Voices we don't hear from - a child of surrogacy

[OhHolyJesus]

I've found MN to be a source of voices we don't hear from, like trans widows and children of transitoners, children born from are not voices we often hear.

Surrogacy is often portrayed as positive, focusing on an infertile woman having her wishes come true by the kind and generous surrogate mother, bestowing the biggest give one can give...and all that BS.

This is Kylee, a 36 year old woman who was "Donor Conceived". Even if this short video you can see how she is struggling to express herself but she does so clearly and intelligently. I'm going to check out her blog too, there are clearly more like her.

twitter.com/StopSurrogacy/status/1246122272093540353?s=20

nettie - regulatory capture for sure.

As regards the international commissioning parents coming to the UK I think it is little known about. In theory they shouldn't be able to remove the baby from the UK without a lot of difficulties - I think they can't get a parental order but have to adopt. But I am firmly of the view that where there's a will there's a way, especially when backed up by money. The case I posted showed that whether knowingly or not in at least 20 cases, on the advice of Cots, they appeared to have just given a UK address to the court and no one checked and off they went.
The surrogate mother, being British, is entitled to care from the NHS of course.
I suspect they also don't need to pay any court costs, if they are appearing to have British residency. In the particular case, due to the nature of the commissioning parents' international status, there were significant costs racked up, with social work reports etc, it came to £35k and the British taxpayer paid.

This is a completely different issue to foreign use of the NHS - it is not to treat foreigners as patients, it is about baby trafficking (judge used these words) and the British taxpayer/NHS paying.
I am really concerned about the implications of the law Commission proposals leading to a significant increase in this.

One thing that she raised that was quite interesting was the issue of screening parents before allowing fertility treatment. On the one hand it’s true that adoptive parents are already screen but of course people who conceive naturally don’t undergo any preassessments for parenthood at all unless they are already known to child protection services. On the one hand it seems wrong that the state should be permitted to dictate who can and can’t have a family, but on the other they have a duty to protect children from harm. Currently they choose to strike the blame by only interfering once a child is born but that leads to a lot of problems I suppose.

@UglyGlassVase
I first used the phrase 'skin in the game' upthread, to explain that I found it difficult to come to a clear standpoint on surrogacy because it touches on a painful personal topic for me - that of infertility. Nothing saying that other people couldn't or shouldn't have a view. If you have a view, no problem. I haven't formulated my standpoint yet because, frankly, it is all still too raw and I can't yet be neutral and dispassionate about it. So it isn't 'bollocks', it is about recognising and accepting one's own personal limitations and subjectivity.

I'm sure there are many happy balanced children born via surrogacy or sperm donation as well
As there is also children raised by biological parents who have issues
I'm guessing most who are against probably can have children with no issues( I myself could )
Surely a wanted child in to a loving home who is cared for and loved is more important

The only objection o have is I think sperm donars should be limited and not be able to donate multiple times just incase these children were to meet etc

Here is another voice from someone was donor conceived.

Nick Isel found out at 15 that his father came from a sperm bank which ultimately was looking to perform eugenics. He has over 50 siblings, some from numerous marriages, others from the sperm bank.

He launched a petition to force fertility clinics to retain data on donors.

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/venusrising/episodes/2020-02-04T2000000-0800

I think the trouble stirred up by genealogical DNA services (families shocked when half-siblings show up in unexpected places) shines an interesting light on the importance of genetic heritage.

I like Ancestry and enjoy looking at my family tree - there is a sense of rootedness in having an idea of where and whom I come from. However I have told my DH to never, ever consider buying me the DNA kit - frankly, I do not want to know!

Surely a wanted child in to a loving home who is cared for and loved is more important

More important than the exploitation of at least one and probably two women, exposing them to health risks and possible harm?

I've heard some crazy stories come out of DNA based ancestry research for sure. Many people get more than they bargained for.

Surely a wanted child in to a loving home who is cared for and loved is more important

The hoped for ends justify the many dodgy bits of the means?

What about for the inevitable percentage of the times where those dodgy means don't end up with lovely happy instagrammable ends that cover up the ugly bits? Ethics. The unseen, exploited people in this matter too.

@MaybeDoctor I appreciate that and I think it's great that, as somebody for who this hits close to home, you recognise you find it hard to be objective. I apologise that I used your phrasing.

It's something that comes up a lot though, I have heard "oh you can't know until you've experienced it" a lot when this debate is brought up. It's infuriating because the experience people are talking about is always infertility and never poverty.

Thank you - accepted, and also agree that the voice/experience of poverty is not heard enough at a national level.

I'm sharing this article from yesterday as the quotes from adult children born from surrogacy arrangements are heartbreaking.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/05/08/why-we-really-cant-celebrate-both-surrogacy-and-mothers-day/

1. My formative years were almost entirely devoid of women. I didn’t even know that there was such a thing as a mother until I watched ‘The Land Before Time’ at school. My 5-year-old brain could not understand why I didn’t have the mom that I suddenly desperately wanted. I felt the loss. I felt the hole.

