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.

@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!

Receipts please.

I read a number of boards, including the adoption board. I post where I wish and I notify MN when surrogacy threads breached what would constitute an advert for a surrogate mother (it's illegal) and it was this thread that drew my attention to it, which interesting timing was a few weeks before the Law Commission consultation closed.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3698520-Did-everyone-know-that-MN-now-has-a-surrogacy-board

I would like to see the surrogacy board closed if it is to become a free baby making board, where people connect to do deals online, outside of HFEA guidelines and recommended practice from UK surrogacy agencies...a bit like the Pollen Tree website for sperm donors (have you seen the Donor Conception Board too?)

You may also have seen my replies which inform others and help them find the answers they are looking for but you seem to have conveniently neglected to mention those.

It's not my job or intention to 'police' any boards but the surrogacy board attracts a number of posters who I would generally agree with on the topic of surrogacy like this one.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/surrogacy/4160303-Surrogacy-expensive

I'm not some kind of lone infiltrator to dictate to others on how they reproduce (you'll see I'm not alone, there are plenty of us) but I would never pretend I don't judge them when they make decisions to meet their own desires without placing a brand new human life and front and centre in those plans.

I also never name change, I stand by every single comment I have made.

Yes, adoption and surrogacy are very different.
But many individuals who are drawn to surrogacy look towards adoption if they are not able to engage with a surrogate mother.

@minniemoocher

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)

The problem with no money ever, is that everyone is making money out of the procedure except the mother.

It's another good reason that surrogacy should be banned. Doctor, fertility clinic, vetting company, lawyers they can all get paid for their work. But the woman taking the biggest risk and working the longest shift, gets nothing.

Like I said there are women who are desperate for a baby they can’t have due to infertility.

While I have far more sympathy for infertile women than I do for a fertile, single, heterosexual man who can't seem to find a female life partner (I have questions there as well) ethical and rational decisions are difficult to make when one is desperate. Adoptive patents go through so much scrutiny to be parents, yet this man can just purchase and store embryos and we are asked to feel sorry for him that a "womb" isn't readily available?!?!?

PlanDeRaccordement it’s nothing like being a dancer, more like being a prostitute. Renting out reproductive organs for 9 months in order to create a baby whereas a prostitution would only do it for a short period at a time. It hardly progressive for women.

I was adopted as a baby. Unusually for someone my age, I was voluntarily given up for adoption. This wasn't even a scenario in which I was given up for adoption due to my mother realising that she didn't have the means to care for me and that I'd be better off elsewhere. I have an older biological sister and younger siblings who she was able to care for with a reasonable degree of competence.

My life has undoubtedly been better with my adoptive mother than it would have been with my birth mother, I had a happy childhood. However, it does hurt knowing that the woman who gave birth to you gave you up willingly and, in my case, unnecessarily. I think one thing which could make it worse is knowing that it was done for money.

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.

Not even close. A dancer who doesn't like the choreographer can quit. Once pregnant, you must go through it to the end or suffer a painful and possibly dangerous miscarriage or abortion. This kind of thinking is precisely why women who have given birth and/or mothered children are uniquely qualified to weigh in on surrogacy.

[quote Igiveyouanonion]@Usagi12 many people are killed in car crashes every year - how many of these people are expendable to you? 1, 100, 1000? At what point will you be advocating for a full ban of all motor vehicles?[/quote]
Another gem, you're on fire today because this is absolutely comparing apples with apples 🤣🤣🤣
How exactly do you know that all commissioning parents are nice, lovely people????? I bet some of them are, they're still buying a baby, a human being made to their specifications.
Right now actually, don't have a car, they cause awful damage to the environment and people's health, get rid of them tomorrow I say!

Just chiming in as another woman who is infertile with no children, has the means to use surrogacy, but who is utterly against it. It never even crossed my mind. I don’t have a right to another woman’s body just because mine doesn’t work, and I don’t have a right to a baby.

I also don’t take exception to the concept that I don’t know what it’s like to become a mother and to experience the unique love for a being that came out of my body. I can imagine it, but I don’t know it. It makes me sad sometimes, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true.

The fella in the OP makes me uncomfortable.

How can it possibly be OK to use another woman’s body in this way? It’s akin to legalising buying organs which is a dark road to enter. Are these commissioners thinking about the baby’s rights to bond with their mother after birth? My babies knew my smell, my voice, they were only soothed by listening to my heartbeat on my chest. In some tragic cases, babies don’t experience that and it causes trauma. How could you knowingly cause that? Because you want a baby enough to ignore it. Selfish and wrong.

Also the comment comparing being a surrogate to using your body like a dancer - haaaa!! It’s much more similar to prostitution except much worse since prostitutes aren’t generally risking severe vaginal tearing, preeclampsia, DEATH and everything else that comes with a risky pregnancy and birth.

If a woman wants to be a surrogate why is that not her choice? As long as women are not being forced, then what is the issue

@donewithitalltodayandxmas

If a woman wants to be a surrogate why is that not her choice? As long as women are not being forced, then what is the issue

Because a baby should be with its mother if it all possible. Because exploiting women for their uteruses is wrong.

@Clymene many times they are not their biological mother ?
And why are fathers not important?
Some children should not ever be with their mother and are taken for very good reason as well , just being a women or mother doesn't automatically make it better or safer for a baby in every case

@donewithitalltodayandxmas

If a woman wants to be a surrogate why is that not her choice? As long as women are not being forced, then what is the issue

Because it’s not the baby’s choice to be separated at birth?

