Sunday times 'Style' sexism on surrogacy

[Carriemac]

In the Style section- really? Having a baby via surrogacy is not a fashion choice. One comment on Sophie's self obsessed column in her 'journey' says More female reproductive exploitation rebranded as a necessity for the wealthy and entitled. And I completely agree.

I was thinking about all this yesterday. My SIL had IVF with a donor egg, and very much considers herself the baby‘s mother. She carried the egg, nurtured it with her blood, her fluids, her uterine system, her placenta. Her DNA has passed into the growing foetus. The fact the egg was fertilised by her husband as opposed to a stranger (as it would be for a ‘genuine’ surrogate) is neither here nor there in terms of how much she grew and developed that baby.

Isn’t it offensive to women like my SIL to perpetuate a dominant narrative of a surrogate being merely a ‘gestational carrier’? There to serve the needs of the ‘commissioning parent’. How does Sophie square that?

Surrogate means ‘surrogate mother’. The person who carried and grew and gave birth to the baby.

As with everything these days the language around this and the ENTITLEMENT is increasingly disturbing.

Surrogacy involves making a baby deliberately motherless. The people who take that baby need to be vetted and scrutinised and the ‘surrogate’ needs to have rights.

The Times owe it to their readership to ensure this topic is treated in a balanced fashion and I too will complain. I’m pissed off because I stopped subscribing to The Guardian because of their disgusting attitude to women and went to The Times and now I’m on the verge of having to move on. Who the hell can I read?!

I just watched episode two of "Surrogates" this weekend. Honestly, there's only so much I can take, it's not a series one wants to binge watch!

I am interested in the dynamics between Kate the boss, and Caitlin, her employee and surrogate mother. You'd have to have a heart of stone not to have sympathy for Kate and not to be moved by her wonder at finally having a baby in her arms. Which doesn't get away from the problems. Hopefully in their case they will stay friends and it will prove to have been a success, but I'm fascinated by how much maternity leave Caitlin will get, and how their work relationship will pan out. Alderney is a small island with limited other employment options, so if Kate reaches a point where she feels she wants to get back to boss/employee status quo and has done enough gratitude to Caitlin, and that causes friction it will be tricky.

The main takeaway from their story though (for me) was Kate's response to the breakup of Caitlin's relationship with her boyfriend (poor chap wanted more sex and less moaning about haemorrhoids). Her immediate concern was that the stress would put the pregnancy at risk and she quickly arranged to take Caitlin to one of the bigger islands for a scan and a consultation. All the discussion about the health of the baby, the risk of stillbirth and the advisability of getting things moving with a cervical sweep was between Kate and the (male) doctor, Caitlin didn't say a word as her head swivelled from one on the left to the other on the right of her.

I have seen this dynamic often before, with private patients. The male doctor bonding with the male partner/father who either is paying or is assumed to be. The two of them chatting away whilst the woman gets on with the next labour pain and the doctor starts discussing forceps (get the baby out quickly so the men aren't inconvenienced by having to wait too long).

If the Law Commission proposals to transfer legal parentage to the commissioning parents at birth go through then this sort of behaviour with the commissioning parents seeking to make all medical decisions regarding the pregnancy and birth will be turbo charged.

It would be nice to think that the NHS, with a strong safeguarding culture would resist but I'm not convinced, certainly not in all cases, as the dialogue between Kate and the doctor showed. Too many midwives also think surrogacy is a lovely gift, and with their rose tinted spectacles on will they be sensitive to the changing needs of the surrogate mother? And of course if they go private (I wasn't sure if Kate had arranged private care for Caitlin, it looked as if she had, given the ease with which she seemed to be arranging everything on Caitlin's behalf) then commissioning parents will be the customer.

Remember private hospitals aren't subject to FOI, and although they must still have a duty regarding safeguarding I suspect it is likely to be more "light touch", especially in these sorts of cases.

I struggled to watch more than one episode at a time.

Did anyone look at the information about the BBC3 series on the BBC Iplayer website.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p098hqrq

There is a link to the OpenUniversity podcast about surrogacy.
I went exploring half expecting someone in social sciences to be exploring ethics or the law around surrogacy.

I ended up here, which is a webpage for the Open University.

www.open.edu/openlearn/tv-radio-events/tv/surrogates#the-world-of-surrogacy

On the same there is what looks very much like an advertorial promoting surrogacy to would-be surrogate mums.
This is wrong on so many levels.

Why is a university marketing surrogacy by explaining the process and focusing on the 'reasonable expenses', what can be claimed?
It's being presented as an everyday consumer service.
There's the obligatory photo of a happy couple and a pregnant lady with her bump.
I find it very worrying that staff tutors are authoring such articles on university webpages and posting links to the UK surrogacy agencies.

When I looked up the authors, they are female academics, one of whom teaches social work, her other work covers children in care and social care for the elderly.

Why or why are they using their academic capital to promote surrogacy?

@Theluggage15 it's probably a bit early but I wondered if you heard back from the Times? I will chase them up as I think my original email was back in Feb!

Any subscribers here received a survey to complete? I'm hoping for free text boxes 🤞🏻

I got an invitation but about 20% through it went to a survey company site and asked me to log in. I might try again in a few hours to see if it has been fixed.

I knew SB a long time ago and her take on this doesn’t surprise me at all. Agree that disagreement of the type she examples in her trolling article, isn’t trolling.

Ollie Locke says first round of IVF was unsuccessful so the woman who has agreed to have a baby for them is doing it all over again.

The men had a medical exemption to travel to Mexico during the pandemic, seems a little elitist to me.

metro.co.uk/2021/07/17/ollie-locke-shares-heartbreaking-update-that-surrogacy-was-unsuccessful-14946034/

And when did Carrie Symonds get elected to public office? Good to see the prime minister's ----bit on the side fiancé has such a say in the lawmaking in this country.

