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/

I've read many first account (primary sources) antebellum narratives about slavery and you can find examples of slave owners who love their slaves and report they treat them well, "like one of the family." Similarly, there exist some slave accounts that back up this narrative of mutual affection between owner and enslaved person. Some people (rarely Black people, but some Europeans in 16th century for example) even sold themselves into slavery for various reasons (one could consider this their "choice").

But these authentic accounts do not justify the owning of people as property.

Buying a baby and renting a woman's body to grow "your baby," is a concept unaligned with human rights and feminism. I can't be OK with it regardless of some situations with reported happy outcomes.

Irl, I interviewed a Black historical reenactment actor who often plays an enslaved man at a famous historical center in the US. He says he gets all kinds of comments including a type that falls into the "altruistic justification" category. Like, "the descendants of slaves should be happy they now live in the US as opposed to the west African country they came from or they may not even be alive today." Humans are adept at cognitive dissonance.

@LastRoloIsMine

I should probably hide this thread but surrogacy is the buying and selling of a human. That's it. You can call it expenses or compensation but actually the adults involved are buying and selling a baby. That will never sit well with me.

Nor me.

It is also totally unnecessary.

You always have an interesting perspective from the USA @Delphinium20 I'm so pleased you are here on this little U.K. site!
Thank you.

I have a child through surrogacy. Everyone is happy and doing well. Child was attached and calm from the beginning. Surrogate enjoyed the process and went on to do it again because she's kind and enjoyed the first time.

That's great. Well done you and the woman who lent you the use of her womb and lovely for your child that everyone is happy.

However it is a curiously unimaginative stance to take the view "it was fine for us = what's the problem?"

One of the instances I often wonder about is the Nepalese women left to take their chances after the earthquake in 2015. Israel evacuated 26 surrogate born babies leaving the mothers to who knows what fate. Unbelievably heartless.

And I wonder. As those children grow up. Imagine finding that your father was not some hero of an international aid organisation, flying into disaster zones to help however he could. No, he was a man who paid your impoverished mother to gestate and give birth to you, and then rushed into the disaster zone to spirit you away, leaving your mother to get on with it. Imagine finding out that about your father and your mother. Right up there with finding your father hoofed your mother out of a lifeboat off the Titanic and jumped onto the lifeboat clutching baby you to claim his place.

time.com/3838319/israel-nepal-surrogates/

Anyway my point is that, especially at this time, when new laws are being proposed in the U.K., it is important to look at the wider picture, consider the problems evident around the world and choose to come up with better laws. We may not be able to change practices in other jurisdictions but we can set an example, making a statement to the wider world, which can trickle down and inform practice elsewhere.

We should be having this discussion, and people who have a positive experience are welcome to join the discussion but should take off their rose tinted spectacles and give fair consideration to what is necessary to ensure other people (mothers,babies and also commissioning parents) are not exploited and on the receiving end of exploitative or dangerous practices.

And yet, you refer to her as 'our surrogate'. Dehumanising or what??

I take your point. To us, she is [person's name] and obviously not 'our surrogate'. I did feel uncomfortable referring to her not using a proper noun but felt it would be disingenuous to avoid the term with a mouthy phrase like 'the lady who carried our child'. In the UK surrogacy world, it is a role, like 'our doctor' and only refers to the position rather than suggesting that is all they are.

However it is a curiously unimaginative stance to take the view "it was fine for us = what's the problem?"

I actually don't take that view but gave my personal experience as it seemed to give balance. I wasn't trying to give an all-encompassing position. It seemed helpful to put forward a story of how things usually go in altruistic UK surrogacies, which is to say - they often work well. I'll be hugely surprised and confused if there are studies showing children of surrogacy show similar issues to children who were adopted as newborns as a result of being separated at birth. It just doesn't seem to work like that. However, hopefully the research will be carried out and reflected on.

The recent BBC3 documentary on surrogacy seemed to go out of their way to feature set-ups that seemed ethically questionable to me. There was a boss making a decision that her employee, who was carrying the baby, would have a sweep. The whole thing was off. There was a lady who reported being depressed before becoming a surrogate. I don't think either of those scenarios should have got past an ethics committee and it seemed odd, when I know so many perfectly normal set-ups, that they would have shown these examples as if they were typical. In the surrogacy world, there would be eyebrows raised about this.

