If you are a mother, did you feel potentially feel more inclined to donate to this before you had children?

[RickiTarr]

I’m just watching the BBC documentary series about surrogacy and thinking how my attitude to gametes and generic inheritance has changed since becoming a mother.

The first “traditional” or “straight” surrogate interviewed in this programme seems very blasé about her relationship with her own eggs. It’s just made me wonder.

They may be comfortable at the beginning of the process @hollowchocolate, but they may (unexpectedly) feel very different by the end of pregnancy or after birth. By then, it will be too late. The surrogate will suffer the consequences the most, even if they were completely comfortable going into it. The child didn't have any say in this, and is being taken away from the person who has looked after it and loved it for 9 months.

I didn't really think about surrogacy when I was younger. Now, at 34, with one child, I'm completely against it.

I find the whole thing a really difficult thing to reconcile in my head.

On the one hand, I agree with what many of you are saying about all these things. I think it boils down into the fact that, on a large, societal level, I am deeply uncomfortable with this position we are getting to where having a child is seen as a right. I think this is a dangerous path.

In the other, I have seen the pain of family and friends staring down the barrel of being unable to conceive. That true heartbreak and loss of something they you never had. I hadn't realised how strong the grief could be for the loss of a choice to be a parent until I saw her pain. So on a personal level, I would not have denied her anything.

I don't know. My leaning towards surrogacy is that it should be stopped. We have IVF treatment as a medical option in a couple where there is a woman. I do think we should look at our adoption policy as well. Proper, agency led, supportive, adoption decided pre birth, is something I feel more happy with. Although I'm sure it's not at all really like that episode of friends and there are issues with that too.

I would love to donate my eggs but I'm probably too old and there's autism in my family so not sure how that would be viewed by the clinics etc? I'd even consider being a surrogate for close friends. I've one child, no plans to have any more.

But the child never gets any say in anything huggy

There are children being born right now to mothers who didn’t look after them or love them for nine months. Many will go on to never look after them or love them properly.

I think it’s an incredibly difficult area. Bodily integrity and dignity can’t have a price put on it. But banning surrogacy altogether is also fraught with problems, not least pushing it towards a black market.

On the one hand, I agree with what many of you are saying about all these things. I think it boils down into the fact that, on a large, societal level, I am deeply uncomfortable with this position we are getting to where having a child is seen as a right. I think this is a dangerous path.

Yes the point when men (a couple? Some couples?) started legally threatening NHS Scotland for the right to the use of a woman’s body to use as a human incubator was the day I pulled the last fence splinters from my derrière. What was worse, the NHS just meekly gave way.

So now we have an enormous public body, an organ of the state, guaranteeing to procure women’s bodies for others to grow babies in.

That clarified everything to me. That and the third world baby farms.

If you live to regret surrogacy, though, how much worse to have used your own genetic material and given away your own genetic child.

Having a child might not be a right, but it usually is people with children who say that it is not a right.

@Ducksarenotmyfriends

I would love to donate my eggs but I'm probably too old and there's autism in my family so not sure how that would be viewed by the clinics etc? I'd even consider being a surrogate for close friends. I've one child, no plans to have any more.

Clinics treat all autism as if it were leprosy.

@hollowchocolate

Having a child might not be a right, but it usually is people with children who say that it is not a right.

Maybe that is valid, though.

Especially for women.

Once you know what birth involves and can involve, it’s much harder to maintain the viewpoint that you should risk your body in that way for others.

But if someone chooses to take that risk then are we really to say they can’t or shouldn’t?

That’s the difficulty for me.

In my life I have done risky things. I have chosen to do them. Telling me I can’t / shouldn’t doesn’t sit very comfortably with me.

Wierdly I'd never really thought about my eggs until I had children. Having them completely changed my attitude and I'm very attached to them and wouldn't consider donation now. When I was younger I was all for surrogacy. Being a mum and understanding it better, I now think it's abhorrent really.

@hollowchocolate

But if someone chooses to take that risk then are we really to say they can’t or shouldn’t?

That’s the difficulty for me.

In my life I have done risky things. I have chosen to do them. Telling me I can’t / shouldn’t doesn’t sit very comfortably with me.

I think that’s probably how we got here. Kim Cotton etc making that case very well, but the numbers have grown hugely and there isn’t any real, staunch, mandatory psychological screening in place, for intending surrogates even. That’s surprising, isn’t it?

Sorry. Trying to hush how three things at once and garbling my grammar - I hope you can decode it.

Juggle not hush.

To be honest ricki I don’t know that even if the screening took place it would necessarily be much good. Probably more likely to be a tick box exercise you have to pay between £100-£200 for. So I’m not sure it would make any real difference to women’s well being.

I do understand the arguments against surrogacy and I’m certainly not trying to be inflammatory or provocative in my posts.