Media stories do highlight what appear to be an undue level of influence on some matters for which CS doesn't hold any recognised office other than being the spouse of the PM.

Carrie S and I would probably loathe each other: no matter how profound one's disagreement, that's not a respectful way to describe any woman and it's the more disagreeable because of the slut shaming phrasing.

The woman who is having a baby for Locke and his husband has miscarried at 6 weeks. Locke uses this opportunity to suggest that the U.K. law on surrogacy goes against gay equality.

Locke is 'using' a 'surrogate' in the US, he is not prevented from 'using' a 'surrogate' in the U.K at all. In fact it would be cheaper as you wouldn't need to pay for flights and it's 'expenses' only, but parental rights aren't signed into a contract so that is probably what he finds expensive. Just as well he has plenty of Made in Chelsea and family money to pay for it.

It also seems premature to me to be buying baby clothes for a foetus that hadn't yet made it to the 'safe' 12 week mark but maybe I'm just superstitious.

www.ok.co.uk/celebrity-news/breaking-ollie-locke-surrogate-miscarries-25799408

No doubt their "wonderful plans" mean trying out a new surrogate mother.

FFS they just think women can pop out a baby to order like a battery hen except I doubt they'd ever dream of eating a battery farmed egg.

So… nothing about the health of the woman who miscarried then? All about them and moving forward.

Nice. And so kind.

There is praise for the women who miscarried, she is 'heavenly' apparently. I bet she doesn't feel heavenly. Miscarriage is horrific as we know, to lose a baby that is being purchased and so "longed for" must induce immense feelings of guilt above and beyond the existing loss. Maybe also guilt over losing or 'wasting' one of the fertilised embryos that cost so much to make?

I can't imagine how she is feeling, I hope she is ok as it happened at the time she should be enjoying Christmas with her family, but not a word on how she is. It's all about Ollie and his husband. Bringing gay equality into it is just lies and very deliberate agenda-pushing.

Surrogacy - another way to exploit women and yet we’re all supposed to see it as progress. Grim. That Sophie Beresiner has done much to legitimise surrogacy. Well done her. As long as she has her baby and to hell with everyone else.

Over the past few years since I learned of the law commission consultation I have done a lot of reading, listening to podcasts, watching documentaries, entering into discussions on various social media. I've read some very good feminist explanations, books by Renate Klein and Kajsa Ekis Ekman, lots of good arguments.
But at the end of the day I always come back to the simple fact that this is farming babies, using women as breeders. Maybe it's my farming background coming out!

I think it is an obscenity to think it is fine to ask a woman to breed a baby for another person. It's an affront to women's dignity and humanity and to babies' human rights.
And I don't care if some women want to pop up and say they love being pregnant and giving their babies away and it was all perfect and lovely. The fact that they are happy to be reduced to a walking womb to be used for other people's purposes doesn't in any way make it OK.

As for men who talk of "reproductive equality" - I can't really say what I think as it would get me banned everywhere but it disgusts me. It's patriarchy on steroids. What they are demanding is the right to demand women breed babies for them. The right to the use of women's bodies.
Utterly sickening.

Here's a interesting podcast from an altruistic surrogate.

I'm not sure it's worked out as positively for her as it sounds. anchor.fm/atyourcervix/episodes/Season-1-Ep-12-My-Surrogacy-Journey-with-Katie-Richardson-e13pj8o

Just FYI there was a thread about Locke yesterday which was swiftly deleted.

Even with so-called altruistic surrogacy, a newborn baby is being taken from the familiarity of the womb and placed with strangers. That's never ok.

I hate it when entitled men play the 'gay rights' when attempting to justify the renting of women's bodies. Sam sex marriage does no harm to other people, surrogacy carries a lot of risk for the mother! The two issues bear no resemblance to each other. And the way they are all campaigning to have British law changed to make it easier for women to be used in this way is abhorrent to me. I no longer support even altruistic surrogacy which I once thought a wonderful gift. Too many ways a women can be guilt tripped into giving this gift of life and not healthy for women or babies. I wish the UK would outlaw it completely!

The same section of the Times recently included an article by Sophie Berisiner about deliberating over seeking to have DC2 through (presumably commercial) surrogacy. I sympathise with couples experiencing fertility problems, and gay male couples wanting DC, but strongly disagree with commercial surrogacy. Don’t want to read numerous articles solely from a specific perspective.

Also think that there are issues with ‘altruistic’ surrogacy.

Has the thread in the made in Chelsea couple (Ollie and ? Sorry I'm terrible with names of celebs) been deleted? I can't find it.

It seems even more women are involved now as the original surrogate mother has either been rejected or she can't handle any more miscarriages. So there is a UK woman for the pregnancy (saves money on flying to the US) and another woman donating her eggs. So by my count, 4 women so far...

www.thesun.co.uk/tv/18241226/surrogater-miscarriages-made-in-chelsea-ollie/

Women's reproductive systems as little factories! The commercialisation of women's bodies is advancing at a good clip: sex work is a great career choice and so is porn and surrogacy. Lots of feminist support for those, too.

Interesting to consider whom this might benefit the most.

With more people than ever relying on technology to help them start a family,

No mention of them relying on some poor woman risking her health to help them start a family or are they classed as part of the technology. Aside from the potential physical damage pregnancy can bring, surely there must be an emotional and mental toll taken by carrying a child then handing him/her over, never to be seen again.

At a time when we know there are abandoned babies in Ukraine and pregnant women being shipped to other countries so that the 'intended parents' can get their babies, this seems particularly badly timed.

The baby trafficking machine rolls on ...