New feminist campaign "Stop Surrogacy Now"

[RabbitOfCaerbannog]

A new feminist campaign has been set up against the commodification of babies and women's wombs for rent - Stop Surrogacy Now. Looks like an important cause to get behind. From Stop Surrogacy Now's home page:

Surrogacy is the social practice where a woman is ‘used’ for her body, her fertility and reproductive capacity to grow and birth a baby without the intention of being a mother to that child and giving that baby away, or ‘gifting’ that child to ‘Intended Parents’.
We see Surrogacy is the sale of a child where any profit is made. No amount of pretending its ‘gestational service’ changes the reality. Commissioning parents want a baby not a service, the baby is the ‘end product’.
Surrogacy as a practice developed from the demand of wealthy, infertile people to have exclusive parenthood of a biological child.

1. exploiting women as baby making machines does not advance women’s rights
2. The child’s right to have a relationship with all its parents are disregarded
3. It perpetuates that same old structural injustice where poor/ vulnerable women are used for the benefit of the wealthy – the power imbalance in surrogacy is a key argument ‘Using a surrogate’ means replacing the only mother a child has ever known. “People who seek a surrogate have a very specific desire…it is not only a desire to raise a child, but also a demand that the mother be absent.” ~ Kajsa Ekis Ekman “Being and Being Bought”

This is the website:

stopsurrogacynowuk.org/2021/04/22/welcome-to-stop-surrogacy-now-uk/

@OhHolyJesus
I look forward to your response to other points made.
Ok great :) me too.

I was pointing out that there are laws around this, so to prevent it from being modern slavery.

That was also my point. The poster was arguing that a human being, specifically a baby, cannot be a subject of a commercial contract without it being the buying and selling of that human, or slavery. I disagreed and pointed out that is not the case at all and listed examples where children are currently subjects of commercial contracts without their consent. These examples show that with strict regulation (ie child labour laws), you avoid exploitation.

A foetus can't consent to being created, nor can it consent to being given away.

Correct. Nor can it consent to being aborted if we want to be inclusive of all the legal choices available to a pregnant woman in the U.K..

Banning surrogacy takes away a woman’s freedom of choice to give away a fetus after birth. She can only do so if it was a unplanned pregnancy and the mother agrees to relinquish all influence and control over who raises her baby or even whether her baby will just drift through foster care system and child homes.

@Marmaladeagain
With such strongly held opinion that it is just a contract, put your money where your mouth is and go make a living for yourself renting out your womb.

Hah. Its been illegal here in France for all my childbearing years. I did/do not have the free choice that you are so eager to take away from U.K. women.

I have read the long term studies done on women who have been surrogate mothers and listened to their voices and the majority report it was a positive experience. I posted links to these studies upthread...perhaps you should read them? You don’t need me to report back thousands of surrogate mothers have already done that.

@Lelophants

I would really love to read something from women who have gone through it on here. And from children of surrogates.

I posted links to long term studies done in both surrogate mothers and children/teens born via surrogacy. Have a read through, you’ll see them and can read for yourself what they think.

Banning surrogacy takes away a woman’s freedom of choice to give away a fetus after birth.

But women aren't free to give away a fetus baby after birth. If they don't want to keep the baby then social services must be involved and all the adoption processes gone through. Only when the magic word surrogacy is invoked are all these safeguards thrown out of the window.

Banning surrogacy means, no, women do not have the right to choose to be surrogate. Women will be fined and imprisoned if they deliberately get pregnant with the intent of the child being adopted by pre-identified parents. Is that what you want? To criminalise surrogacy?

Oh dear. This is a bit hysterical no?
Firstly, if by any chance the law was changed in the U.K. to ban surrogacy I would expect it to criminalise the third parties arranging it and the commissioning parents rather than the mother. I very much doubt any woman would be harshly punished whatever the law came up with.

In any case, if an example was made of one or two well publicised cases I imagine most people would choose to avoid engaging in a criminal activity and so that would successfully put a stop to the whole thing. I hardly think the prisons will be overflowing with women being punished for engaging in surrogacy.

Unlike what happened in Cambodia where women were forced to take care of the babies they produced or face twenty years in jail.

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0001bpp

Anyone know if Cambodia still has a thriving surrogacy trade?

free choice? show me the wealthy women choosing the option of renting their wombs? It isn't free choice, it is rich women using poorer women.

I didn't say I would ban it, I said I would educate people who have a blinkered view of what "free choice" is. I would hope that educated people that care about one another would be concerned that a woman "chose" to make money out of renting her womb or selling her eggs. The word "ban" never creates a productive conversation on anything. Life isn't black and white, despite your view that it is as simple as a mere "choice".

