Surrogacy for a family member - a moral dilemma

[WelliesandBrollies]

I’m considering offering to be a surrogate for my brother and his wife. I’d really like some input from my fellow feminists as I’m a regular poster on this board and and generally very critical of surrogacy.

My brother and his wife have been trying to have a baby for around 10 years now. They have had at least 10 rounds of IVF (I’m not too sure of the details, we used to talk about it a lot as I too went through IVF but my rounds were successful and I now have 2 children, that must have been heartbreaking for them). They can’t adopt as they currently live abroad for my brother’s work, so moving back would mean removing their adopted child from their country of birth and distancing the baby from their birth family. They have therefore decided to go down the surrogacy route.

I have tried to keep my opinions on exploiting a woman for her uterus to myself. I’ve spoken to my mum about it at length but while usually in agreement with me on these issues, she is blinded by her desire for her son to be happy. The solution I’ve come up with to volunteer myself. I’d be doing something incredible for my brother who I love really deeply, and no vulnerable women would be exploited. My husband has pointed out that I would be exploited, though, for my kindness and my morality.

I want to make it clear that nobody has actually even vaguely suggested that I be the surrogate, I’ve mentioned it to my mum and she said “absolutely not” And we haven’t talked about it since. I just can’t bear the thought of a poor foreign woman being exploited so my brother can have a family. But I can see the sadness in his eyes every time we speak at not being a father.

Any friends I’ve mentioned it too say I’m so brave and stunning but I just feel like it’s so much more complex than that. I don’t feel like I’m being 100% altruistic in my offer, I’m just as concerned about the potential surrogate they would use if it weren’t for me as I am about their happiness.

I don’t really know what I want from this thread. Advice/guidance/opinions?

Thank you all in advance

Human trafficking in all its guises is unethical.

[quote CumannNamBan]How is them hiring a surrogate better than adopting?

This is an account of an altrustic surrogacy gone wrong nordicmodelnow.org/2020/01/29/i-was-an-altruistic-surrogate-and-am-now-against-all-surrogacy/[/quote]
Fucking Hell! That's horrific.

Illegal under UK law. One IP must provide a gamete. If this had been checked (and they do) it's hard to see a PO being approved.

Presumably adoption must have been the legal vehicle used, at least in the UK. I don't know enough about how the process works and decisions are made but I think at the start of the process there would have been a certain element of surprise among the authorities that the baby had been purposely conceived with the plan of adoption within the family. If the legalities hadn't been checked out before the baby was conceived I would think it a rather risky thing to do. It's not a given that the adopting couple would be approved for adoption. If they weren't approved what then? Keep the extra baby? Offer it around the family until a suitable recipient is found? Put it up for adoption on the open market?

A very bizarre thing to do all round frankly.

Did they put the adoptive father on the birth certificate maybe? Illegal yes but it's not like they do DNA testing routinely.

That is a very upsetting read- poor woman. All of it. The fragility of the ‘altruistic‘ justification for the surrogacy is clearly shown, when you see how quickly it can break down over very predictable and not uncommon events in a pregnancy or at a birth.

I know it’s a small point in that overall awful story but the symbolism of the IPs feeling justified in christening the twins without inviting their friend, the woman who altruistically made the twins for them... awful. to her.

That was about this blog post: nordicmodelnow.org/2020/01/29/i-was-an-altruistic-surrogate-and-am-now-against-all-surrogacy/

Personally I think there is a huge difference between using your own egg and just being an incubator for their own genetic material.

The first I would have a problem with, for the reasons you've highlighted eg. What happens if they divorce and you don't see the child etc. It's too close a biological connection.

The second, it's a risk I would take for my brother. It's not your child. It never was and never will be. I could detach enough when there is no biological connection whatsoever, so that I would hopefully react in the same way I would add if it was their natural born child.

Only you know if you'd be able to detach enough.

@ChattyLion

That is a very upsetting read- poor woman. All of it. The fragility of the ‘altruistic‘ justification for the surrogacy is clearly shown, when you see how quickly it can break down over very predictable and not uncommon events in a pregnancy or at a birth.

I know it’s a small point in that overall awful story but the symbolism of the IPs feeling justified in christening the twins without inviting their friend, the woman who altruistically made the twins for them... awful. to her.

It's an awful story, isn't it? I think this very simple point sums up why I'm increasingly feeling that surrogacy is a bad idea: "The potential for abuse is too great." There are no real protections for anyone, least of all the child/ren.

@SnuggyBuggy

Did they put the adoptive father on the birth certificate maybe? Illegal yes but it's not like they do DNA testing routinely.

If the mother is married her spouses name goes on the certificate, you can’t just substitute another name (this caused all sorts of problems for a friend of mine who had been separated for some years but was still legally married - add in three nationalities between friend, husband and new partner and it took years to get her daughter the correct passports!)

Could happen if the ‘surrogate’ wasn’t married though.

Gosh I've never thought about it before but I can imagine quite a few people get caught out the same way @DuDuDuLangaLangaBingBong

If the ex was abusive/coercive/generally seeking revenge the implications are appalling. Might they even demand contact rights of "their" child? I suppose a DNA test and the courts would sort that aspect out but it would still be a pile if trouble which is what those sort of men enjoy causing.

