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?

@ldontWanna

Pigeon.Playing chess. 'Nuff said.

Can I direct the honourable lady to her own advice?

Keep going ldontWanna if you’ve got the time and inclination you go for it!

No one can fully predict what effect a pregnancy can have on their body... it can end in disability or even death. Can a price be put on that?
I haven’t read the thread but I disagree with this completely as long as there’s no commercial arrangement or coercion. Women and men can consent freely to all kinds of risks. I personally won’t go bungee jumping or dirt bike riding or drive a motorbike as it’s outside my risk tolerance, but would consider sky diving or hang gliding. It’s taking away women’s capacity to say we simply can’t consent.
Totally against commercial surrogacy, voluntary surrogacy in particular when the mother knows the family to be is in my mind different. I do object to anyone writing the birth mother out of the dialogue eg prominent gay couples announcing we’re pregnant!! Well, no, there is a real woman out there who is actually pregnant. Not you. And let’s not ignore the risks she’s taking for you.

Evidence shows babies bonds with dads when they are the primary carer, I don’t see any evidence that babies given to loving parents who want them are in any way disadvantaged.

I’ve said all I’ve got to say

Again, I’ve said everything.

Thank goodness.

Better than ‘women can’t chose ever, ever because we say’

The baby doesn’t get a choice.

@timeisnotaline

No one can fully predict what effect a pregnancy can have on their body... it can end in disability or even death. Can a price be put on that? I haven’t read the thread but I disagree with this completely as long as there’s no commercial arrangement or coercion. Women and men can consent freely to all kinds of risks. I personally won’t go bungee jumping or dirt bike riding or drive a motorbike as it’s outside my risk tolerance, but would consider sky diving or hang gliding. It’s taking away women’s capacity to say we simply can’t consent. Totally against commercial surrogacy, voluntary surrogacy in particular when the mother knows the family to be is in my mind different. I do object to anyone writing the birth mother out of the dialogue eg prominent gay couples announcing we’re pregnant!! Well, no, there is a real woman out there who is actually pregnant. Not you. And let’s not ignore the risks she’s taking for you.

Evidence shows babies bonds with dads when they are the primary carer, I don’t see any evidence that babies given to loving parents who want them are in any way disadvantaged.

👏👏👏 Brilliant totally agree.

@FannyCann

I’ve said all I’ve got to say

Again, I’ve said everything.

Thank goodness.

That’s not very kind now is it?

@NotBadConsidering

Better than ‘women can’t chose ever, ever because we say’

The baby doesn’t get a choice.

Sadly they don’t in many a shit situation they’re brought in to world in….

starcup I think it's already been said but
Do you agree with the concept of laws? Or are you advocating anarchy? (Because it sounds like you are- free choice for all, about everything. How do you think a society with no laws would work? Why would it be better? Can you elaborate?

If you do agree we need laws, who should make them? When the government consults on a policy change, who should get to respond? Why shouldn't normal people get involved? Its a more direct way to be involved than voting for a party (which is also important).

@crunchermuncher

starcup I think it's already been said but Do you agree with the concept of laws? Or are you advocating anarchy? (Because it sounds like you are- free choice for all, about everything. How do you think a society with no laws would work? Why would it be better? Can you elaborate?

If you do agree we need laws, who should make them? When the government consults on a policy change, who should get to respond? Why shouldn't normal people get involved? Its a more direct way to be involved than voting for a party (which is also important).

I agree with everything @timeisnotaline said

It can work under certain situations

Sadly they don’t in many a shit situation they’re brought in to world in

So you think it’s sad when that happens? So do I. So in surrogacy we have an entirely predictable situation where we know in 9 months time the baby will be born into a situation that you and I find sad. We have the opportunity to put something in place before it happens, so it isn’t like all those other situations you find sad. What do you suggest?

Babies have an attachment in the womb for the person who created them in it regardless of who that baby is from a genetically point of view. They know the heart beat, the voice, their surroundings the mothers smell. All ripped away when the surrogate mother gives away the baby. It's so so sad and I think it's only in the future we'll find out the true effect of this horrific process.

I don’t see any evidence that babies given to loving parents who want them are in any way disadvantaged

How do we know that the people who buy a baby are actually loving parents ?
Just because someone has money, yarns for a child or believes that they need a child to "complete their family" doesn't automatically make them loving parents .

