Single man looking for a surrogate - BBC

[OhHolyJesus]

At 34 he really doesn't need to rush to have a biological child to meet his "burning desire" but he has two embryos on ice with an attractive-sounding egg donor, rather than a partner and I'm sure he hopes the BBC article will mean someone 'comes forward' (don't all rush at once ladies) to grow a "little person" for him.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-56162721

So women need to grow and deliver babies, and possibly risk their lives for:

Infertile heterosexual couples
Gay men
Single men

...and someone will be along to say this is discriminatory against single women with careers soon, thus the new age of social surrogacy is born.

Igiveyouanonion

You seem to be labouring under the impression that adoption of infants is an easy, straightforward thing without psychological impact on the baby, and then thinking that we are applying double standards?

On the contrary, it's really the other way around. Adoption, even in early infancy, is now known to be a risk factor for attachment disorder. Knowing this, when children are adopted, it is supposed to go ahead because it is the least-worst option. We struggle to keep birth families together, and British society no longer tells young single mothers to put their babies up for adoption with the fervour it did in decades gone by.

Knowing this, I ask, why the double standards for deliberately creating the scenario of a baby that will be removed from the woman who carried it and birthed it, when money is involved? Regardless of all we have learnt about child psychology and development?

@WhoStoleMyCheese in my opinion the baby born via surrogate is the parents baby. If the baby is born disabled then those parents can either give the baby up for adoption or they can keep their baby. I’m not sure why this is being touted as a surrogacy only issue - there are a lot of cases out there where a disabled baby is given up for adoption as parents don’t believe they can cope.

If surrogacy was properly regulated there should definitely be clauses in there for support to dependents or the surrogate if they sustain an injury or disability directly due to the pregnancy.

Many women have easy pregnancies. Many woman are in good health , no known medical conditions and have already had a pregnancy and baby thus know generally whether they will react well to being pregnant again. These are the types of people who might consider being a surrogate.

At the minute there are huge issues with surrogacy and banning it in certain places just leads to it taking place in underhand and unsafe conditions. Similar to countries where abortion is banned. Things get very nasty very quickly when they are unregulated and operating under the radar.

Properly regulated, properly informed, properly reimbursed and a tight contract that places the welfare of the surrogate front and centre is what is needed.

Like I said there are women who are desperate for a baby they can’t have due to infertility. There are women who carry pregnancies easily and without issue. If one of those women agrees to or wants to carry a baby for the other then this I am not against this - even if the woman is really doing it for the money.

I am not sure if I would ever go down the road of surrogacy. At the minute I don’t think I would. However prior to when I started to TTC my DSIS lost a baby due to a number of high risk issues in pregnancy. If I was like my DM who had 6 easy pregnancies with no issues I would definitely have acted as a surrogate for my DSIS if it was too risky for her to go through pregnancy again. I wouldn’t class myself as that babies mother in that instance.

I just find the views on here really nasty and lacking in any kind of empathy as to why someone might want to have a baby via surrogate. Instead the views on here are painting all women who want to have a baby via surrogacy as morally bankrupt evil baby stealers and all surrogacy as bad.

Igiveyouanonion

so you don’t think adoptive mothers ‘love their offspring above all else’ as they didn’t carry them

Of course adoptive mothers develop love and familial bonds with the children they adopt - do I think that they love their child in the same way they would if they had given birth to them? No, I don’t.

@TriflePudding I must tell my friend who is adopted her mother can’t love her as much as my mother loves me as she didn’t give birth to her!

I think all surrogacy is bad and so do many countries which is why it's illegal in most of Europe.

@Igiveyouanonion - what if the surrogate uses her own eggs (traditional surrogacy)? Is that her baby or does it still belong to the commissioning parents?

And what about women who have babies using donor eggs? Or even donor eggs and sperm? Are those babies not theirs?

The only difference between a woman who uses donor gametes to have a baby for herself and one who has one to sell to someone else is money. That's it.

That's not something I'd comment on Trifle. But regarding the original tangent, in my own experience, women who have actually adopted and thus supported and helped their children through attachment issues from adoption, are the ones who would look most askance at Onion's blasé attitude to surrogacy.

It's just like adoption is it? Yeah. In the bad ways!

Just an aside, infertility care which is already a patchy/postcode lottery, will get significantly worse if being a single man starts to be categorised as infertility.

I have no issue with altruistic surrogacy where the surrogate mother is reimbursed for her costs and is adequately compensated for any birth complications or long term health conditions (ie if gestational diabetes becomes diabetes for life). Also the adoptive parent must pay for the surrogate mothers various life, disability insurance and loss of earnings.

