In GENERAL terms, all forms of surrogacy, altruistic included, is problematic

[NotBadConsidering]

And requires a woman - adult human female.

MNHQ have made it clear both here and on Twitter that this can be discussed in general terms, with no names being mentioned, even when a person with thousands of followers tweets about it in the public domain.

So please, adhere to the rules and discuss generally why it is an issue. Personally, regardless of the sexuality of the intended parents, even the most altruistic surrogacy arrangement - as in UK law, providing it doesn’t change - is drought with problems. Someone always gives up rights regardless. It’s inevitable. Either the intended parents do during pregnancy, and the mother and child certainly do regardless.

We have strict laws that mean a soon to be born child cannot be removed from a mother unless there are serious concerns for that baby’s welfare, yet in surrogacy, that is always the intention. This is not changed regardless of it being an altruistic arrangement. Nor is the risk to the mother.

And it requires a firm grasp on biological reality to make this happen. Two gametes are required, from one of each of the two sexes. The female sex - which exists despite recent attempts to deny its existence - does all the work and takes the greatest risk in surrogacy, even the most altruistic arrangements. It is therefore baffling how anyone could deny the existence of biological sex knowing this.

So, keeping it general, and not discussing names, please add your thoughts and experiences.

And in advance to those who have previously gone to the effort to discuss their experiences only to see them disappear.

The needs of puppies are taken into more consideration in legislation than human babies.

Somehow we have a situation where it's recognise that removing a newborn puppy from it's mother is incredibly cruel and causes various issues later on yet the same consideration isn't afforded to human babies.

That of course is without going into the inherent risks of egg donation and surrogate pregnancy/childbirth for women.

It astounds me that there are people that think it's okay for women and children to be commodities and wish fulfilment for others (no matter what tragic backstory that other person may have).

The kind of contracts proposed as part of commercial surrogacy, which is being lobbied very hard for in the UK, strike me as being nothing more than slavery contracts.

If you sign over your body into the control of someone else (even for a set period of time) and they have the power to choose what happens to you, what you eat and drink, how you can behave, what you can do, what medical treatment you can and can't receive etc... then I don't see what other analogy fits.

I suffered from infertility for 5 years before finally conceiving. During those 5 years I would have done anything to have a child. Absolutely anything, I was broken, tormented and a shadow of my previous self.

My darling sister offered to help be a surrogate for me one day. I remember that moment so clearly, we were walking through the park with her daughter and chatting about something else when she offered out of the blue - it had clearly been on her mind. It remains one of the most cherished memories of that time, one of the most life-affirming, kindest, selfless things ever said to me. That she would offer to use her functioning body in place of my malfunctioning body was a source of incredible comfort and peace - to know I was loved so much that she would do that was like a balm.

I declined - we were about to start a round of treatment which ultimately worked - but thinking back it still brings me joy that my beautiful, selfless sister would offer to carry a child for me, purely because she knew that not having one was breaking me.

I don't disagree with lots of what has been said. There are massive problems with surrogacy. In general terms a woman's body should never be bought or rented.

I just wanted to put my experience of having been offered (and considered) surrogacy that I believe was truly altruistic. Hand on heart I probably would have agreed to it, had our subsequent treatment not worked. If that makes me a bad person, so be it. I'll never forget that offer made to me and how I felt.

I'm vehemently against it, whether it's for a single person, a same sex couple, or a straight, infertile couple.

I said yesterday and I'll say it again-until there's a flurry of rich, successful women offering to be surrogates just out of kindness, I won't believe it's anything other than exploitation.

Yes, surrogate mothers 'consent', but they consent with the promise of thousands in 'medical expenses'. However you frame it, women are being paid for their wombs, use of their body.

A baby isn't a right, it's a privilege that sadly not everyone will get to experience. I know the pain of fertility issues and I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but my pain doesn't give me the right to rent a woman. I'm not entitled to use and discard another woman to get what I want, and it is just a 'want', not a need.

Plus, I would never be able to live with myself if she suffered any complications. They say that surrogate mothers consent, but can they really consent to a possible lifetime of medical issues should anything go wrong? Who picks up the pieces after? The commissioning parents? Or do they get to just sail off into the sunset with the baby they paid for?

