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

The more I read about surrogacy, egg sharing, selling embryos, the more I think it should all just be banned. Having children the old fashioned way has left us with nearly 8 billion people on the planet, over populated yet here we are coming up with more ethically dubious ways to create more people.

I think human beings need to accept that if they can't have children for whatever reason then that's that. Yes, I'm sure it must be heartbreaking but we are talking about actual babies not consumer goods that you can order on demand

Babies also bond with and recognise their mothers heartbeat in the womb, not just their voice and smell.

I’ve been opposed to surrogacy for some time now.

The recent priyanka chopra surrogacy was the icing on the cake “I had no fertility issues, I just couldn’t fit in trying for a baby with my husband because of our busy work schedules”

Kim kardashian- I had two miserable pregnancies so I paid someone to do my last two because it would have been too hard on my body. Paraphrasing obviously.

I don’t get the notion of “if I have enough money for someone else to go through the pain and worry why wouldn’t I?”

I find it so demoralising and abusive to the majority poor women’s bodies for their own families gain and putting her through complete turmoil. I’ve watched many documentaries on the subject too and most agree to do it because of financial hardship (it’s incredibly rife in India, Romania and Ukraine).

If all you really want is to be a parent and care for a child from birth then adoption or birth the child yourself should be the only options- time constraints, toll on body infertility an all.

It’s human trafficking.

Would anyone say 'oh well human trafficking happens anyway, so we should just regulate it'?

So why are people saying it for surrogacy?

Yes, the egg sharing is extremely dubious ethically @OhHolyJesus
I have exactly the same concerns as you. Also a donor is entitled to find out if any babies have resulted. Imagine the pain of going through IVF unsuccessfully but knowing there are babies that are genetically yours somewhere, maybe near to where you live and had your treatment. I'd be obsessed, I'd probably get a private detective to track them down and hang around outside their school. I really couldn't handle it. Same for the donated embryo TurquoiseBaubles
mentioned.

Kim kardashian- I had two miserable pregnancies so I paid someone to do my last two because it would have been too hard on my body. Paraphrasing obviously.

I am not condoning paying a surrogate in any circumstances, but this unfair. There’s a big difference between having miserable pregnancies and having a potentially fatal health condition that could lead to needing an emergency hysterectomy

Could yet didn’t twice. The kardashians write their own narrative. She had very common pregnancy and birth ailments and had two successful ones.

@oatlattetogo

Kim kardashian- I had two miserable pregnancies so I paid someone to do my last two because it would have been too hard on my body. Paraphrasing obviously.

I am not condoning paying a surrogate in any circumstances, but this unfair. There’s a big difference between having miserable pregnancies and having a potentially fatal health condition that could lead to needing an emergency hysterectomy

Regardless of her condition (and I'm assuming that you are saying she has a health condition), she is still saying it's OK for a poor woman to risk the same thing or similar happening to her if she's paid.

@RedToothBrush

Would anyone say 'oh well human trafficking happens anyway, so we should just regulate it'?

So why are people saying it for surrogacy?

We do regulate it, in the sense that we pass laws to prevent it.

Whether those pregnancies were healthy or not, whether the arrival of her birth children were traumatic or not - she had two healthy children. Most women would have stopped there, considered themselves lucky and would not take further risks with their own health and pursue additional pregnancies/children potentially resulting life-long health problems. If they wanted a larger family they then might consider fostering or adoption or find other fulfilment to ease the pain of not being able to have more children. A family with 2 healthy children is a wonderful place to be.

She chose not to. Why? Because she is swimming in cash and can buy babies from other women. She can pay other women to have babies for her. Women who would probably considered themselves lucky to be able to have such an opportunity to get a lump sum income (spread over a number of months) and be able to spend the same amount of time with their kids, simply by being pregnant, a service someone is paying you for and will also pay for cosmetic treatments and maybe a holiday at the end (as was rumoured for the Kardashian-West commissioning parents).

I notice none of 4 the sisters in the Kardashian family have offered to have a baby for Khloe who also has a healthy child and now has some kind of issue or aversion to another pregnancy. Surrogacy isn't something that seems to come as naturally to Khloe as it did to Kim.

There's more than one kind of surrogacy - a sister carrying a baby for her sister whose had cancer surgery and cannot carry a baby is not the same as hiring a commercial surrogate.

I disagree with commercial surrogacy but for close friends and relatives I'm more on the fence

This women had a cardiac arrest during birth

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10502899/amp/Mother-three-pictured-moments-suffering-two-fatal-heart-attacks-following-C-section.html

And yet none of the Kardashian sisters stepped up to help a sister in need.
God knows they missed a marketing opportunity.
Kardashian branded anti-thrombosis stockings, support leggings, stretch mark cream, haemorrhoid cream...

@RoseslnTheHospital

Regarding "my body my choice" I'd say that of course women can choose to get pregnant and have a baby. What they shouldn't then be able to do is to sell that baby to the "commissioning" couple/person. For some reason babies are excluded from the protection that older children and adults have from being bought and sold.