The whole disabled babies being abandoned is a red herring because people who are not surrogates do this just as often, perhaps more so because the #1 demographic seeking a surrogate are rich heterosexual couples and they are more likely to have the means to raise their biological child with a disability than a poor, single mother with an unplanned pregnancy and no access to or religion prohibiting an abortion.

The whole “but it can be exploited” is also a red herring because every human activity can be and is exploited. Your employer can exploit you for example. Companies can exploit vulnerable children online with advertising for junk. Relationships- friends and partners can exploit you until you break it off with them. Exploitation is not a reason to ban an activity, but to regulate it.

I don’t view surrogacy as “buying babies” it’s not. How can it be, the baby is an embryo from its biological parents. The surrogate is not selling a baby, or a uterus/organ. It is the provision of a service or at worst “leasing” your uterus in return for the “full costs” being compensated but at zero profit. So it’s not commercial then either, but rather more like a charity, because altruistic surrogacy is an act of charity.

I don’t view separating mum from baby as this insurmountable trauma either. I think that’s a bit of a street if I’m honest. Attachment issues come from a baby having multiple, frequently changing caregivers. So long as a baby has a few primary caregivers from the start, there is no attachment disorder.

This is a blog post from Object Now about the Law Commission and Surrogacy Reform
ttps://objectnow.org/sneaking-surrogacy-into-law/

and here are some webinar recordings from Nordic Model Now...

This is a general overview of the UK Law Commission consultation

This looks at the burden on the NHS

This one was about who the Law Commission spoke to before they launched the public consultation, or rather who they didn't speak to,

...these and the threads on MN really woke me up to the issues.

@Clymene that is definitely more complicated. I would generally be in favour of surrogacy using the parents own eggs and sperm as it is the most straightforward.

@PotholeParadies the only comparison I am making to adoption is in reference to posters here saying the parents who will love, care for and bring up the baby are not the babies parents and that the mother is not the babies mother.

I don’t think many would tell a woman who adopted that she wasn’t her child’s mother...or that she can’t love her child as much as a mother who gave birth to her child could (although trifle has come out and said that).

@Igiveyouanonion

Thanks also for explaining to me that as infertile person I can’t understand surrogacy like a mother can as I haven’t gotten this deep understanding they have. 🙄

@Igiveyouanonion Infertility and miscarriages are terribly painful things - something some parents do know about very well. At the same time, many mothers have a lived experience of gestation and birth. And most birth and adoptive mothers have a deep understanding of parenting. Going through pregnancy and/or parenting gives one a unique understanding of this issue. Is it a moral high ground? Perhaps. And from this place of knowledge we want to protect women who could be manipulated into surrogacy and we want to protect children who would be purchased.

The UN has heard from DC children and I would ask you to listen to them. www.wearedonorconceived.com/homepage-featured-article/donor-conceived-people-present-at-the-united-nations/

The answer to the pain of infertility is not the renting of women's bodies nor the purchase of children.

I work in a service designated as children's social care in England.
Almost all of the single men or 2 men households interested in accessing services complain that they could not find a woman willing to help them to be their surrogate before approaching my team.
They present as being victims in all this, it's not their fault, they should be able to have children who share their DNA if it were not for a pesky woman standing in the way.

The dehumanising aspect related to pregnancy and childbirth is rather chilling and some of my colleagues have asked to not be on the front-line team dealing with these enquiries because they find it so tough.
This from reasonably educated, articulate men with means, at least this is my experience. And none of them has to my recollection mentioned the word 'mother' 'pregnant lady'. It is always the surrogate.

[quote Igiveyouanonion]@PlanDeRaccordement you’ve said everything I think but in a much more eloquent way

@OhHolyJesus ah I recognise you from the surrogacy boards where women are asking about surrogacy and you jump in and attack them and call them names! Really you should just ask for mumsnet to remove the surrogacy topic altogether then you can stop policing it and cutting vulnerable women who are just asking about surrogacy down to size![/quote]
OhHolyJesus has never attacked women nor called them names. This is an unacceptable response to the OP.

Are we allowed personal attacks based on postings from other threads on the FWR?

I thought that was one of the new rules and that would get deleted/get a strike for that?

[quote Igiveyouanonion]@Clymene that is definitely more complicated. I would generally be in favour of surrogacy using the parents own eggs and sperm as it is the most straightforward.

@PotholeParadies the only comparison I am making to adoption is in reference to posters here saying the parents who will love, care for and bring up the baby are not the babies parents and that the mother is not the babies mother.

I don’t think many would tell a woman who adopted that she wasn’t her child’s mother...or that she can’t love her child as much as a mother who gave birth to her child could (although trifle has come out and said that).[/quote]
People who adopt don’t go looking for a woman’s body to gestate a baby for them. They look for babies or children who for a range of reasons are no longer being raised by their own birth parent/S. It’s a whole world away from surrogacy.- the buying of a body to provide someone with something their body isn’t designed for or is unable to produce.