But I am generally uneasy with the idea that just because a surrogate who has decided or her own free will is poor, or lacks education, or is young - or all three / that she is percieved as being unable to make decisions freely - being poor, young (but still an adult I assume!) or lacking education doesn't turn you into a person whose decisions must be overridden by others for your own good. And there is something infantilising in that viewpoint which sits uncomfortably with me as a feminist - albeit from probably an opposite view to most on the feminist section of MN!

I knew what you meant, don’t worry!

@HamFisted

I've become less opposed to the idea, but I wouldn't put my body through the process.

This is in reference to egg donation. On surrogacy, I've gone from, 'Nice idea, but I wouldn't do it,' to, 'Bad idea- cruel to the baby.'

No I do see that too @hollowchocolate

I suppose my argument would be that we don’t always realise when we’re vulnerable and any of us can be vulnerable. It’s part of the human condition.

It is immensely complex, though, I grant you.

I used to think surrogacy and egg donation was no big deal. I never wanted kids but knew some people were desperate and if it helped them, great.

Since waking up to the gender wars I've gained a new perspective on this, as well as porn and prostitution. I'm a bit embarrassed to say I had never given this stuff much thought beyond 'if that's what someone wants, go for it'. You know, libfem flummery.

Women are fully human. We aren't egg factories or incubators for couples who can't have kids, or single people, or women who don't want to carry their own children*. Surrogacy and egg donation are both risky and I imagine in some cases, traumatic. The push for commercial surrogacy is deeply disturbing and will inevitably lead to exploitation of women with low incomes. Programmes like the one you describe OP all help to cement the idea in people's minds that it's lovely and fluffy and happy and surrogates are just lovely women who want to 'give an amazing gift 'or some such bolleux. It honestly makes me want to hurl and that's before I even get to the impact on the baby!

Bottom line: no one is entitled to a baby. No one ia entitled to women's bodoes. It's not a right or a need, it's a want.

Taking the opportunity to share the Venus Rising podcast again... This episode is Gary Powell, a gay man who opposes surrogacy

open.spotify.com/episode/12YZ400d1AM4TQVIEd8Wu5?si=SLoE0B4HTD6l2MH6zOHTzQ&utm_source=copy-link

*Hollywood, I'm looking at you.

This is in reference to egg donation. On surrogacy, I've gone from, 'Nice idea, but I wouldn't do it,' to, 'Bad idea- cruel to the baby.'

Yes I think that’s why I’ve arrived at the idea that straight surrogacy, at least, should be illegal, because it combines the worst of both; For mum and for baby.

I'm a bit embarrassed to say I had never given this stuff much thought beyond 'if that's what someone wants, go for it'. You know, libfem flummery.

Many of us came of age in the 90s, when there was a lot of that about. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Thanks for the podcast link.

@mrurddhasabitpart

100%. I offered repeatedly to surrogate before I had dc. I looked into being paid to take my eggs. I had no attachment. Was confident I could surrogate as I knew it would be "theirs".

Then I had a baby. Or rather, a pregnancy. Pregnancy is not advertised as anything more than incubation with a bit of vomiting. I didn't know nor did I expect to get to know the baby. Their waking and sleeping times. When they get hiccups. How you, as a woman change and never can go back. The nature of feeding, of growing a child. It's almost a secret. No one told me.

This post is amazing, so true.

Years ago I was at a fertility event near London with a colleague. Children were a long way off at least in my head.
I can recall the pressure to sign up to egg donation. It was about helping other women who were desperate, it was a small procedure. It was even compared to blood donation.
It wouldn't take much time our of work.
I faked a poor tummy and left, to be fair by the time I made it to the tube station, I did feel quite sick.

I would have donated eggs before and I'd possibly have become a surrogate because it would have been part of the range of things that made me "kind". I think there's an extra layer of complication involved when the sex doing the sacrificing is the sex who is socialised to "be kind" and "selfless". I cannot imagine men doing this, or being asked to.

After having kids there's simply no way. I think that every surrogacy agreement should list things like prolapse, painful sex, reduced sensation during sex, urinary incontinence, stretch marks ie all the common and relatively minor side effects of pregnancy. It should be preceded by "I agree to the possible outcome of [list] so that X and Y can purchase a baby".

X and Y (buyers) should also have to sign that they're willing the real risk that the woman experiences some or all of these things in order for them to order a baby.

Same thing with less common but more serious risks, including PTSD and even death.

Because unless these things are actively listed, it's very easy to pretend that it's all about incubation. Which in itself should be problematic, but isn't. And it might make the actual reality of what pregnancy and birth involves somewhat clearer to those involved.

I'm only taking about the adults there. From the baby's POV I think it's horrific.

I conceived easily and enjoyed pregnancy so I would have considered it for my sister if needed. I wouldn't have ruled it out for money either.