@Frenchfancy

My views on surrogacy have nothing to do with who wants the baby, I'm not sure they have anything to do with feminism either. I just don't think babies are a comidoty to be bought, sold and bartered as if they were puppies.

This was Baroness Warnock's objection to commercial surrogacy when she chaired the initial public enquiry decades ago: she held that commercial surrogacy could not be distinguished, legally or morally, from chattel slavery. (I believe she subsequently changed her mind, but I think her first take on this was spot on). And I think you're right, this is a broader objection than feminist ones.

But in addition there are the specifically feminist objections around the fundamentally unacceptability of the purchase/rent of women's bodies (for an undertaking with a lot of risk attached to it).

It shouldn't need saying but I absolutely support same sex people being parents. I think there should be more support out there for other arrangements.

Absolutely. I know a gay man and a lesbian woman who chose to create a child together and raise it as co-parents and I think it's brilliant and their child is a very lucky little boy to be raised with so much love. Of course that option required the gay man in question to love (platonic of course) and respect a woman and her role in creating their child. He's an amazing guy all round.
There are also loads of good reasons this wouldn't work for everyone, but families can be all kinds and that is beautiful.

Surrogacy can absolutely be altruistic, if anything the fact that it comes with risks only furthers the altruism of the act

I doubt anyone who agrees to it initially, probably realises in the moment what it actually might entail.

Not talking about the pregnancy itself. But the sudden contract around her every move.

Do you not think that somewhere along the line, when shes questioned about if she drank at a party or is realky going to macdonalds fir lunch over some green salad with organic corn fed chicken and homemade pesto dressing,. Do you not think when her husband has already spent half the expense money , or everyone tells her what a wonderful things she's doing akd the excitement in her family members eyes, that it moves even slightly over from altruism to a feeling if obligation, financial responsibility and pressure to continue?

I am outraged surrogacy is allowed.

Surrogacy is a form of human trafficking.

The trafficker (aka intended parents) pays someone to arrange recruitment and receipt of a newborn. (The Act of Human Trafficking)

The trafficker (intended parents) pay the person (aka biological mother) in control of the victim (the baby). (The Means of Human Trafficking)

The Trafficker pays for ownership of a human doll (The Purpose of Trafficking).

Anyone considering surrogacy needs to take a long look at themselves. Would they buy a child from someone if they thought they could? Would they steal a child from someone if they thought they could? How can that make them a good parent?

There are so many children in this country and abroad who desperately need an adoptive home. Why not jump through those hoops and make a virtue out of your wishes, rather than exploiting a vulnerable woman?

There's a simple reason why mothers understand the needs of fourth trimester infants better than anyone else. It's because they need their mother.

I don't blame gay couple or couples struggling with infertility for not understanding. I didn't either until I had babies, but it's a fact and facts aren't homophobic.

While the impact on the child is the paramount concern, I also think the risks to the birth mother and issues of consent rule against surrogacy since a woman who hasn't had her own children can't give informed consent, and a woman with children is taking a serious risk with her life (a vital resource for her children).

Do you not think when her husband has already spent half the expense money , or everyone tells her what a wonderful things she's doing akd the excitement in her family members eyes, that it moves even slightly over from altruism to a feeling if obligation, financial responsibility and pressure to continue?

Obviously there is a risk that a legally binding contract could have this effect, but then does that not just highlight the need for these contracts to be a lot more nuanced and understanding of the mother in question?

I don't think there should be an assumption that the woman entering into the contract does not know what they're getting themselves into. However, if this happens to be the case in some situations, then surely the answer is to have a proper process (eg. with an assigned lawyer for the surrogate) that ensures every woman is fully aware of what she is getting into before she signs anything and ensures that nothing in the contract violates her rights as a human being.

You cant contract someones body.

Thats the point.

The second you do that , its a firm.of coercion

Whether something is risky or not has absolutely no bearing on whether it is an altruistic act. If I risked my life to save someone who was dangling from a cliff, I might die but the act is still altruistic.

Surrogacy can absolutely be altruistic, if anything the fact that it comes with risks only furthers the altruism of the act.