It's so so sad and I think it's only in the future we'll find out the true effect of this horrific process
I fully agree with this.

We take better care of our future pets by keeping them for x amount.of time with their mothers because we know about their importance for the pets development

I disagree with this completely as long as there’s no commercial arrangement or coercion. Women and men can consent freely to all kinds of risks.

The point being made throughout this thread that there are many types of hidden coercion that a woman may be subjected to. How are these taken into consideration and measured?

And there are also undiagnosed mental health issues that are also exploitable. How are these taken into consideration?

If you cannot see the potential for women to be subjected to these types of coercion and exploitation by now as a mature adult, you probably will not see it ever. Quite a few of these situations have been discussed on this thread, but determinedly dismissed by some posters.

This isn’t just a bungee jump. This is pre pregnancy treatment, pregnancy, post pregnancy. That is one very long bungee jump and the woman cannot just get ‘off the ride’. And even with extensive therapy, the mental health impacts of giving up that child, seeing that child as someone else’s after your body contributed parts of itself to create that child, or any number of realizations or situations, could be life limiting.

I find the dismissal the coercive / exploitive nature, the easy potential of power imbalances, within families and friendships surprising. Even today, with all the knowledge around abuse, I guess some people will never quite understand how vulnerable some people are for the sake of relationships.

Those patterns have been set for decades by the point of agreement. Those who are vulnerable may not even realise how they’ve been coerced or exploited.

There are also those surrogates who are doing this for their own exploitative reasons.

Just how many surrogate agreements are overseen by a process where the potential surrogate is assessed by a professional? And a professional whose expertise is identifying these vulnerabilities, these power imbalances in all, not just the obvious, cases?

Are these women not worthy of care? And exactly who benefits from not having these safeguards in place?

For every purely non-coerced/ exploited altruistic surrogate, how many coerced or exploited by family and friends are acceptable?

All because some people think it is infantilising to have these safeguarding protections in place.

Yes, with ‘altruistic’ surrogacy (and in the UK financial ‘expenses’ are high, so it’s arguably already semi-commercial) there are risks of emotional coercion and/or a birth mother's emotions about the people she wants to help or psychological vulnerability impeding her ability to assess risks - for herself, the planned DC, and (if applicable) her partner and existing DC.

Re emotional coercion that is also common enough for e.g. Kidney transplants, I’ve seen quite a few posts on here with people unwilling to donate and feeling very pressured, and there’s always been lots of reassurance that the donor team interview candidates carefully and the slightest hint of coercion, reluctance, adverse power circumstances and they say you’re not suitable. Is it so impossible to have something similar for surrogacy? (Except when the baby is conceived the old fashioned way or at home anyway and that seems impossible to stop no matter what your opinion of it all is)

timeisnotaline. On the subject of taking risks, the point here is that only women can take this risk. This creates an immediate asymmetry between men and women. The fact of having/not having babies is of foundational importance to humanity and having children is a fundamental human experience. The combination of the asymmetry with the fundamental importance of bringing children into the world creates a situation that is ripe for exploitation of women and for the commodification of women's bodies and of children. Making a decision to take the risk of being a surrogate mother given the context is nothing like making a decision to take the risk of doing a bungee jump.

I don’t see any evidence that babies given to loving parents who want them are in any way disadvantaged.

Disadvantage describes many different aspects of a child’s life.

Although, it has been discussed in some depth already on this thread, as a society we are becoming more aware of mental health issues stemming from being adopted or ‘created to order’.

What number of people struggling to cope with the reality that they feel they have been purchased / designed to order is acceptable? How is it any ‘advantage’ to know even though you are loved, you were deliberately created and one or even more women’s bodies were exploited to create you. Because it may be a different woman donating an egg, it may have taken multiple attempts. And at each stage, a life has been risked for your ‘production’.

We know from many of those adopted just how much it affects them to not have a relationship or to just know their birth mother. Or understand why they were given away or taken away from the mother who gave birth to them.

Are their voices to be ignored? Because they had a good life and so they have nothing to complain about?

Some of those speaking out as adopted children or donor assisted children fully admit to a great life in a loving family. They are proof that those ‘advantages’ don’t necessarily reduce the pain.

But obviously, their voices don’t mean a thing because they should be grateful. In the case of altruist surrogacy, grateful for the lengths their parents went to, making use of a nice person’s or a friend’s or a family member’s body, to achieve their aim of having child.