Just to clarify the tale I described: this was technically adoption, not surrogacy, of course, but in fact it was not even that. It was an informal yet permanent arrangement, a generation ago...no one adopted anyone, the child was just cared for by and (obviously) lived with the sister (aunt) and her husband. Everyone knew who the bio parents were, so no actual secrets. It had a more or less wholly negative effect on family relationships all round with tensions and fallings out and long lasting mental health problems. I have only heard and seen at second hand, so I can only speculate that the arrangement was one of several issues that arose in that family. You could argue that only a dysfunctional family would ever dream that giving a child away at birth to a sister was a good idea, anyway...

Thanks for the clarification @tiktok
There was so much more to that story that we all wanted to know.
I now wonder if the child had actually been conceived by a secret lover?

Now I think about it, (and it's a long time since I read the book so do correct me), but didn't Karenin make sure of his revenge by asserting his legal position as parent of the child Anna had with her lover Vronsky, so when she let him for Vronsky she couldn't take the child with him? No doubt it's a scenario that has been a feature of many real life marriages over the years in generations past.

There are several informal adoptions like this in my family tree but of babies born in the 1910s and 20s.
Even then it messed with a lot of inter family relationships and various people’s mental health. One of my Nan’s ‘sisters’ was really her niece and everyone knew it - she died recently, in her late 80s, having spent her whole life feeling displaced - especially since her birth mum went on to have other children and raise them herself. She was incredibly loved and always included with the older girls in everything (and a bit of a pet favourite with her ‘adopted mother’/grandmother) but it still messed with her head.

This was pre contraception, pre welfare state, pre NHS, pre access to safe abortion, so motivated purely by practicality. Seems very weird to me to actively create children to live in these kinds of situations today, knowing the damage it caused back when there were far fewer options, but clearly a few people still do it.

"so when she let him for Vronsky she couldn't take the child with him?"

Aagh Grammar edit.

She left him and couldn't take the baby with her.

Yes, I’m sure this particular bit of law will have been abused by husbands to keep unhappy wives ‘trapped’.

At least now, with a welfare state that makes it possible to leave (barely, but still!) and widespread court mandated DNA testing for access and maintenance purposes, it’s no longer insurmountable. Must’ve been a lot harder in the past.

The biggest problem my friend had was that while she and the ex were somewhat OK, they were out of contact and on different continents, so it was tricky to find him and divorce him, and then the statutory declaration type docs that he needed to sign to say he agreed that he wasn’t the father didn’t have an international equivalent. It would’ve been a massive cluster fuck if my friend had died or become incapacitated during the process because he would’ve had automatic legal responsibility for a child that wasn’t his 😱

Anyway, once all that was done it was fairly easy to add the actual father to the birth paperwork under the same rules that stop mums from adding unmarried fathers if the man doesn’t attend the initial appointment with her - there is the option to add him at a later date.

This is turning into a giant derail now, but I feel like it belongs with the above comment - an unmarried friend of mine whose partner died during the pregnancy had a similar delay re: accurately registering the birth of her baby as he obviously wasn’t able to attend the appointment and it took a while to prove the baby’s parentage through DNA.

Seems to me that the current laws around registering babies are a bit of a hodgepodge of old and new law and probably need to be looked at as a whole - however, in the current climate any changes are likely to make things even shitter for mothers, and at least there are viable workarounds at present, even if they can be time and labour intensive and a massive inconvenient faff.

had a more or less wholly negative effect on family relationships all round with tensions and fallings out and long lasting mental health problems.

I'm not surprised. It sounds barmy. That's not how surrogacy works so no parallels to be drawn there.

@Whatisthisfuckery

I’m stuck on the fact that they won’t adopt because of your brother’s work. They don’t want a child that badly then do they, if he won’t change his work arrangements, settle permanently and adopt.

When you boile it all down, here you have a man who is not prepaired to make the necessary changes to his own life in order to have a child, he just expects the world to provide him with a child on his terms.

I wouldn’t even consider it OP. I wouldn’t consider being a surrogate anyways but even if I would, it would not be fore someone who puts their work and money first.

I am very much of the oppinion that although it’s heartbreaking for people who wants kids but for whatever reason can’t have them, that is life and they have to deal with it.

This exactly, and also everything @Barracker said.

And what others have said, you matter OP, your children and husband matter, the theoretical baby matters.

Imagine that heartbreaking quote a pp mentioned when a child asked if they too might be given away! It certainly could introduce a lot of insecurities in children of surrogates.

To commit to parenthood may require a job change. Even if they don’t want to change job, adopt from the UK if that is where they are from then that will be their cultural origin, their home base, the place they return to to visit family and friends.

Apart from which not all adoptions require ongoing contact with birth family, some specifically prohibit it.

Sorry OP Ibut if your brother can’t change his work now how’s it all going to work when they actually do have a baby?

I mean, if they have a baby, is he going to work with no changes and is his partner going to make all the work adaptations to her own career, to accommodate there being a baby in the mix? How come any compromises in his work seems to be so off the table, if he really wants to become a dad?