We are arguing the same point here. The altruistic intention of some surrogacy situations is not in question but that risks are still part of that. It’s the risks that need to be addressed, not how genuinely altruistic the offer is.

It’s impossible to square the rights and risks of all three parties, legally and morally, and that’s without any profit involved. That’s why laws in the UK are currently unenforceable and that’s why countries overseas with laws lead to horrible circumstances.

And this is all in the setting of how some people, generally, can’t even acknowledge that the only people who can perform this altruistic act are called women.

That's a good point tabby. There's a huge amount I didn't understand before I became a mother.

And it is yet another reason for woke activism /men's rights activism to create a schism between younger and older women. They really don't want us talking.

I think being a mother probably helps understanding, but it’s not a prerequisite. I’m not a mother, due to infertility, and I get on a visceral level what it means to take a baby away the moments it’s born, what it does to the mother, what it does to the baby. I never even considered it as an option in our case, because I always found it morally questionable. I never thought my desire for a family was the trump card over someone else’s bodily autonomy, or right to nurtured by their mother.

Having to bite my tongue very heavily at the moment as a (not close) family member is using a surrogate...

I think true altruistic surrogacy should be available is some form. If it's like a sister or cousin who has already had children and doesn't want anymore and offers it without being asked. I think focussing on the bond between baby and surrogate is a bit overrated. We're all fine with dads taking care of babies, while they didn't have a womb attachment with them either. This isn't different, baby will bond with the other parent. I do think that all pregnancy and birth related choices should be made by the surrogate and that the born baby has to be accepted in health and sickness by the new parents. So if it has health problems then so be it, that's the luck of the draw and the surrogate shouldn't be asked to abort. I think it should be heavily investigated and regulated to make sure that it is altruistic and that the surrogate is protected.

I am also opposed to all forms of surrogacy. In many ways altruistic surrogacy is worse, partly because it seems less problematic once the baby selling arguments don't hold. But

1. the whole idea that women should want to risk their health and lives for someone else's happiness is drenched in female socialisation and 'be kind'
2. The image most people have of altruistic surrogacy involves friends/ family when in reality in most cases people are meeting for surrogacy
3. Why is it acceptable that a woman takes all the risks, has all the pain and inconvenience and is the only one who doesn't get tangible benefit. Fertility clinics and lawyers still profit etc etc
4. I think assuming that surrogacy within families offers women any kind of protection is naive at best. Go and read the Stately Homes thread...
5. All of the issues involved in separating mother and child straight after birth are still there.

its also worth noting that what is described as 'altruistic' surrogacy often isn't. In the uk only altruistic surrogacy is allowed but expenses are not itemised and the courts have never refused to grant a parental order, even when payments appear to be far in excess of expenses.

This is the one subject where "will no one think of the children?" is a valid response.

It is always a tragedy if a baby cannot stay with it's mother. Always. To purposefully remove an infant from the woman who birthed it is absolutely repugnant.

Excellent post, witchesaremysisters.

Those thoughts are in my head, too. It is of course not puzzling to observe someone who has publicly stated a belief that sex doesn't exist and that there is no difference between males who identify as trans and females, to then equally publicly give the strong impression that he considers the usage of a female person to incubate a baby for him as a right he is entitled to. These are merely two sides of the same coin, minted in an ancient press called misogyny from a base metal called male supremacy.

I do understand the dilemma that true altruistic surrogacy presents to some of us.

(Please do not mistake what we have in the UK for altruistic surrogacy. It is commercial surrogacy in all but name, with a small number of restrictions, some of which the UK's Law Commission is currently seeking to remove. I'm happy to explain this if anyone is interested.)

Yes, it was an expression of her profound love for you that your sister offered to carry your child, Sleepinyourofficeinstead. There is no doubt about it. And I do understand why you would have, and did consider her offer. I suffered secondary infertility and although it isn't the same as primary infertility, what ensued was traumatic, and in my despair I don't know what I might have considered had our journey not played out as it did. So I wouldn't ever condemn a woman for considering surrogacy and I certainly don't condemn you. That doesn't change my belief that surrogacy, in principle and practice, is wrong.

