To not understand the issue with surrogacy?

[Blackbird1234]

I've seen a few posts on some threads in this topic, from people condemning surrogacy. I don't understand why it is seen as bad, if all parties consent. Can anyone explain, please?

An easy way to see if someone is being exploited is to ask if those in power are doing it. I can't think of a time I've ever read about wealthy western women offering to become a surrogate either altruistically or for a financial incentive.

Technically I don't have a problem with those arrangements you read about in women's magazines where a woman surrogates for her sister, although it does support the idea that women's bodies are for sale.

I have a huge problem with any arrangement where there is a financial imbalance. The women in India risking their health to surrogate for wealthy westerners imo is a hugely immoral situation imo.

@RepentMotherfucker

I think many women have brought babies in to the world in shit circumstances and they know it and get touchy when it’s brought up.

You can’t have it both ways. Many people want a baby and that’s it, fuck the circumstances surrounding it if I want one I’ll have mentally and bring the child in to crap set of circumstances

Are you pissed?! What on earth are you on about? I don't want anything both ways and neither have I brought any children into the world in shit circumstances

School holidays??

Not you personally! but you’re spouting out about it not being in the best interest of the children and I’m saying that could be said for many situations

Ah so you disagree with a heterosexual couple using donor eggs for IVF too?…..

Do you agree that people should be incentivised to donate a body part of that donation needs a treatment of drugs to hyperstimulate that body part to performing at a dangerous rate, making just the treatment alone risky? Let alone the procedure?

You comfortable with this? And if you then discovered that the donor had complications that limited their life, left them in a vegetative state or unable to then have their own children… you comfortable with that?

No. I don’t agree with the incentivised production of donor eggs. If a woman has eggs frozen and no longer wants them, that is a different matter if there is absolutely no coercion (including family pressure, guilt or financial benefit) in that donation.

You might be happy to sacrifice someone’s health for your own gain, but I certainly am not. But please, do crack on trying to make me feel shame for not wanting to put another woman at risk, even if she wants to.

@Mumteedum

Because poor women in poor countries are exploited by wealthy western couples.

Because renting someone's body is unethical despite any notion of consent. Should be be able to consent to life changing pregnancy complications or even death?

Because it's not in the child's interest, it's all about the adopting parents.

Is it only exploitation when the one providing the service is a woman? Can we rent someone's body to do all kind of dangerous work, for example mining, working on oil rigs, armed forces and so on? Or do those people do it for fun, not because they need the money?

Is it only exploitation when the one providing the service is a woman?

Why does every thread about the ill treatment of women always turn into “what about the men”?

**Surrogacy is completely banned in Iceland , Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Bulgaria and Spain.

Of course society as a whole should have a say in this**

@KimikosNightmare

Ah but let’s not be shy here, YOU are the one that doesn’t believe in any IVF at all aren’t you??!!

You don’t believe in medical intervention at all to create babies now do you?

@PurpleDaisies

I was referring to IVF available on the NHS to a man and a woman!

We’re not discussing ivf here. That’s totally different to surrogacy.

Well it’s kind of relevant as the whole egg donor thing can overlap

OP I'm really glad you sought to find out more. There are some very well informed posts here to get you thinking.

I used to be a midwife and surrogacy absolutely wasn't on my radar as it simply wasn't a thing (at least in the U.K.) when I was practicing. However, when I found out about the proposed new law changes in the U.K. I started investigating and over the past three years I have read a lot, watched documentaries, listened to podcasts, read threads here and elsewhere.

So I've got LOADS of links and recommendations for you if you genuinely want to learn more.

I'll start with Jennifer Lahl, who campaigns against surrogacy in the USA, because she covers all the media so there will be something for you.

Book: Broken Bonds : Surrogate Mothers Speak Out
Written jointly with Renate Klein the stories we don't hear about, the times when it all went horribly wrong.

Also by Renate Klein : Surrogacy - A Human Rights Violation

Both books relatively short and easy reading. I was new to the feminist and human rights arguments and they are really good starting places on this.