I don't really understand why more people don't have a problem with donor eggs being used in IVF, following on from the points raised in the OP. This seems to be considered mostly fine, yet it involves a number of issues comparable to the issues around surrogacy. We all have our blindspots, I suppose.

I wouldn't want you to take this as a personal criticism noisasentence, I do understand how hard it is to deal with infertility and how powerful the desire to have your own child is. What I am concerned about is the UK sleepwalking into a situation where surrogacy becomes another way for women without much money to make money by selling their bodies for use by those who do have money. I want to know, if the UK pursues commercial surrogacy, how we avoid that. My concern is that we can't. My concern is that people who want to make money will use women and babies as the means by which they make that money, without sufficient concern for their health and mental well-being.

[quote ForeverAintEnough12]@LastRoloIsMine also hilarious saying you would have a discussion with someone about surrogacy when you literally said if you support surrogacy you are an enemy. Not seeing a whole lot of room for discussion from that statement.[/quote]

I said that. ME. Not Rolo. So you owe her an apology.

And I stand by every word of it.

@PhoenixandtheRug

Today 18:38 LastRoloIsMine

If you support surrogacy, you are an enemy of women.

And children. You dont care how the fact they were born from a mother who gave them away will affect them.

I notice the same posters are still here too - such as @OhHolyJesus who likes to stalk the surrogacy topic in ‘becoming a parent’ and anyone who dares post there.

Reading other boards = stalking

Right then.

I read a number of boards, I read the donor conception board which discusses egg donors and sperm donors (why would anyone think that whilst we are discussing surrogacy and a new U.K. campaign group we would not be capable of having and expressing opinions about donor gametes.
The blog shared in the OP mentions this by the way...did you read it @ForeverAintEnough12 ?

I read the LGBT Children and Parent board that a new friend of FWR brought to my attention and I read the adoption board.

It would be important for Mumsnet not to host illegal activity such as advertising your services for surrogacy or seeking a surrogate mother. Both are still illegal and should remain so in my view, Facebook groups and any websites operating outside of the official routes to surrogacy such as the now 4 main surrogacy agencies/brokers, recognised by HFEA, exist outside of current U.K. law, though I imagine prosecutions are unlikely.

I didn't know that having a different opinion limited what I can read and where I should post. It's perfectly possible to talk about a subject without limiting what people can and can't say, without taking it personally, without being hateful should that accusation come my way.

You think surrogacy is ok, I think it isn't.

Stalking however is not ok and that word usually refers to the intimidation of women, sometimes for years to the point where they have to move repeatedly snd change their name.

You're not actually calling me a stalker are you?

I also read but rarely post on chat and AIBU.

Is that ok with you Forever?

An enemy of women WERE MY WORDS. Ffs I said them and I stand by them. Rolo added the children bit ONLY!!

Can you please stop giving my words away to Rolo?

Forever

Do you believe surrogacy centre's the child?

@LastRoloIsMine

I should probably hide this thread but surrogacy is the buying and selling of a human. That's it. You can call it expenses or compensation but actually the adults involved are buying and selling a baby. That will never sit well with me.

It is exactly that. There is no justification for surrogacy. It's simply the ultimate "me, me,me- gimme, gimme, gimme".

You're right, Barbary. Nobody has the right to have a child. I realise it must be terribly sad if you want and cannot have.

However I often wonder what couples did years ago, in the days before IVF, AID and surrogacy were available. Did they spend their lives grieving for what they could not have or did they accept and move on, finding fulfilment in other ways?

It's just a thought.

PhoenixandtheRug

Thank you.

@OhHolyJesus yes I would say intimidation of women is what you do. I’ve noticed if an unsuspecting woman comes to the surrogacy board to even ^ask* about it you jump on them straight away. Even though these women were asking for people’s experience of surrogacy on the surrogacy board in becoming a parent and you don’t have that experience. You seem to have self-appointed yourself to police those boards.

@Maggiesfarm

You're right, Barbary. Nobody has the right to have a child. I realise it must be terribly sad if you want and cannot have.

However I often wonder what couples did years ago, in the days before IVF, AID and surrogacy were available. Did they spend their lives grieving for what they could not have or did they accept and move on, finding fulfilment in other ways?

It's just a thought.