Instead the views on here are painting all women who want to have a baby via surrogacy as morally bankrupt evil baby stealers and all surrogacy as bad

Let's not lose sight of the original subject of the thread, which was discussing the issues around single men using surrogates to fulfil their desire for a baby.

I might have missed it, in which case apologies. But did onion address the research that shows babies are traumatised on separation from their mother? In particular that adoption is seen as the best of a bad situation (the child will be traumatised but will be more traumatised by being left with an unsuitable parent) Whereas surrogacy is creating that trauma. Two very different things I think.

Do babies have the right to have a life planned for them that does not involve birth trauma. Or are the commissioning parents rights to a child of their own genes more important? Conflicting rights INNIT. I would argue the child should always come first.

@PlanDeRaccordement

I have no issue with altruistic surrogacy where the surrogate mother is reimbursed for her costs and is adequately compensated for any birth complications or long term health conditions (ie if gestational diabetes becomes diabetes for life). Also the adoptive parent must pay for the surrogate mothers various life, disability insurance and loss of earnings.

The whole disabled babies being abandoned is a red herring because people who are not surrogates do this just as often, perhaps more so because the #1 demographic seeking a surrogate are rich heterosexual couples and they are more likely to have the means to raise their biological child with a disability than a poor, single mother with an unplanned pregnancy and no access to or religion prohibiting an abortion.

The whole “but it can be exploited” is also a red herring because every human activity can be and is exploited. Your employer can exploit you for example. Companies can exploit vulnerable children online with advertising for junk. Relationships- friends and partners can exploit you until you break it off with them. Exploitation is not a reason to ban an activity, but to regulate it.

I don’t view surrogacy as “buying babies” it’s not. How can it be, the baby is an embryo from its biological parents. The surrogate is not selling a baby, or a uterus/organ. It is the provision of a service or at worst “leasing” your uterus in return for the “full costs” being compensated but at zero profit. So it’s not commercial then either, but rather more like a charity, because altruistic surrogacy is an act of charity.

I don’t view separating mum from baby as this insurmountable trauma either. I think that’s a bit of a street if I’m honest. Attachment issues come from a baby having multiple, frequently changing caregivers. So long as a baby has a few primary caregivers from the start, there is no attachment disorder.

It absolutely is buying a body. To suggest otherwise is plain ignorant,

I think only thing I failed to mention are

• No one has right to a baby through surrogacy. So it should not be viewed as the ultimate infertility treatment. This means there is no injustice if certain want to be parents cannot afford or are not suitable to raise a child. Should be same vetting in place as for adoption.

• because of above, NHS (or any national healthcare system) should never pay for it and never even be required to match interested single or coupled parents with interested surrogates.

• this is something that should be strictly regulated and audited to minimise exploitation and managed with fully private healthcare and so on.

-outcomes should be rigorously studied for the short and long term outcomes of the infants welfare against control group infants.

I find it a bit odd that a school teacher, of all people, would choose to call their dog Tor. Most people associate Tor with illegal activity on the Dark Web. I know Tor has perfectly legitimate uses too, but it just seems a bit unwise to hint at use of this tool.

In my experience, individuals interested in adoption, whether in committed partnerships or lone parents, are generally wanting to be parents. They may not be bringing home a baby but they help children experience the rest of their childhood outside of the care system, and they get to have a family, they can call their own.
Male individuals coming to us after not being able to find a surrogate mother willing/able/available to give them a baby, are often much more focused on what their own needs are, rather than having any empathy for what a surrogate mother has to endure or being focused on future needs of the children.
This is my lived experience, not a generalised opinion.
Often I have to ensure that pregnant ladies of my team aren't visible to some service users due to the vitriol they face simply by being pregnant.
You can learn a lot about people who are disparaging about pregnant women.

Adoption and surrogacy are very different.

@Soontobe60
It absolutely is buying a body. To suggest otherwise is plain ignorant,

Which body you referring to?

It’s not the baby...the baby is merely a grown version of the embryo implanted so never belonged to and never was part of the surrogate mother.

It’s not the mother because she has not sold herself, her body, she still owns her body. She has agreed to provide a service, or labour for nine months. The fact she uses her body isn’t selling her body any more than if you worked any physical job. Is a gymnast or dancer selling her body? No.

I think the only surrogacy that should be allowed is eg sister for sibling, good friends etc. No money ever. Adoption may not be easy, the children available may be in need of extraordinary parenting, but they deserve a home before we allow people to grow some more semi commercially (including buying from abroad)