Also by Jennifer Lahl - find her on YouTube, documentaries :
Eggsploitation - the shocking harms done by the rapacious egg harvesting business.
#bigfertility - when I watched this I burst into tears and spent the rest of the evening storming around the house swearing. I was so shocked and upset. It features one woman who was a three times surrogate mother in the USA. With commercial surrogacy the baby is the product, the commissioning parents are the customers and the woman going through pregnancy and childbirth is ? What ? Nothing ? Nobody? Less than human ?
She was lied to, exploited and no one, literally no one cared a jot about her until her last birth when she nearly died and one doctor cared for her and not the customer. In the NHS we have a strong culture of safeguarding and I couldn't believe that all these HCP's would care so little for the woman going through this, and not seek to protect her and put her best interests first. I was utterly shocked.

You can find a wide range of topics discussed on Jennifer Lahl's podcast channel - Venus Rising. They last about 30 minutes which happens to be the time it takes for me to drive to work so I have listened to nearly all of them. Some are about surrogacy and egg harvesting but not all. Number 32 with Kylee Kwiatkowski about her experience of selling her eggs was very shocking.

Some are about infertility, egg freezing and other topics. I do recommend them as you will learn a lot about all sorts of fertility related issues.

@NameChange74567

The baby will still want it's mother.

So what happens if 2 men adopt a baby? Should that no be allowed as they need a mum?

@PurpleDaisies

Is it only exploitation when the one providing the service is a woman?

Why does every thread about the ill treatment of women always turn into “what about the men”?

My argument is the other way around. If instinctively we understand that people doing dangerous jobs for money aren't considered exploited, why the double standard when it comes to dangerous or unsavory jobs by women.

What makes surrogacy any more 'renting of a body' than any other physical labour?

I learnt a lot from the three podcasts on the topic from the Free Birth Society. Here is a link to the first of the three. I highly recommend them.

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/free-birth-society/id1231912533?i=1000465605381

starcup

You are again conflating adoption with surrogacy.

Adoption means the child has been left in a situation where they are no longer being able to be cared for by the child’s mother. Or father. Therefore, the best family situation needs to be found that is available. Sometimes for the unique needs of that child. Already born.

Nothing to do with surrogacy unless the purchasers have abandoned the sale. Which happens. If the birth mother cannot care for the child, only then does it become like adoption.

If a man is clear that he under no circumstances wants to have any involvement with a child that he might co-create then I respectfully suggest that he may want to abstain from having sex. It's not a woman's job to "fix it" for him after the fact.

Sorry, that was to Starcup - quite didn't work....

*quote

FFS

@Helleofabore

A baby born through surrogacy to a western couple would be in the top couple of percent of the luckiest, most secure, comfortable and wanted children in the world.

Wanting that child and providing it with the best home in the world does not make that child grow up not wanting the relationship with the person who gave birth to them, and cannot assuage the issues that child may have if they cannot reconcile the fact they feel ‘purchased’ and ‘designed’ for purpose.

You have either discounted any account given by an adult trying to describe their pain when they realise the reason for their existence or you have not listened.

So you think a child needs a relationship with their mother? Fair point.

So then going back to what we talking about before regarding women bring kids in to the world where the dad has said he wants nothing to do with the child…

Does that father- child not matter?….

Father child relationship

@Starcup

**Surrogacy is completely banned in Iceland , Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Bulgaria and Spain.

Of course society as a whole should have a say in this**

@KimikosNightmare

Ah but let’s not be shy here, YOU are the one that doesn’t believe in any IVF at all aren’t you??!!

You don’t believe in medical intervention at all to create babies now do you?

Yes. I don't support IVF. I didn't support it when it was introduced and I still don't. It has led directly to surrogacy.

Although what that has got to do with the fact Iceland et al having a complete ban on surrogacy escapes me.

If we look at the world as a whole, the majority of children are born into circumstances that people on here would not consider adequate. A baby born through surrogacy to a western couple would be in the top couple of percent of the luckiest, most secure, comfortable and wanted children in the world. A guaranteed warm home, two loving parents, an education (until 18, at least!), not married against their will, no conflict, no chance of starvation or future of poverty. Probably their own bedroom and presents multiple times a year, a wide family network and the chance to make friends in one place without having to move.

Babies who were removed from their mothers, families and communities deemed not good enough, and handed to people who had money and status, or put in institutions when they aged out of being cute babies or were disabled or considered sub-par in some way, are still seeking information, reparation and apologist today. Babies were taken from mothers in poverty, from indigenous communities, minority ethnic and religious groups, and so on, to do what you are suggesting, the idyll of the good life. Many experienced extreme trauma as a result.