My experience is that yes some spend their lives grieving. When my mother told a distant family friend my sister had lost her baby at 25 weeks she cried hysterically down the phone to her even though she barely knows my sister. They were unable to have children and lost a baby nearly 50 years ago and clearly it is as raw to her this day as it was then.

Gosh I’m so sorry @LastRoloIsMine I’m glad you don’t believe that If you support surrogacy, you are an enemy of women and children.

@Maggiesfarm

You're right, Barbary. Nobody has the right to have a child. I realise it must be terribly sad if you want and cannot have.

However I often wonder what couples did years ago, in the days before IVF, AID and surrogacy were available. Did they spend their lives grieving for what they could not have or did they accept and move on, finding fulfilment in other ways?

It's just a thought.

Many of them adopted babies. There’s only been a legal frame work for adoption in the last 100 years or so in the UK but adoption has been going on for centuries.

It was usually arranged informally by minsters of religion or doctors. My aunt was adopted in this way. She was born to a single mother in the 1920s and the birth was registered to her mother and the husband of a childless couple.

There’s no reason to think that her adoptive father was also her biological father.

She only discovered this when she saw her birth certificate for the first time when she was 21.

Intimidation of women? Ok, let's examine that shall we?

My posts from recent threads in the surrogacy board.

1. "You would still need a parental order in the UK.

This is long but worth reading, although it's about a couple and not a single commissioning parent like yourself, and was in the Ukraine, it covers some issues around the baby's passport and the VISAs etc.

www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/HCJ/2018/86.html

Do you have your eggs frozen or would you be using an egg donor and a sperm donor?My understanding is for a UK parental order you would need to be related to the child."

1. "I don't think your legal parental rights can be obtained at birth, not in Greece anyway, they certainly can't be agreed before the birth. It seems the legal rights of the surrogate mother being the legal mother are unavoidable and this link does mention delays.

surrogacylawyers.co.uk/surrogacy-surrogacy-in-greece/

I'm reassured that they mention an interpreter, but this does sound expensive.

Sorry to ask OP, I'm sure you have considered adoption already, is there something that prevents that process from happening? I realise it's expensive and lengthy but judging by the hoops you'd need to jump through it could be a less harrowing, possibly cheaper process and would of course be a dream come true for a existing child."

Both dates from April 2020, almost a year ago.

1. "There are groups you can find and join OP but from my experience they are very pro-surrogacy and don't always show the other side. Agencies like Surrogacy U.K. push the friendship angle for surrogacy match-making (though it's legal to pay 'expenses' it is considered altruistic and not commercial surrogacy as that is illegal in the U.K...are you U.K. based?) and insist upon counselling for the surrogate mother (the intended parents are not required to have any background checks or counselling currently).

Personally I would do a lot of reading so you can make a fully informed decision. This is your friend and you feel like you can help but it is a lifelong commitment as you will see that child grow and your friendship might change. There are no guarantees.

It might be an idea to have some private counselling that is not connected to an agency to get a completely unbiased therapist. As your friend hasn't asked and you haven't offered it would only be worth doing if you wanted to explore for yourself to know if you were serious about offering yourself.

You don't mention whether you have a partner so I'm not sure if you are single mother and making this decision on your own, but with a very young son you would have to manage a likely risky pregnancy as you raise him and you would require support in the form of child care for appointments etc as well as maybe help if you had a difficult pregnancy and he was hitting the terrible twos and beyond.

Do you work, is your son in nursery, do you have the grandparents around? Lots to consider and explore."

1. "Are you Surrogate Mother OP? Did the midwife not explain these notes? I'm guessing there is a score or the numbers are to do with levels of something, so you get a 1 not a 3 or a 5. Maybe 1 is good?"

3 and 4 are from December

Gosh I’m so sorry@LastRoloIsMineI’m glad you don’t believe that If you support surrogacy, you are an enemy of women and children

Oh no I do believe that. I just didn't want to take credit for another's wise words.

If you pick a woman for the sole purpose of her breeding capacity then you are viewing women the same way my farmer father views heifers.

Women are not walking wombs.
We do not exist to provide young for those that cannot.
We are not farming stock.

Children are not possessions to be bought and sold. They are human beings.
Please to tell me the positives of human trafficking?

What number of posters of this threads are also, in your view Forever, 'intimidating' women and are therefore 'stalkers'?

Surrogacy expensive www.mumsnet.com/Talk/surrogacy/4160303-Surrogacy-expensive