - do the same risks apply to any pregnancy using donor eggs? I would assume so as the risks can't differentiate between a woman planning on raising the child and a woman planning on giving the child to someone else. Based on that, are you advocating for egg donation to be banned also?

Secondly, realistically can surrogacy be banned? How do you prevent a man from impregnating a woman and then, at birth, the mother relinquishing parenting rights and leaving the father, and his partner, to raise the child? Essentially, that's surrogacy but it's also a father raising his child. How do you ban that?

Do women have an obligation to provide children for gay men?

The sense of entitlement is obscene, isn't it?

If surrogacy was banned, no gay male couple could have a child who was biologically related to one of them. Those who want a ban on surrogacy, are you happy with that scenario?

I'm 100% happy with that scenario. Women are not obliged to provide gay males with children. Having your own biological child is not a human right.

Do women have an obligation to provide children for gay men?

Literally no one has suggested this. What you are suggesting is preventing women from choosing to do so if they want to. No one has ever suggested they should be compelled to do so against their will.

Secondly, realistically can surrogacy be banned? How do you prevent a man from impregnating a woman and then, at birth, the mother relinquishing parenting rights and leaving the father, and his partner, to raise the child? Essentially, that's surrogacy but it's also a father raising his child. How do you ban that?

A woman can't relinquish parenting rights at birth in the UK. At least not yet. Those in favour of commodifying women and children are working to change that, and knowing how these things go, they will probably get their way.

Based on that, are you advocating for egg donation to be banned also?

I'd be perfectly happy to see egg donation banned too. I used to think it was no big deal until I listened to interviews where people had discovered that their parents were not their biological parents, and they said it was utterly devastating. They had seen pictures of their mother when she was pregnant etc and had no reason to think anything was out of the ordinary. To discover that they weren't who they had always believed that they were, that they had no idea of eg any illnesses that ran in their family, had completely destroyed them.

Based on that, are you advocating for egg donation to be banned also?

I would ban all assisted conception. I remember at the time of the first "test tube baby" Louise Brown, thinking it was wrong and I still do.

It was the start of a very slippery slope and has led to women being paid to become pregnant so embryos can be flushed out for research. The research being solely for the purpose of making it easier to have babies to order. I'll post the links to this- I have to copy and paste from another thread.

So how are babies given up for adoption then?

Presumably the mother can tell the father to take the baby and looks after it and then the father's wife adopt the baby at a later date, just as would happen if the mother raised a child and then at a later date a step father adopted the child with the father's permission? What I'm saying is that if you ban surrogacy how do you ban informal arrangements? Do you say that a father is never allowed to raise his child without the birth mother, even with the birth mother's permission?

"Surrogacy is as old as the hills."

Is it really? What is the earliest documented incidence of surrogacy? At what point was humanity able to extract an egg from a woman, fertilise it with sperm, implant this into another woman, and this result in a healthy living baby?

Surrogacy is not a natural or "old" phenomenon, and even if it was, that doesn't automatically make it right.

"If surrogacy was banned, no gay male couple could have a child who was biologically related to one of them. Those who want a ban on surrogacy, are you happy with that scenario?"
That's the thing, isn't it? A patriarchal society just cannot bear men not getting what they want.
A gay male couple could adopt or they could try to make a co-parenting arrangement with a single woman or lesbian couple who would be willing to accept their donor sperm. Of course they might not be able to find/make such an arrangement. In which case TOUGH.
I can't believe people have such difficulty getting their heads around the fact that women's bodies do not exist to satisfy men's desires

"are you advocating for egg donation to be banned also?"
No, because the woman who is pregnant and taking on all the additional risks is doing so because she wants a child and not because someone else wants one. She's taking that risk for her own benefit and not for the benefit of someone else.

compelled to do so through guilt as otherwise no gay male couple could have a child who was biologically related to one of them. Those who want a ban on surrogacy, are you happy with that scenario?

The first link is a bit sensationalist and has an anti- abortion slant. Follow the links through and the last one is an academic report on the harvesting of embryos for research into how it can be made easier for people with a vast sense of entitlement to order up a baby.

thebridgehead.ca/2020/01/16/medical-researchers-are-paying-young-women-to-get-pregnant-and-then-abort-the-babies-for-research/

www.nationalreview.com/corner/experimenters-pay-mexican-women-to-get-pregnant-and-abort/

www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/01/15/796018096/embryo-research-to-reduce-need-for-in-vitro-fertilization-raises-ethical-concern

academic.oup.com/humrep/advance-article/doi/10.1093/humrep/dez242/5678546?searchresult=1

So how are babies given up for adoption then?

Following a very strict and lengthy procedure. Women can't just pop out a baby and relinquish parenting rights. The law - at present - recognises that a woman who has just given birth is in no fit state to make binding decisions on such matters, so several weeks must pass before the mother can give her consent.

Do you say that a father is never allowed to raise his child without the birth mother, even with the birth mother's permission?

See my post above. And by 'birth mother' I presume you just mean 'mother'?

At what point was humanity able to extract an egg from a woman, fertilise it with sperm, implant this into another woman, and this result in a healthy living baby?

Surrogacy doesn't have to involve a donated egg and sperm being fertilised using IVF and then implanted into a surrogate. It can be achieved by a man having sex with the surrogate, conceiving a child and then at birth the baby being handed to the father and his partner to raise. Many, many illegitimate children were raised by their grandmother who pretended to be the mother. Is that not surrogacy in effect?

A gay male couple could adopt or they could try to make a co-parenting arrangement with a single woman or lesbian couple who would be willing to accept their donor sperm. Of course they might not be able to find/make such an arrangement. In which case TOUGH

Exactly and it's not an uncommon arrangement.

All of this is emotive nonsense. With just about any event in life you can find an interview with someone who has been emotionally damaged, or died as a result of it. What you do is make a detailed analysis of the evidence and statistics involved. Anyone who makes a decision based on an "interview they heard" is being ridiculous. If I have a particular agenda I can collect lots of interviews in one place to back up that agenda. I could find plenty of children born of surrogates and surrogate mothers who say it was a wonderful experience . That doesn't make it arational argument because it would be incredibly biased. You need to have statistics and factual evidence to back up what you're saying or you'll be written off (and rightly so).

And by 'birth mother' I presume you just mean 'mother'?

No, when the child is adopted by another woman I think birth mother is the appropriate term to distinguish between the woman raising the child and the woman who gave birth to the child.

@Hearhoovesthinkzebras
I suppose on your definition of surrogacy. The situation you describe - I would call it enforced adoption. Awful.

@Aesopfable

Oh god how ridiculous. You really think surrogate mothers are taking that option out of guilt because gay couples (or infertile couples) can't otherwise have babies? Good lord!

I suppose it depends on your definition of surrogacy

Many, many illegitimate children were raised by their grandmother who pretended to be the mother. Is that not surrogacy in effect?

Don't be daft.

These were cases of a young woman - often just a girl - become accidentally pregnant and in the days before legal abortion, her family came up with a solution which was the least worst option for all concerned.

It's entirely different from a scenario where a woman 'chooses' to become pregnant knowing that she will give up that baby to other people. Amazed that you can't see the difference.