Wouldn't it be better to campaign for decent welfare and support services could mean children could remain within their own families and communities? Do you really know what you are proposing and that it has been done before, that their are people today who were victims of exactly what you describe?

It is a form of eugenics.

What makes surrogacy any more 'renting of a body' than any other physical labour?

Leaving the needs of the child aside.

Because there is a very high risk of complications during that conception, pregnancy, labour and after. This very pregnancy involves a woman’s body building another human inside her with no control.

There is also often little ability for the mother to then ‘leave’ the job.

The list goes on. This is like for 9 months having a person grow an item inside them for someone else. This is not equivalent to a person doing their job role, unless they lose the ability to leave the job and the ability to make significant changes to the role.

And here is a link to the CBC (Centre for Bioethics and Culture Network) (which is Jennifer Lahl's foundation) YouTube where she interviews the husband of a woman who died as a result of her surrogate pregnancy earlier this year. His dignity and love for her shine out but it is an appalling situation and this could happen as the result of any surrogate pregnancy.

Of course it could happen in any pregnancy, I have personally been involved with two women patients who died as a result of childbirth. But they were having children for themselves.
Putting women at risk of harm like this because other people want to use their bodies to gestate a baby for them is completely unacceptable to me.

Starcup

NameChange74567

The baby will still want it's mother

So what happens if 2 men adopt a baby? Should that no be allowed as they need a mum?

Do you really not understand the difference between surrogacy and adoption? Well clearly you don't or you wouldn't have asked that question.

[quote OhHolyJesus]Remember that Thai case where the baby-buyers pulled out of the sale because the baby was going to be disabled?

Baby Gammy is now 7 his paedophile father died of asbestos and his twin sister doesn't have to have weekly lessons about how she can't be alone with her father anymore. He has Down's syndrome and lives happily with his mother, though they don't live with a lot. She wasn't expecting to be a mother after all. His sister doesn't seem to know about him yet.

In some North African cultures it's customary for siblings to have a baby for their childless sibling. If you read 18th century history that's also not anything unusual either.

Surrogacy is in the Bible too.

sometimes couples seeking fertility services get incentives for donating eggs?!?

You remembered correctly, it's called egg sharing. U.K. Clinics offer discounts for those who join this scheme. You get a letter if your egg results in a live birth. Obviously this can happen regardless of what happens with the eggs for your own IVF.

There was a documentary on the BBC maybe only last year about seemingly unregulated surrogacy in the UK.

Was that the one on BBC 3? I read a review of that. [[https://stopsurrogacynowuk.org/2021/05/31/surrogacy-in-the-media-a-review-of-bbc-threes-the-surrogates-long-read]]/

But you don’t get to decide because it’s not your choice

That's exactly why I posted about law reform of U.K. surrogacy laws on the other thread you and I were on Starcup. The laws of the land are for and apply to everyone.

However, I can also feel 100% confident that there are numerous instances of young women having strokes and losing their ovaries after ‘donating’ eggs for money. And losing their own fertility before they have ever had their own children.

As you should - for those interested examples of this, and worse, can be found by watching Eggsploitation on you tube.

Surrogacy is completely banned in Iceland , Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Bulgaria and Spain.
And Thailand outlaws commercial surrogacy after Baby Gammy, as does India, though trafficking rings are exposed and investigated. A recent one in Russia followed when a dead baby was found outside an apartment. It was a baby den.

Here is an example of a woman having a baby for her sister in law.

[[https://www.premiumtimesng.com/regional/ssouth-west/455958-how-belgian-hospital-mistakenly-amputated-cervix-paralysed-two-nigerian-women.html?fbclid=IwAR3CblA92-ZCxrgWWs9WLAJQEFmhFRL6_iN1GCjGYp1cuGGhyp8U-CLvXFo]][/quote]
I think you have me mistaken for someone else as as far as I recall, the only thing I posted on the other one was that I didn’t agree with the poster that said no medical intervention should be available to any childless couple.

Happy to be corrected though….

Starcup

You haven’t answered how you propose to create an adequate framework given the examples I provided even in the circumstances of a woman who isn’t remotely coerced.

Link to Venus Rising podcast I mentioned.

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/venus-rising/id1481872967?i=1000517068532