I've never thought of it in that way. Very interesting. If someone were to sell, say, a five-year-old child to a couple there would be outrage.

@Linguini

What would you say to someone who has adopted a baby?

Congratulations

@gogohm

There's more than one kind of surrogacy - a sister carrying a baby for her sister whose had cancer surgery and cannot carry a baby is not the same as hiring a commercial surrogate.

I disagree with commercial surrogacy but for close friends and relatives I'm more on the fence

In living relative kidney donation there is a significant process of counselling for the donor. Questions are asked and the donor is asked to question themselves. There are multiple research articles on the ethics, psychological impacts, coercive tactics, impact of financial incentives, and position papers that guide institutions on how to approach this in an ethical manner that safeguards all involved.

Do sisters who say they want to be a surrogate go through this? What research exists to look at the psychological impacts? What guidelines and ethical practices do fertility clinics follow before accepting a sibling relationship as suitable for surrogacy?

@OhHolyJesus

I've heard about the 'adoption' of embryos, you can even put your embryos up for adoption on Facebook.

[[https://people.com/human-interest/what-its-like-to-put-an-unused-ivf-embryo-for-adoption]]/

The only stories like this I've read come from the US, I've seen it in framed in terms of 'souls' being 'abandoned' and religious and emotive language being tied into science and medical procedures, but you can just give them to your friends...

[[https://www.insider.com/3-friends-1-set-of-embryos-created-families-without-men-2021-1]]

Again, like 'unused' eggs, no one was using these embryos, they are just sitting there, taking up freezer space

That is dreadful, why on earth is it legal?

The world has gone mad.

I note people have mentioned adoption of children but adoption is a completely different scenario to surrogacy.

Good point NotBadConsidering

Risks of harm apply in every medical procedure. I recently saw a shocking case of a man who donated his kidney to his father and the surgery went wrong, he needed 100 units of blood and has ended up on dialysis and needing a kidney transplant himself. He has been awarded several million compensation due to the negligence of the surgeon.

@FannyCann

Good point NotBadConsidering

Risks of harm apply in every medical procedure. I recently saw a shocking case of a man who donated his kidney to his father and the surgery went wrong, he needed 100 units of blood and has ended up on dialysis and needing a kidney transplant himself. He has been awarded several million compensation due to the negligence of the surgeon.

That makes you think, I know someone who had a kidney donated by their father. It failed and he felt guilty that he had put his father through that for nothing but the case you quote is a whole different level of horror.

I think the pictures of people, some of them very young, showing the scars from where they have sold a kidney is heartbreaking. They have shown them from Afghanistan recently on Sky news, don't know if they have been on other news channels.

I'm opposed to surrogacy. I'm also opposed to infant adoption (particularly the way young girls are preyed upon in American adoption culture).

It's not about the woman carrying. It's about the very real trauma it gives a small child. The primal wound is real.

(obviously it's also about the mental health and wellbeing of young surrogates being coerced but my primary concern is with the infant who will go through a highly traumatic event from birth)

@Comedycook

The more I read about surrogacy, egg sharing, selling embryos, the more I think it should all just be banned. Having children the old fashioned way has left us with nearly 8 billion people on the planet, over populated yet here we are coming up with more ethically dubious ways to create more people.

I think human beings need to accept that if they can't have children for whatever reason then that's that. Yes, I'm sure it must be heartbreaking but we are talking about actual babies not consumer goods that you can order on demand

I agree though of course I am sympathetic to those who cannot have children and would be tactful when speaking to them. However there can be quality of life and fulfillment without children.

Babies know their mother by which I mean the person who gave birth to them, it's extremely traumatic to be taken from her. I suggest any doubters read 'The Primal Wound' if they do not accept that. Obviously it has to happen sometimes, for example if the mother dies, in which case everyone else involved must do their best to compensate, but that is not the case with surrogacy. It is deliberate.

For the record, I do know something about babies separated from their mothers; I was an adopted child and my parents were infertile.

Remember that Australian surrogacy case?

Rich commissioning parents… sorry I mean baby traffickers, had a poor Thai woman carry twins for them. The little boy was born with Down’s Syndrome, so they took his sister and left him with his mother, who was not planning on raising a disabled child.

They deprived that baby girl of her mother and brother. They treated the little boy like a disposable, defective piece of rubbish.

Oh and the icing on the cake?

Commissioning dad was a sex offender.

But yeah surrogacy is wonderful and altruistic and isn’t it great that poor women in developing nations get to put their lives at risk to carry and then sell their children to people from rich countries.

There’s a British couple in the Ukraine doing sad face stories because the baby born by surrogate hasn’t got a passport so they’re stuck there. They went to Ukraine because of their liberal surrogacy laws and now want help.

Makes me so angry, they’ve basically just bought a baby and now people are saying oh the government must help them, this is terrible blah blah.