As I grew, I tried to fill that hole with aunts, my dads’ lesbian friends and teachers. I remember asking my first-grade teacher if I could call her mom. I asked that question of any woman who showed me any amount of love and affection. It was instinctive. I craved a mother’s love even though I was well-loved by my two gay dads

And

1. Something horrible happened to us at birth. We lost our mothers. They did not die, but they might as well have been dead because we lost them in the capacity of mother, and to a tiny baby, that feels like death. They are all we ever knew and suddenly, they were gone …

That makes us feel very rejected. That leaves a hole in our hearts whether we admit to it or it manifests some other way like in depression or a fear of getting close to someone else. Sometimes it doesn’t show up until we are in our teens or [are] young adults, and like me sometimes it shows up as a baby when I scream my head off for six weeks and they call it colic. They call it stomach gas or an immature neurological system. Nothing can console us. … I wanted my mother and she wasn’t there. … You can’t just substitute mothers and expect us to be OK with it.

Thanks for this OhHolyJesus. I've transcribed Jessica's video below:

Jessica speaks out about being born of commercial surrogacy

Hi, I’m Jessica Kern and I’m a product of a commercial surrogacy.
I’m speaking out today because I have great concerns about the proposed surrogacy legislation in New York. Um, as a product of a surrogacy arrangement I’ve experienced , um, the impact of what the donor conceived person will experience in their lifetime.

We currently know that with adoption that there are psychological harms that are potential and we also are informed in our decisions with the foster care system to when at all possible allow the children to reunite with the biological family because there is a known harm done to people separated from their biology.

So as much empathy as I have for people who have infertility issues I don’t believe that it is fair to pass the trauma of infertility onto a donor conceived person, um and that’s just my issues from a donor conceived stand point.

I also have huge issues with the socio economic differences of the people utilising the services from the people donating their eggs and their wombs um there is no reason that women should be having their lives risked for this service.

I am now a 36 year old adult conceived of surrogacy and I no longer have a relationship with the social mother who raised me it’s the harm done by separating a child from their biology can be significant enough to cause irreparable harm um there are also studies that show that children are more subjected to abusive households when they are not raised with their biology and my own personal experience was in line with that and there also an issue that most legislation doesn’t do intensive home studies on the parents that are using third party donor conception to begin their families and that’s a really lacking area there’s no reason a donor conceived person shouldn’t get the same standard of safety as an adoptive person would because at the end of the day they’ll be at least half adopted um so safety is a really huge issue within our community.

From my lived experiences and my shared experiences within the donor conceived community, I am 100% against donor conception, I feel like it harms children and women in ways that are irreparable and I also think in this time of covid, we’re learning what the difference between needs and wants are and what donor conception allows is to create people whose needs are less than those who are purchasing the product um I have a blog, the other side of surrogacy.com where I have talked about some of the feelings that come from being donor conceived specifically surrogacy born since that’s my personal journey um and there is a commodification to this whole process to know that at the end of the day you’re just a pay cheque for someone who should have been your parent at the end of the day um, (sigh) it does real damage to the relationships, it changes the dynamic from the parents you grew up with to just a mom and a dad to um a product who is supposed to meet their wants and needs and yours becomes secondary to those.

I really appreciate your time in listening to me and my experiences with surrogacy, I really hope that you’ll take the stand to protect women and children by not allowing this legislation to go through.

@JoanOfQuarks this is amazing thank you for doing this!

As an adult who lost a parent as a baby, and the mum of a daughter who lost her biological/first mum as baby, I completely agree with this:
“ To bring children into the world via surrogacy is not about the children's well-being at all, it's entirely about the parents.“

Knowing my own pain, and that of my own daughter (and the degree of therapeutic parenting needed, to hopefully head some of that off in her adulthood) ...I say to intentionally bring a child into being in order for them to be separated from their biological/gestational mother, seems (albeit unknowingly) abusive.

@Easilyanxious

I'm sure there are many happy balanced children born via surrogacy or sperm donation as well As there is also children raised by biological parents who have issues I'm guessing most who are against probably can have children with no issues( I myself could ) Surely a wanted child in to a loving home who is cared for and loved is more important

I can’t find a way to say this more kindly, but ...how are you ‘sure’?

A child can be much loved and still in pain forever from that first loss. Why is a grown adults pain of infertility more valid than the pain of the child who they will take from its biological / gestational mother?

I don’t have a birth child, but I do have an adopted child and the hardest thing about raising her is seeing the effects of her early loss play out in her life over and over 😢

This is interesting I thought.

"In a 2019 survey done by the WADC of 312 DC people, 86% of respondents agreed that sperm banks and clinics “do not adequately understand or respect the emotional needs of [DC] people.”

“We are talking about the creation of human beings,” Jackson said. “We’re not products. There needs to be common-sense regulation. I’m talking about things like limiting the amount of offspring one donor can provide and ensuring that the donor offspring have updated, correct and complete medical information and [being] able to identify their biological parent like adopted kids. We’re not asking for special treatment. We’re just asking for equality.”

hwchronicle.com/generation-donor-conceived/

Oh and this bit...

"For Founder of We Are Donor Conceived (WADC) Erin Jackson, discovering that she was DC at 35 prompted her to establish a website where DC people can claim their unique creation stories, share their feelings and offer resources to those searching for their biological roots. For many in the DC population, publicly claiming their individual genetic identity is part of an effort to dismantle a culture of secrecy that too often accompanies donor conception. Jackson said the revelation that she was DC shocked her.

“It is a confusing struggle that I will probably deal with for the rest of my life,” Jackson said. “I think a lot of that is grieving the loss of [never] getting the opportunity to know my biological father because he never intended to be found or known by his offspring through sperm donation and not knowing how many siblings I have or where they are.”

I thought this was a key point and one I hadn't heard before: the emotional trauma (of infertility) had been passed from the couple to the child (trauma of no biological link)