Chinese woman’s unanesthetized surgery exposes risks of illegal surrogacy running riot

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This is inhumane. This is what happens when women's bodies are commodified. Absolutely horrified and dumbfounded.

"Undergoing embryo transfer surgery and multifetal pregnancy reduction without anesthesia at an abandoned factory, a 28-year-old woman's surrogacy experience in Shanghai recently exposed by local media stirred concerns over the illegal practice in China secretly running riot and the potential risks it brings about"

"The woman surnamed Tang is a migrant worker in Shanghai who rounded up a debt of 200,000 yuan ($30,755) due to her failure in investment, Shanghai Morning Post reported on Wednesday.

In order to pay off her debts as soon as possible, she reached out to an illegal institution involved in businesses of surrogacy service and human egg donation through the internet. The institution promised her a reward of 220,000 yuan if she successfully gave birth to a child for her client"

www.globaltimes.cn/page/202103/1218835.shtml

This is utterly horrific. Someone needs to make The Times or the BBC report this as counterbalance to their recent articles.

They absolutely do. It's rarely like the Walton-esque version spouted by most of the media. This is the reality for many women pushed in to using their bodies just to survive and putting their lives at risk to fulfil someone else's dream.

I used to be pro surrogacy, but the more I learn, the more my anti-surrogacy stance hardens.

No-one has the right to a child and they certainly don't have the right to exploit another woman's body to get one.

Utterly horrific. But this is China - the place where concentration camps are currently legal too.

The world turns its back.

Does this mean surrogacy in the U.K. should be banned? I don’t think it does

Just sharing the other thread on this.

Illegal Surrogacy in China - one woman's horrific experience www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4196594-Illegal-Surrogacy-in-China-one-womans-horrific-experience

Both the Times and the BBC are too busy promoting surrogacy and the law commission's proposals through their programming and interviews (of U.K. baby buyers and sellers) to pay the slightest attention to international stories, but I agree that they should.

I would encourage anyone who has the time to complain/raise it as feedback.

This is China - which has an ethical debate going on like all other countries.
www.globaltimes.cn/page/202103/1216975.shtml

The line I totally agree with is “A woman’s body cannot be used as a fertility tool,” Zhang said.
As you agree with the counter arguements - does that mean that concentration camps should be set up in the West.

@Roonerspismed

Utterly horrific. But this is China - the place where concentration camps are currently legal too.

The world turns its back.

Does this mean surrogacy in the U.K. should be banned? I don’t think it does

What are the positives of surrogacy for the women used as surrogates and children born, in the UK?

What are the negatives?

Well it’s a debate similar to IVF and I can’t be arsed arguing the toss. But a friend has acted as a surrogate three times and I can see both sides. She received “expenses” and gave women who for various tragic reasons couldn’t carry, their family. Truly magical all round.

Truly magical all round.

Possible not for the 3 (or more if multiple births) babies your friend have away. I don't suppose anyone asked them though.

Were the babies from her eggs or the commissioning mothers or eggs from other women?

Who knows? Much wanted and loved children and I didn’t ask as it’s not my business.

There are many types of families and provided people consent and it’s properly regulated I have no issue. It is heartbreaking seeing women who have suffered cancer unable to have a child and I think unless you have witnessed that first hand, it’s easy to dismiss

It’s not at all similar to IVF in that IVF impacts your own body not someone else’s. It’s maybe closer to live organ donation.

@Roonerspismed

Who knows? Much wanted and loved children and I didn’t ask as it’s not my business.

There are many types of families and provided people consent and it’s properly regulated I have no issue. It is heartbreaking seeing women who have suffered cancer unable to have a child and I think unless you have witnessed that first hand, it’s easy to dismiss

How do you feel about people paying people for other organs (eg for kidney donation) or bone marrow?

properly regulated is there such a thing? We have building regulations that failed to stop Grenfell Towers, scandals about the deaths of babies in regulated hospitals, tax laws which play wack a mole with avoidance.
Lord protect me from cock-eyed optimists.

The surrogacy industry in the UK is already far too tightly regulated according to so 'pro-surrogacy' activists, and there are already absolute horror stories of women being exploited and children being bought and sold.

Dread to think how bad it would get if commercial surrogacy became lawful.

I think unless you have witnessed that first hand, it’s easy to dismiss

I don't think you have to witness it at all to understand to a degree and I'm not dismissing the emotion and sorrow of infertility. Cancer is of course very difficult for all involved. I have a family member experiencing that at the moment.

I wasn't talking about the adults making the choices though. I talking about the babies. You didn't ask as you say it's not your business but the truth is you can't ask as they are babies and babes cannot express themselves in any other way that crying. You say people provide consent but babies can't consent. It is only as adults that they may begin to consider what happened as even as children they can be raised to believe that it was a good thing that they were taken from their birth mother.

I'm not questioning whether these three children of your friend are much wanted and much loved. It won't necessarily fill the holes created by the circumstances of their births.

If these three children are all from her eggs I hope they find each other as sibling via 23andMe or similar DNA websites and if they are from other eggs or sperm they don't find themselves to be one of 300 siblings as that is a safeguarding nightmare and safeguarding is everyone's business.

Dread to think how bad it would get if commercial surrogacy became lawful.

It would be like the Ukraine I imagine as most US states where commercial surrogacy is legal it's very expensive and Ukraine is the cheap version with parental rights awarded to the commissioning parents (where they can collect their delivery or not) at birth.

The U.K. law Commission met Ukraine officials and as the U.K surrogacy industry would probably be 'LGBT friendly' it could be the next global hub for the baby buying market, albeit with slightly better contracts and a more socially acceptable face.

Fucking hell. Just that.

There could be another layer of abuse here here; I'm suspicious of her failed investment, and the way she just happened to find the surrogacy advert online. It wouldn't surprise me if poor women are being conned into owing money, then directed to being surrogates.

Its a well known con. A version that runs in the UK is where small time drug dealer has some 'bad luck' and ends up owing their suppliers money. It also runs in gambling and loan shark circles.

...and that happens with prostitution Inebriati right?

Surrogacy and prostitution go hand in hand IMO. There is no info shared on how she got into debt and some will criticise her and say that it's only when she didn't get her way and get to see her son she went to the police. As if what went before was ok and she accepted that treatment but it was the refusal to see her child that caused her a problem....which would be missing the point of the issues here.

Surrogacy is an international problem as the comfortably-off in wealthy countries are outsourcing pregnancy and childbirth to women in countries with extremes of poverty. It is relevant to the UK.

Regarding regulation I come back to this closing paragraph from the prize winning Object essay which sums it up for me. (My bold).

Law and policy is developing and changing across the world and it is vital that the rights of women and children are always the foremost consideration. I have argued for an abolitionist approach because a regulatory harm reduction approach does not advance the aim of feminism. Industrialising patriarchal norms is not compatible with a political movement that demands the emancipation of all women. Feminism cannot succeed by sacrificing the most disenfranchised women to patriarchy, restricting its interest to making improvements to the conditions of their abuse. Surrogacy must be prohibited.

"Making improvements to the conditions of their abuse" = Regulation

Link to the essay

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