Why surrogacy should be banned

[DomesticatedZombie]

• article from Stefanie Bode.

'It’s always harmful. It harms our health, it exploits our bodies; it’s dependent on global inequalities and makes them worse; it violates our dignity, our physical integrity and many others of our human rights. It is a form of slavery (of women and children), and obviously it’s violence against women and children. It makes babies into commodities. It’s very cruel and inhumane to women and babies to separate a baby from its mother. '

www.filia.org.uk/latest-news/2022/2/8/why-surrogacy-should-be-banned

@Shuffletime

I'm 90% against surrogacy but have no qualms about a completely voluntary, unpaid offer of surrogacy to help a sister/friend/relative have a child. Obviously there is still risk but it's a very different scenario from paying for a birthing vessel.

Nice

Here is a superb analysis of the harms of surrogacy from a feminist point of view..

"Conclusion

Surrogacy is incompatible with the full realisation of the rights of women and children. As I have shown, as a practice it raises a number of concerns related to medical ethics, exploitation and commodification. Its fundamental root lies in the patriarchal relationship between men and women. Whilst slavery, exploitative labour and the sale of human organs are almost universally condemned, the exploitation and sale of female bodies is accepted to a much greater degree. There is no part of female anatomy that cannot be profited from. Given the growth and increasing acceptance of the surrogacy industry it is a key contemporary issue for feminists.
The general direction of reform globally has been towards prohibition in recent years. There have, however, been notable exceptions. New York state recently legalised commercial surrogacy as its governor included legislation within the coronavirus pandemic budget. In the UK pro-surrogacy groups have lobbied for a change in the law and steered a government consultation such that the rights of women and children were far from fully considered.
Law and policy is developing and changing across the world and it is vital that the rights of women and children are always the foremost consideration. I have argued for an abolitionist approach because a regulatory harm reduction approach does not advance the aim of feminism. Industrialising patriarchal norms is not compatible with a political movement that demands the emancipation of all women. Feminism cannot succeed by sacrificing the most disenfranchised women to patriarchy, restricting its interest to making improvements to the conditions of their abuse. Surrogacy must be prohibited."

objectnow.org/how-do-altruistic-and-commercial-surrogacy-affect-the-rights-of-women-and-children/

Let's face it this is about making money like so many other dodgy things currently done.
It could be banned as a commercial enterprise but the doctors etc would still profit so still push it, I don't know the answer

And here is what happens when babies are reduced to a product for sale. Defective products are returned to sender. I'm only surprised the woman didn't ask for a refund.

Woman rejected disabled surrogate baby as a ‘dribbling cabbage’.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/906372bf-1f6f-4195-b75b-d18202b12bd6?shareToken=43de95cb9d48a273a791cd8470ad9dcff_

Humans need to understand we can’t all have what we want all the time. If for what ever reason you can’t have your own baby, gay, fertility issues or illness. I’m sorry it’s tough. Uteruses and babies should not be for sale.

@fallfallfall

what about families doing this to help infertile daughters? mother or sister etc? i'm not sure all surrogacy should be banned.

This is to surrogacy what the happy hooker is to prostitution.

A very small section of a very small section used to justify the whole.

I don't see the issue of removing a child from its birth mother, when the child will be placed in the care of loving parents

Infants aren't blank slates to be passed around caregivers. Newborns recognise their mother's voices and smell, they have an intimacy of connection that can't be replicated by another parent, no matter how loving. Furthermore, that child will be formed around abandonment. Pre-verbal, un-symbolised abandonment that no amount of love, reassurance, or rationalisation will heal.

Surrogacy creates developmental trauma.

@Catcrazy83

Humans need to understand we can’t all have what we want all the time. If for what ever reason you can’t have your own baby, gay, fertility issues or illness. I’m sorry it’s tough. Uteruses and babies should not be for sale.

Agreed- but I suspect the horse bolted/ ship sailed long ago on that concept.

It does make me uncomfortable; very conflicting opinions in my mind which I haven't managed to square.

But this - 'and obviously it’s violence against women and children.'

I just cant abide this hyperbolic language. Its not violence. It might be emotional abuse, financial coercion or bribery etc to cause a women to put herself at severe risk of harm; but its not violence.

@sometimespeopletakethepiss

What happened to women being able to choose what they do with their bodies? No one campaigns against women wearing what they want to and doing what they want to.

What right do you or anyone have to say this? I think this thread is hypocritical to be honest and judgey AF

It's not hypocritical. Women can choose to get pregnant and have a baby. What is wrong is to be able to sell that baby to "commissioning" people. If objecting to the selling of people is judgemental then yep, I'm judging.

@Catcrazy83

Humans need to understand we can’t all have what we want all the time. If for what ever reason you can’t have your own baby, gay, fertility issues or illness. I’m sorry it’s tough. Uteruses and babies should not be for sale.

THIS! But I’d never have the guts to say it out loud. It’s very sad that not everyone can have children but it’s not a right. People feel far too entitled.

I really feel if I had died giving birth, my babies would have been perfectly happy in the care of my loving family and would not have felt my loss

You don’t think that when they were old enough to ask questions about you, or old enough to see what other children had but they didn’t, they wouldn’t wonder what you were like, and whether they’re missing out on something others with mothers still alive have? Of course they would have been loved and well cared for, but many people who don’t know their birth parents wonder about what might have been. I find it a touch sad you think you wouldn’t have been missed.

Besides, there’s a big difference between unavoidable circumstances of loss and deliberately created circumstances of loss.

@HotPenguin

I'm opposed to surogacy because it puts the needs of the future parents above the needs of the baby to be with its own mother. I hadn't thought of it as slavery before but I can see the writer's point.

