Three fathers now.

[Igneococcus]

Whatever next?
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/5dc4f5d8-7b7e-11eb-83b7-5869de54abef?shareToken=bd5e62f29aae305ea21426c3155bc5ab

I’m not saying you have to answer that question FrickinA, but legislatively, once you step outside the boundaries of 2 parents, somebody does.

So..2 "birthing bodies" and "a woman named Megan who "provided the eggs" made some babies to give to three men.
Not at ALL a worrying trend. How could normalising this possibly be abused? After all, historically groups of men always have the best interests of women and children at heart...don't they?

I think applications for parental responsibility are different because they are made on the basis of an existing relationship with a child.

How can a birth certificate be changed? This is absolutely crazy.

@ChattyLion

Adoption (these days) is not a robust process for giving children away it exists for the good of the child who needs a family, because we have finally taken off the emphasis on punishing unmarried mothers and correcting their children. We now acknowledge that open adoption is healthier than closed. We now see that institutionalised childhoods in what we used to call an orphanage is a very damaging start in life for children. So wherever possible we try to find suitable families for children to grow up in. Adoption rightly has very stringent rules around it, eg as to who can adopt. In the UK that’s not something paid for in a commercial way.

So it’s not that adoption is or was a system created for the benefit of women or at their request. If a woman had babies just because she wanted to help and support other people who might like to be given a baby to bring up, that woman would be deemed dangerously irresponsible and mentally unwell. I’d assume that her existing kids would be subject to social services involvement. Any babies she birthed for the purpose of relinquishing would be taken at birth by social services and put into foster care until legal adoption could be arranged for them. The woman would be treated for serious mental health problems.

My point is that the social contract that we understand as ‘surrogacy’ is only ever legitimised as such by the desires of the intended parents. Never by the woman’s wants. We no longer consider her actions as ‘surrogacy’ if she deviates from the IPs‘ requirements or stipulations around the pregnancy.

Like: imagine she insisted on giving the IPs something they didn’t want- pregnancy with a different baby because she used a different egg or sperm than the IPs wanted, or if she gave them another already born young baby instead. Or imagine if she changed her mind about which IPs she wanted to help and gave the baby to a different person or couple instead.

So although surrogacy obviously has an element of bodily autonomy and the woman’s choice around it, it is in not actually built around the woman’s wants, and it’s wrong to present it that way. She is instrumental to others achieving their desires. This is why there is a lot of concern about women’s interests and welfare and rights when it comes to women providing surrogacy for other people.

Yes, all of this! Adoption is for the child, and done in what is considered the best interests of the child. Surrogacy is all about the buyer.

Also parental responsibility only relates to care for a child till they are 18.

So..2 "birthing bodies" and "a woman named Megan who "provided the eggs" made some babies to give to three men.

The "birthing bodies" "served" as surrogates.

And a nurse at the hospital helpfully provided a year's supply of breast milk.

Why don't they just employ a wet nurse? Then they could all go on holiday at the same time.

‘However one you have decided that 4 patents are fine, the ethical question becomes how many parents are too many? 6, 10? Who gets to decide?’

Well, in this case two old friends, both gay decided to have children together. And we’re both married to their spouses so those kids now have 4 loving parents, who wanted them, planned for them and can afford them.
They’re not the only LGBT parents I know in a similar situation... as for 6 or 10
Parents - I dunno, are people asking for that??

Thank you Hepzibah I was worried because someone seemed to think abortion rights or ‘giving women choice’ somehow naturally led on the choice to be a surrogate mother.
Whereas I feel that women have been allowed agency over their own female body only when it suits someone else/society to ‘allow’ that. I can’t think of an example where it’s been enshrined in law purely out of simple respect for a woman’s choice of what to do with her own female body.
And we can clearly still see this in various contexts in the way that women can expect to be faced with rage and threats of violence if we say no to access to our bodies.

I think the value of a parent is that they will absolutely put their child’s needs first, to a frankly illogical degree.

That's not true and certainly not true of my parents. They didn't really do anything beyond social and legal expectations.

I still went to university and have a reasonably well-paying job, mostly through accessing state funding and grants. Both of my parents have children with a multitude of partners without a marriage or solid relationship in sight from either of them.