Websites in the US where university students sell their eggs as "good brainy eggs" they are no more than children themselves (18/19) to understand the implications down the road of the child out there in the world they have no connection with. Do you wish this for your daughter?

You seem to be the one with very strongly held views- move to the US live the dream, rent out wombs, set up an agency -why not? It's reality somewhere, luckily not on your doorstep.

Do you want your daughter selling her eggs or renting her womb? I assume the answer in your case must be yes, if it makes her happy (ie. if she needs the money badly enough).

I wouldn't wish the emotional gymnastics and physical toll on my worst enemy, let alone someone I loved. Or is it just ok in remote places - Ukraine, India, US - rent, buy?

Education is the key and not the saccharine stories of "kindness".

or men using poor women, not just women renting wombs I should say.

@Marmaladeagain
free choice? show me the wealthy women choosing the option of renting their wombs? It isn't free choice, it is rich women using poorer women

So you want to save poor women from making bad choices? Who are you to decide for them? Nothing in life is a free choice. There are always risk, costs and benefits that unique to each individual woman...why do you think you know better?

As I’ve said before regulation and laws can ensure exploitation is minimised and all women choosing surrogacy have rights protected and their costs covered.

Exactly, the fact that surrogacy can be agreed on using a formal contract, isn’t immoral or concerning and certainly not akin to slavery. Which is what the other poster was arguing.

A child actor, or any employee is providing a service, they themselves are not the service and they are able to remove said service should they chose. Therefore it is not slavery.

A baby born through surrogacy; the pregnancy is the service, the child the product. The slavery point comes through what constitutes a payment and what might be an adequate level of payment so it isn't considered exploitative.

Though we disagree on whether surrogacy should be commercialised, and indeed whether it should be legal or not, as noted by me up-thread, £3 an hour is way below minimum wage in the U.K.

I think the blog put it better:

"We see Surrogacy as the sale of a child where any profit is made. No amount of pretending its ‘gestational service’ changes the reality. Commissioning parents want a baby not a service, the baby is the ‘end product’."

Contracts for surrogacy are not enforceable under current U.K. law, though if changed would you like to see a surrogate mother forced by law to rescind her parental rights because she has previously signed a contract she now regrets signing?

Rather than share anything 'woo-like' here is a court case where a woman signed a contract that was printed of from the internet and has no legal status in U.K. law. This woman was vulnerable, with some learning difficulties and signed the 'contract' with no legal counsel at a Burger King.

The full case is detailed here and the judge said:"This case is another example of the consequences of not having a properly supported and regulated framework to underpin arrangements of this kind."
www.familylawweek.co.uk/site.aspx?i=ed183038

"She told The Mail on Sunday: ‘He is my little boy. I gave birth to him. I felt him kick for the first time. I’m the one now breastfeeding him. He’s happy and so loved. I’m absolutely terrified I’m going to lose him."

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3671887/Surrogate-mother-agreed-birth-baby-gay-couple-met-Burger-King-wins-custody-boy-judge-finds-manipulated-exploited.html

You seem to be the one with very strongly held views- move to the US

Typical if you don’t like it, leave the country. How about since you don’t like surrogacy, you leave the U.K. where it is legal and move here to France where it is illegal? If I’m supposed to vote with my feet, why aren’t you?

You are funny.... missing the point spectacularly, I can see why you can't see any problems with surrogacy.

A child actor, or any employee is providing a service, they themselves are not the service and they are able to remove said service should they chose.

No, if their parents choose. Not the child. The child has no legal power.

Thanks for posting the case. As the judge said, the lack of legal framework is causing exploitation of vulnerable women. You need contracts. Real ones that are enforceable.

Real ones that are enforceable.

So you would see the birth mother be forced to give up her much loved child?

Right.

@Marmaladeagain

You are funny.... missing the point spectacularly, I can see why you can't see any problems with surrogacy.

Was your point “Do you wish this for your daughter?“

Hard to tell exactly what points you are making. So, I guess you are going for an appeal to my emotions.

I have 2 DDs. One is an adult. What I wish for her is that she have the legal right to choose to sell an egg or be surrogate mother if she wanted to. And along with a legal right, to have a regulatory framework with laws and enforceable surrogacy contracts that protect her rights throughout the pregnancy, birth and post birth recovery.

Similar to how the right to an abortion is useless without the regulatory framework and laws that ensure practitioners are licensed and that safety of the women choosing abortion is protected.

I will support this campaign

I used to think surrogacy was Ok before I had really thought about it much. A few years ago it was a very niche and nearly always altruistic thing.