(There are other situations too where I wouldn't condemn a woman for the choices she makes while condemning the system within which she makes those choices.)

Let me just add a comment I made previously, which I intend on posting to every surrogacy thread:

For anyone who would like to explore how surrogacy affects the rights of women and children in more detail, here is Lauren Hamstead' s prize-winning essay from the Object! Essay Competition 2020

objectnow.org/how-do-altruistic-and-commercial-surrogacy-affect-the-rights-of-women-and-children/

I highly recommend it, especially because she also explores how damaging even the concept of "altruistic" surrogacy is to these human rights.

The link again:

www.objectnow.org/how-do-altruistic-and-commercial-surrogacy-affect-the-rights-of-women-and-children/

Is altruism real? Does a sister offering surrogacy just feel sorry for her sister who can't have children, do they just feel guilty and feel they SHOULD do it and should offer it?
The risk is 100% on the woman. No one can predict how the pregnancy will go let alone the birth and subsequent long term physical damage.
Surrogate farms in the Ukraine are wrong, how can we then justify so called altruistic surrogacy?

When we were going through seven years of infertility and pregnancy loss, a close female relative, without telling us, went through some tests to see whether she could offer to bear a child for us. Such love!

What stopped her making the offer, she later told me, was the thought of the child being told she was actually their genetic mother, not the more distant relation the child had thought her. She imagined the child asking, "Why did you give me up? How could you?" She imagined what a child might feel on discovering their mother was not their mother but the woman they thought of as xxxx.

Please do not mistake what we have in the UK for altruistic surrogacy. It is commercial surrogacy in all but name, with a small number of restrictions, some of which the UK's Law Commission is currently seeking to remove. I'm happy to explain this if anyone is interested.

This is very much the case. In fact I remember one poster (DidoLamenting, I think) saying that although she was opposed to all surrogacy, if the decision were taken to allow commercial surrogacy, it should be properly paid and remunerated.

For me, this would include at least National Minimum wage for all the hours of the pregnancy with time and a half at least for overnights and weekends. It would include post-partum physiotherapy and any other treatments needed. It would include insurance cover for downstream health issues, with no time limit. On NMW plus time and a half, the wage bill alone for a 40 week pregnancy would come out to £74,000.

I think if women's time and labour were accurately costed, the bottom would drop out of the commercial surrogacy industry simply on financial grounds, because only someone as rich as Croesus could afford it.

@witchesaremysisters

If two prostate-owners who hold such views of women want to have a baby together, I ask:
If a woman is anyone who says they're a woman, why couldn't one of the ejaculators just identify as a woman? If sex is immaterial - a matter of semantics "assigned" by a medic - why not ask a doctor to just "re-assign" the sex of one of the ejaculators and mark it as "female"?
Wouldn't that, by these ejaculators' own logic, solve the issue?

I would imagine that their counter to that would be that not all women are fertile, so trans women come under that category. Presumably a woman who has had a hysterectomy or who is otherwise unable to become pregnant would not be chosen for or offer surrogacy services.

I'm not disagreeing with you, by the way, just imagining the response of people I know who are not gender critical.

It's a good article Charley.

This sentence pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter:

"Surrogacy agreements alienate gestational mother and child without respect for the rights of either. "

It doesn't matter to me what the reasons are behind a couple considering surrogacy are - an infertile hetro couple or a gay couple.

It doesn't matter to me if the surrogacy is "altruistic".

The sentence above is true regardless.

Furthermore what I find truly repugnant is when people who have devoted themselves to erasing the existence not just of women's rights, but the very notion of womanhood itself, demand that they have a right use the biological functions of the female sex (the reality and experiences of which they have consistently denied as being of relevance) in order to have a child.

I do believe it's not only appropriate, but that it's vital to call out the hypocrisy of such individuals and the innate misogyny that lies at the root of their sense of dismissal of the value of womanhood whilst simultaneously exploiting it.

Oh, I had the longest post I've ever written on that deleted thread! Seven years of infertility and pregnancy loss. Seven years of anguish laid out.

Plus my thoughts on why surrogacy is morally reprehensible whoever does it for whatever motives.

Gone... MN, I wish you'd warn us so we could save our words from the abyss.