The upshot of this is that I have a brother who sometimes complains about the lack of interest our shared father has shown. Not great, but not exactly as bad as being dead.

I think an active choice to parent, involving financial investment and legal contracts is probably a better predictor of someone who will put the child's needs first than who it came out of.

But for the case you mention @FrickinA then I assume either the birthing mother and the bio dad, or mother and her wife, are legal parents, so only 2 (at least one the birth mum) people on the BC.

None of that nasty, inconvenient women's biology here! We paid those women to just go away.

Anyone who thinks this is admirable has become very detached from what children need.

"No one who needed to breastfeed" 🤬

Except the baby who seems to be forgotten in all this despite being at the centre.

@OhHolyJesus

"No one who needed to breastfeed" 🤬

Except the baby who seems to be forgotten in all this despite being at the centre.

It's such weird phrasing. It's saying that it's the mothers who need to breastfeed, not the babies. Like there's no benefit to them at all.

Like I said, nasty women's bodies with our nasty bodily fluids.

That's not true and certainly not true of my parents. They didn't really do anything beyond social and legal expectations.

I’m interested to know whether you have children. It’s true that some children require very little parenting and some parents outsource parenting to others. However most people don’t have access to staff and you can’t guarantee an easy child.

parenting means committing to the likelihood of months if not years of broken nights, and the very real possibility that your child will have additional needs.

You talk about who the child came out of. Even bad mother’s who give birth risk their lives and health to give birth and need specific legal rights.

Good for you if you have come to terms with whatever relationship you have with your parents. It seems that your brother hasn’t.

Exactly...and the argument "not all babies breastfeed" is phrased as "not all women can breastfeed".

Sure, but we know that breastmilk is better than formula (except in some rare cases).

Honestly when my boobs where full at 2am and my baby was sleeping it was me who would benefit from breastfeeding because my body was making the milk for my baby but the rest of the time it was my baby who needed my breastmilk...but to phrase it like that shows further disregard for the mother, the natural way our bodies feed babies and most importantly the baby. Even Gilead appreciated breast milk!

It's common for surrogacy contracts to include breastmilk pumping and also for surrogate mothers to take a pill to stop their milk ducts from producing milk.

@FrickinA

‘However one you have decided that 4 patents are fine, the ethical question becomes how many parents are too many? 6, 10? Who gets to decide?’

Well, in this case two old friends, both gay decided to have children together. And we’re both married to their spouses so those kids now have 4 loving parents, who wanted them, planned for them and can afford them.
They’re not the only LGBT parents I know in a similar situation... as for 6 or 10
Parents - I dunno, are people asking for that??

Very niche view and nothing to do with this story, but yes.

www.versobooks.com/books/2951-full-surrogacy-now

@OhHolyJesus

Exactly...and the argument "not all babies breastfeed" is phrased as "not all women can breastfeed".

Sure, but we know that breastmilk is better than formula (except in some rare cases).

Honestly when my boobs where full at 2am and my baby was sleeping it was me who would benefit from breastfeeding because my body was making the milk for my baby but the rest of the time it was my baby who needed my breastmilk...but to phrase it like that shows further disregard for the mother, the natural way our bodies feed babies and most importantly the baby. Even Gilead appreciated breast milk!

It's common for surrogacy contracts to include breastmilk pumping and also for surrogate mothers to take a pill to stop their milk ducts from producing milk.

I love the way a woman's body makes enough milk to sustain the baby or babies she is nourishing. The mother and the baby's body occasionally get out of synch and then they realign. It's a remarkable phenomenon.

I found the whole process of turning a tiny skinny little scrap into a fat Buddha purely through my own milk absolutely mind blowing.

I dont think men really get it. I was ranting to DP about this earlier, and he said " yes, but it's easy for a woman to decide to have a child-you can do it alone. You can't if you are a man."
I mean, that's true (although, er, childbirth and raising a child alone is not exactly easy!) but, you know...tough shit? There are lots of things i wish I could do or be, and I am not and I can't. The physical reality of women bearing children just IS. So, men can't have something we can. They hate that, don't they?