I am sorry to say that I think the rise in the popularity and acceptability of surrogacy lately is driven by gay men. I am not homophobic and I have no opposition to gay men being parents but renting a woman's womb to achieve that is wrong.

Adoption fine. Consensual arrangement with a female friend or family member who will stay involved in the child's life maybe OK. Paying a woman, who is very likely vulnerable, on a commercial basis to have your baby and then fuck off and pretend she was never there and that you did this all by yourself is wrong.

Two men can't make a baby without the involvement of a woman and it is absolutely wrong to pretend to a child that they somehow can.

Then the latest trend seems to be rich heterosexual couples where there is no infertility and it's just a convenient option to get someone else to do the horrible pregnancy bit for you.

There is so much wrong with it all at every step:
Abandoned disabled babies
Those pandemic babies in a Ukrainian hotel like a puppy farm
Women dying and being maimed in childbirth
Poor vulnerable women making a living from having their bodies exploited and taking huge risks with their health
The whole idea that anyone has a right to have a child

It absolutely isn't true that babies somehow don't bond with their biological mother who gave birth to them and are fine with any old bugger. Have people never heard of oxytocin? It is the hormone exactly designed to promote mother infant bonding and is released during labour and breastfeeding in both mother and baby. Sure a baby can bond with a different caregiver but physiology has obviously evolved to promote the bond with the person who gave birth and breastfeeds.
You don't need any studies to know that as it's such old knowledge that it's in any obstetrics text book.

@OhHolyJesus

Real ones that are enforceable.

So you would see the birth mother be forced to give up her much loved child?

Right.

No. The beauty of a contract is that it is negotiable. The surrogate mother can if she has doubts, put in her contract that she has the right to keep the baby if she changes her mind.

Have people never heard of oxytocin? It is the hormone exactly designed to promote mother infant bonding and is released during labour and breastfeeding in both mother and baby.

Please. Oxytocin is also released when we eat food in company of other humans. It’s not some special super bonding hormone.

You are being disingenuous
Yes Oxytocin is released at other times but it was discovered and named because of its release during childbirth and the concentrations induced then far far outweigh those produced by eating a meal with others.

I can assure you that giving birth to a baby is somewhat more memorable and important than having a Pizza Express. It absolutely is a super special bonding hormone, that's the whole point of it.

@CovoidOfAllHumanity

You are being disingenuous Yes Oxytocin is released at other times but it was discovered and named because of its release during childbirth and the concentrations induced then far far outweigh those produced by eating a meal with others.

Really, am I? And I suppose you know it is not released during a c-section? Or induction? So if this hormone is special super bonding hormone, then my, how do those mothers bond with their babies?

@ArabellaScott

I can assure you that giving birth to a baby is somewhat more memorable and important than having a Pizza Express. It absolutely is a super special bonding hormone, that's the whole point of it.

Yes I know, I have four children. But my point is that the hormone oxytocin isn’t necessary to bonding between infant and caregiver.

DD definitely knew my voice when she was born, she was taking away and turn to me when I called her, she eyes were massive, it wasn't woo, she came out sunny side up at one point when the head was out, I look down while perched on half a labour bed and she was looking up at me.
It's difficult for new parents of surrogate children to hear that may be longterm effects on their DC.
My concern is as it is unregulated. Are they using insemination on more than one woman with the guarantee baby clause? if so what happens the other baby? It wouldn't surprise me time is if essences they need results.
It definitely needs tighter regulation and an assessment on parents.

Give it up. You are just wrong

Oxytocin is released in any labour whether induced or not and many C sections follow some hours of labour. There are indeed concerns that planned C section births affect bonding because of lack of oxytocin release. This can be mitigated by immediate skin to skin contact and especially by breastfeeding which is exactly why those practices are promoted.

You said that babies only start to bond after birth and imply that would be the same with any caregiver citing Bowlby.
It is just inherently unlikely for a start that mechanisms would not have evolved for babies to bond preferentially to their birth mothers and I am pointing out very well known ways that indeed that does happen which any midwife and any Dr knows.

I do not want my DD to have the right to sign away her eggs or her womb any more than I want her to have the right to sell her virginity or her left kidney

Some things should not be for sale.

I used to think it was more benign - not actively against it. Then I did a bit more thinking.

I wouldn't be looking to appeal to your "emotions" no. Seems to be you see human emotions/feelings as a weakness - something to contract away from existence. Dismissive that others may actually experience feelings - if you don't feel it, it doesn't exist for others - they must be imagining those feelings. You sound detached from life.