But... in cases like that of Kim Kardashian, they were HER babies and they didn’t belong to the woman who birthed them. So I don’t understand why you’re saying “the needs of the baby to be with it’s OWN mother”.

Agreed- but I suspect the horse bolted/ ship sailed long ago on that concept.

If you mean we can’t now ban it, I disagree. Several countries have successfully enacted laws banning commercial surrogacy in the last 5-10 years or so.

But... in cases like that of Kim Kardashian, they were HER babies and they didn’t belong to the woman who birthed them. So I don’t understand why you’re saying “the needs of the baby to be with it’s OWN mother”.

There’s a cognitive dissonance over oocyte/sperm sourcing. When a woman uses oocyte donation (infertility) and gives birth herself, very few people consider that baby to belong to the oocyte donor. This is the UK legal position as well, notwithstanding the child’s right to contact the genetic material donor at 18.

But in the same scenario where KK’s eggs & sperm were placed in a surrogate mother, suddenly Kim Kardashian’s kids belong to her? You can’t have it both ways.

But... in cases like that of Kim Kardashian, they were HER babies and they didn’t belong to the woman who birthed them. So I don’t understand why you’re saying “the needs of the baby to be with it’s OWN mother”

The woman who gives birth is the mother. If a woman has her own baby with the use of a donor egg, for particular reasons such as genetic disease, would you tell her that it isn’t her baby?

@Catcrazy83

Humans need to understand we can’t all have what we want all the time. If for what ever reason you can’t have your own baby, gay, fertility issues or illness. I’m sorry it’s tough. Uteruses and babies should not be for sale.

I agree. Biology isn't fair. But that doesn't mean trading in human beings is acceptable.

@Catcrazy83

Humans need to understand we can’t all have what we want all the time. If for what ever reason you can’t have your own baby, gay, fertility issues or illness. I’m sorry it’s tough. Uteruses and babies should not be for sale.

Yes 100% this.

But... in cases like that of Kim Kardashian, they were HER babies and they didn’t belong to the woman who birthed them. So I don’t understand why you’re saying “the needs of the baby to be with it’s OWN mother”.

Ah yes, Kim and Kanye who bought babies from women far, far below them in economic terms. Such high moral examples to look up to. Where are those women now, are the commissioning parents friends with them, are they helping them go through college due to their enormous wealth they could afford to help couldn't they? Is it only poorer fertile women who are expected to help others?

When a woman gives birth to a baby who has been conceived from another woman's egg - who is the mother?

Do babies come into the world knowing the gametes they were conceived from?

The baby was also 100% the biological offspring of the couple paying.

The baby was also 100% the biological genetic offspring of the couple paying.

Just leaving this here

Surrogacy Resource thread : please post your links here www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3782983-surrogacy-resource-thread-please-post-your-links-here

For the PP who lives in Ireland, and everyone else. Reform is coming.

@fallfallfall

what about families doing this to help infertile daughters? mother or sister etc? i'm not sure all surrogacy should be banned.

There can still be power imbalances within families, and also I've read articles about how surrogacy like this has torn families apart.

Think about how many women regret abortions or regret putting their child up for adoption. Imagine those women having to watch that child grow up with someone else right under their nose, and to know you can never tell that child that you are their mother.

Or imagine the woman changes her mind and is empowered enough to say so, and then keeps the baby. And then the sister has to watch the child grow up and always feeling it was meant to be their child.

And everyone else in the family taking a side, and the child eventually finding out that they are the reason why Mum and Auntie Beth don't talk to each other any more.

I'm sorry but I am just very sceptical of happy ending news stories: when the baby is born, that's not the end its just the beginning! These stories are usually focused on those on the receiving side of the arrangements and give a brief snapshot of a single moment in time.

If families really do want to do this, it can all be achieved through current adoption legislation, there is just no need to introduce sweeping laws to legalise surrogacy which open the door to the exploitation of women

The woman who gives birth is the mother. If a woman has her own baby with the use of a donor egg, for particular reasons such as genetic disease, would you tell her that it isn’t her baby?

They’re not really comparable though, are they? You wouldn’t say that to a woman in those circumstances (or a man, if a sperm donor had been used) because it’s a nasty thing to say and really, being someone’s parents is about far more than birth and genetics. My dad is technically my step father. As far as we are all concerned he’s my dad, but if we did a DNA test it would obviously say that he wasn’t. We all know that, we’re not idiots, but he’s still my dad.

I am opposed to commercial surrogacy, but I think it’s much harder (for me, personally) to criticise those acting as surrogates for friends, family members etc, especially if the eggs and sperm of the intended parents are being used. And if babies are always damaged by being removed from their birth mothers (which some people have implied) then how were there so many people who didn’t find out they were adopted until they were older children/adults and had lovely, happy childhoods?

[quote FannyCann]And here is what happens when babies are reduced to a product for sale. Defective products are returned to sender. I'm only surprised the woman didn't ask for a refund.

Woman rejected disabled surrogate baby as a ‘dribbling cabbage’.

[[https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/906372bf-1f6f-4195-b75b-d18202b12bd6?shareToken=43de95cb9d48a273a791cd8470ad9dcf]]f_[/quote]
That is awful, even worse that siblings have been split up, the emotional impact on them when they find out ( which they are bound to) will be awful.

Only time I've ever seen keeping up with the kardashians one of them was getting counselling to be able to have a surrogate, she was shocked when they explained that is the mother's life was in danger she would have to abort the baby. The Kardashian said it's she allowed to do that it's my baby.
So that tells you everything doesn't it she felt it's too dangerous for her to be pregnant but quite happy to put someone else in that position.