Also how is it exploiting if a women wants to do this for a friend or relative etc ? And what business is it if anyone else

Because it’s not the baby’s choice to be separated at birth?
Its a baby ? It doesn't know and many babies are separated at birth for lots of reasons
Ill mums, ill babies , unfit mothers , given up for adoption etc
Many of these children are well rounded people , because surely its the years after that matter and make a difference to them
Maybe people should actually be asking grown up surrogate children how they feel and if they are happy ? Is their statistics to proove they are more unhappy than biological children

[quote donewithitalltodayandxmas]@Clymene many times they are not their biological mother ?
And why are fathers not important?
Some children should not ever be with their mother and are taken for very good reason as well , just being a women or mother doesn't automatically make it better or safer for a baby in every case [/quote]
That's why I said 'if at all possible'. Not all women who give birth can adequately mother their children, I accept that.

As for donor gametes and I've already talked about this in another post:

Either you accept that if parents are suffering infertility they can use donor gametes (sperm and/or eggs) to become parents

OR

You believe that the people who donated the gametes are the parents, regardless of who gestated the baby.

Both things can't be true. Legally a woman who gives birth is a child's mother. There is a lot more to gestating a baby than it just living in your uterus for 9 months or so.

@donewithitalltodayandxmas

Because it’s not the baby’s choice to be separated at birth? Its a baby ? It doesn't know and many babies are separated at birth for lots of reasons Ill mums, ill babies , unfit mothers , given up for adoption etc Many of these children are well rounded people , because surely its the years after that matter and make a difference to them Maybe people should actually be asking grown up surrogate children how they feel and if they are happy ? Is their statistics to proove they are more unhappy than biological children

Hello, happy well rounded person here. I explained the conditions under which I was adopted a few posts back. The obvious difference between most adopted children and children of surrogate mothers is that the children of surrogates are conceived with the intention of being separated from their mother. Look, I'm sure the children of surrogates would be broadly okay. Kids grow up fine in all sorts of scenarios. They aren't going to end up crying and rocking in corners with the trauma of it. But there's something very off about purposely conceiving a child to give away.

As for donor gametes and I've already talked about this in another post:

Either you accept that if parents are suffering infertility they can use donor gametes (sperm and/or eggs) to become parents

OR

You believe that the people who donated the gametes are the parents, regardless of who gestated the baby.

YY. I noticed too that people were trying to have it all ways.

Its a baby ? It doesn't know and many babies are separated at birth for lots of reasons

Human babies don't know much when they leave the womb, hence the 4th trimester, but one thing every baby does know is his or her mother. They know her voice, smell and they recognise her face before anyone else's when they being too see shapes.

Babies who are separated from their mothers at birth can and do suffer attachment and development disorders. It can range from eye contact to speech. This is not new information.

What you're saying here is babies don't know so it doesn't matter, but neither are true.

Ever known a baby not settle with anyone, even the father and only with the mother? Ever heard about babies being unsettled at night if they haven't had time with their mother in the day but have been passed around to relatives? Ever heard about surrogate-born and fostered newborns babies being colicky and crying themselves into an exhausted sleep.

A friend of mine had to have emergency surgery when her newborn was less than a day old. They were separated for about 6 hours. She struggled with her milk supply but persevered. Thankfully all was well but it was a rough beginning for mother and child, and too for the husband who thought he was about to be a widower with a newborn. The baby would only settle with her mother for months and she largely attributed it to the early separation.

Many adopted, fostered, orphaned and surrogate born babies grow into well-rounded adults, it doesn't mean there aren't mediate impacts on them as newborns or infants.

We simply don't know enough, but as some surrogate-born adults are speaking out we can take their testimony as truth, and that the circumstances of their birth matters to them.

Jessica Kern
vimeo.com/125756487

Various speeches from donor conceived adults and others
https://youtube.com/channel/UChwdgQDLzLBfFxLLfobyoyw

Why is it generally accepted that puppies should stay with their birth mother for at least 8 weeks, ideally 12 weeks?
At what age is a surrogate baby taken away from its mother?
I’m aware these are potentially inflammatory questions (and not exactly aligned with surrogacy) but the answers are telling.
This article is interesting:
www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.snowdog.guru/amp/early-removal-of-puppy-mother
Note this line “ The only benefit for removing a puppy from its mother early is for the breeder.”

And what business is it if anyone else

Because you can't just have children and then give them away to other people without official bodies being involved, quite rightly.

[quote OhHolyJesus]Its a baby ? It doesn't know and many babies are separated at birth for lots of reasons

Human babies don't know much when they leave the womb, hence the 4th trimester, but one thing every baby does know is his or her mother. They know her voice, smell and they recognise her face before anyone else's when they being too see shapes.

Babies who are separated from their mothers at birth can and do suffer attachment and development disorders. It can range from eye contact to speech. This is not new information.

What you're saying here is babies don't know so it doesn't matter, but neither are true.

Ever known a baby not settle with anyone, even the father and only with the mother? Ever heard about babies being unsettled at night if they haven't had time with their mother in the day but have been passed around to relatives? Ever heard about surrogate-born and fostered newborns babies being colicky and crying themselves into an exhausted sleep.

A friend of mine had to have emergency surgery when her newborn was less than a day old. They were separated for about 6 hours. She struggled with her milk supply but persevered. Thankfully all was well but it was a rough beginning for mother and child, and too for the husband who thought he was about to be a widower with a newborn. The baby would only settle with her mother for months and she largely attributed it to the early separation.

Many adopted, fostered, orphaned and surrogate born babies grow into well-rounded adults, it doesn't mean there aren't mediate impacts on them as newborns or infants.

We simply don't know enough, but as some surrogate-born adults are speaking out we can take their testimony as truth, and that the circumstances of their birth matters to them.

Jessica Kern
vimeo.com/125756487

Various speeches from donor conceived adults and others
youtube.com/channel/UChwdgQDLzLBfFxLLfobyoyw[/quote]
Absolutely this.

It’s everyone’s business that our society should protect the rights of newborn babies.