@PaleBlueMoonlight I do understand that only women can take this risk, but I don’t understand the leap to therefore no woman can decide to take this risk. Only women can have babies and therefore each woman should be the deciding vote on their having a baby or not.I agree coercion is a problematic issue but I just can’t get on board with women are not able to make this choice. I would never be a surrogate as I hate pregnancy and am quite ill for the first few months (currently I’m 7mo pregnant and hell would freeze over before I went through this for someone else to have my baby) but if I loved pregnancies (seems crazy to me but some women genuinely do) , had had one before so not totally naive, and chose to have one for a close friend or family member I’d be ropable if someone thought my being female meant I shouldn’t get to choose that. It really is just saying we don’t have capacity, whereas for everything else unique to female biology we say because it’s their body women should have sole agency for any decisions. (Nb I would say that sex work by definition involves a financial transaction and so cannot be considered free of coercion)

@Starcup

*No, back to my unanswered questions first*

I’ll take that as you disagree with the NHS paying for IVF. I think that’s what you were saying…..

No.

Go back and find my questions, comments and links, on both threads where IVF has been raised on the recent surrogacy threads, and we can discuss. I've already said I would. You can't be reading all I am saying as you've missed my invitation and earlier comments. Don't be lazy, I'm engaging in good faith but I hate repeating myself.

"I think that's what you were saying".
No. Be sure, quote me. Ask me. Start a new thread about IVF and the feminist perspective or stick to the subject. My posts are there for you to see. You can see what I have said about IVF and so can everyone else. Find something I have said, not what someone else has said, and point me to where you think my view on IVF is an 'extreme' one and come back to me.

That’s not very kind now is it?
Who said anything about kindness.
Women, be kind! Again, you first.

That’s not very kind now is it?

The expectation of ‘kindness’ is a good example of a type of coercion.

Don’t disagree, or call out the disparities in my arguments, it isn’t kind….

@Ylvamoon

I don’t see any evidence that babies given to loving parents who want them are in any way disadvantaged

How do we know that the people who buy a baby are actually loving parents ?
Just because someone has money, yarns for a child or believes that they need a child to "complete their family" doesn't automatically make them loving parents .

It's so so sad and I think it's only in the future we'll find out the true effect of this horrific process
I fully agree with this.

We take better care of our future pets by keeping them for x amount.of time with their mothers because we know about their importance for the pets development

Not all of them are loving parents Ylvamoon.

I mentioned a paedophile up thread but that was ignored.

Here's another. Adam, bought for $8k from a Russian woman had a full passport by the time he reached his first birthday due to the scale of the global baby sex trafficking.

But that Russian woman should get to choose and we are to leave the legal frameworks up to the men, or those who benefit from surrogacy and those know what they are talking about, we have been told here. These silly women 'activists' need to Be Kind and Be Quiet (we are allowed our 'extreme opinions' but shouldn't share them.)

For clarity for the hard of thinking, the above is sarcasm. The below is real, it can be crossed checked across numerous news sources and when reading I would urge caution and you will need a strong stomach. Surrogacy, the commercial kind in this case, with no safeguards...how badly would you need money to get paid 8k to give away your baby to two paedophiles?

www.smh.com.au/national/paedophile-peter-truong-says-he-misses-his-son-20140310-34i66.html

timeisaline I think that the argument here is that the risk is just too high for all women, to allow some women to make that choice. The negative effect for women as a class is just too great to say it is ok for the minority of women who actually make a free choice to take that risk, because they aren't making that choice in a vacuum. The moment you normalise surrogacy in some contexts, it is virtually impossible for that not to be exploited and for the boundaries not to be pushed (as is evident in the UK where nominally we only allow altruistic surrogacy, but where the concept of expenses is exploited and where a Royal Commission started with the idea that surrogacy needed to be modernised - ie the rights of birth mothers reduced - and where a supreme court judge gave damages to a woman to allow her to seek commercial surrogacy abroad despite it being illegal here). And this subject matter (bringing babies into the world) is too important to prioritise the interests of a few individual women who wish to make this choice above the needs of all women to be safe from exploitation and for women and children to be free from commodification.

And that is all before you get onto the rights of children and whether it is desirable to seek to disassociate gestation from motherhood.