Celebrity surrogacy - find this a bit heartbreaking

[Nowyouwillfeel]

Irish ‘celebrity’ couple with a new baby via surrogacy. The surrogate was one of the couples sister. They have put up pictures and stories all delighted and excited but I just see raw emotion on the mothers face in the second picture and in their stories the baby is clearly rooting for her mothers breast. I have a two month old who always does this and honestly it’s breaking my heart seeing the baby search like that while the dad doesn’t even notice and that she isn’t with her mother. They took the baby home before the mother was discharged and she is nowhere to be seen.

seems so unfair on both baby and the mother who doesn’t have any children of her own.

instagram.com/bprdowling?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Surrogacy is banned in my country. It is a huge ethical problem. And it stops at the mother level. I wholly agree with the laws of my country that you cannot buy or sell human body parts, dead or alive. You can gift your eggs, your sperm, your kidney, your blood, you can't sell them. It is illegal. On the same level, you cannot "use" someone else's uterus for that matter. It just stops there. Women are not to be used. Going down to the child level is missing one step. The life of the mother. Pregnancy is a risk that cannot be leveled with money or anything else. She could have died. She could have lost her health permanently. It does not matter if she is the sister. I do not think she has a complete understanding of what she went through nor the two guys for that matter. It is such that even when there is no money involved like in this case, they would not be able to get away with it. They can adopt. This is what they should have done.

I honestly think the answer to this is very simple.

Allow surrogacy but give mother legal rights to be primary caregiver. Mother can sign those rights over like adoption. Follow protocols of adoption (don’t know what these are, but presume mother has right to change mind for a limited time).

So basically it’s adoption but the parties agree in principle birth. The fact that these men are biologically involved gives them no right whatsoever to remove child from mother. That right may be granted to them (or not) by mother.

of course this means mother could refuse and take baby. Mother could demand more money at birth etc etc etc. could put a lot of people off surrogacy. No bad thing. As it stands now it is vile and hands maid tale esque. Rich people basically paying for the removal of babies from mothers. Gross!

Wrong She is the baby's mother.

Actually scrap what I said. This is perfect. Agreed!

Same as you can’t sell yourself into slavery…. Or you can’t agree to be murdered.

Some of the responses here really have saddened me. When I was born my mother didn't want to care for me and I was raised by my grandparents. They took over immediately when it became clear that I wasn't being looked after (in the first week of my life) and provided me with, by all accounts, good quality care. I still suffered with attachment problems and still have issues now that stem from my early years. To be in this position unexpectedly is awful, to intentionally create a baby who will be in this position is really something else.

I actually know of a situation close at hand where female A was not able to have her own child - so her Sister B after as a surrogate. That baby is now 30 and he's had the love of his mum, his aunt, uncles and multiple cousins. It was an amazing gift and I do not think anyone has the right to make this illegal. Should it be regulated so people are not taken advantage of and babies needs are considered... Yes but seriously this was a family matter and it really it's occured a lot that babies are brought up by other family members.

Adopted children experience a traumatic loss. Even if it is the better decision due to circumstances.

Surrogacy knowingly creates that traumatic loss.

That is the issue. Along with the commodification of children and of women's bodies.

I am very pro gay men being able to adopt. I am very anti any person of any orientation buying a woman's body and purposely creating traumatic loss in a baby's life.

Society is so very f@cked up, everyone seems to believe they have a ‘right’ to everything.☹️

Being American myself I haven't really had any strong opinions for our against it but I've always had a kind of icky (for lack of a better word) feeling about it. I think I would rather it be illegal. It doesn't seem right even if all parties are consenting... It does not seem fair to the baby in question and it feels like it's too easy for the mother to be taken advantage of.

I always think the whole surrogacy = human trafficking/should be ilegal thing is dramatic and only something I've ever saw on MN.

What other parenting forums do you visit?

As with other conversations that are reasonable to have, it is highly likely other sites will moderate those conversations heavily. And let’s face it, if you are a magazine or media outlet focused on celebrities etc, they aren’t about to allow discussions with those views are they?

But did you miss the news items at the start of covid where the plight of these women being exploited were in mainstream news on a daily basis some weeks?

Maybe you just didn’t bother to read about those women’s issues. The lack of humane treatment in places like Malta became exposed due to covid lockdowns. The children during covid who were then caught in limbo and often left with the surrogate who suddenly had no extra money to feed and care for an infant throughout covid.

Covid really turned mainstream media’s attention finally, to just how these arrangements are all about exploiting women. And that child.

But if you don’t want to read about it, you won’t.

I always think the whole surrogacy = human trafficking/should be ilegal thing is dramatic and only something I've ever saw on MN

It’s not “dramatic” or just a MN thing to say surrogacy should be illegal, surrogacy IS illegal in the following countries:

France
Germany
Spain
Switzerland
Italy
Austria
Norway
Sweden
Japan
Iceland

and others, various states and territories etc.

It is most certainly not some crazy MN idea to make it illegal.

Yet another case of "I didn't understand until it happened to me".

You have absolutely zero idea what you are asking mothers and babies to endure and are militant about refocusing the discussion away from the bit you can't see or recognise yet because you think you have the correct emotional boundaries. I can just imagine you with your baby at 2 months old realising what other women have said.

I've been on the fence about surrogacy all my life. You've pushed me over with the "she's only the 9 month incubator carrier" / "no biological connection" line.

The harms committed and endured by men is usually physical, highly recognised even if it doesn't affect all men and prioritised but I am tired of the emotional harms endured by women being seen as "not affecting all women", didn't or won't happen to me, what harm does it do, why not allow others to be happy, down played and marginalised.

I’m not sure of your age, and I’m sorry about your experiences. I can only talk about what happens in modern scenarios. If a mother approached social services and said she wished to give up her baby, she would be assessed in terms of capacity to parent. If there weren’t obvious safeguarding risks, she would be strongly encouraged to keep the baby or see if father could raise it or place it with relatives. In practice in the UK it just doesn’t happen. Overwhelmingly women who don’t want to have their babies have abortions, or generally change their mind later on. Yes, if a woman physically abandoned her baby in the hospital it would be taken into care (but again would be placed with relatives first if this was an option) but the mother would have a lot of support to try and get her to come to terms with motherhood and accept the baby. It’s really not a case in this country of women just giving up newborns for adoption. I accept it is different in the US, for example.

So I’ll ask again:

Explain that framework that will make sure people aren’t taken advantage of. If a sister wants to donate another sister her kidney she has to undergo rigorous assessment to make sure she is not being coerced in the slightest way. How do you propose this doesn’t happen, even in loving families? How do you protect everyone’s rights?

So why have other countries prioritized the baby and made surrogacy illegal?

This. Me, me, me, me.

This is going to be controversial but I don’t believe men can parent a newborn in the same way a mother can. They don’t have maternal instincts and there’s no chemical bond between them. They’ll do an adequate job probably, but it won’t be the same as with a mother.

You'd have been shocked by the reasoning limiting adoption as well.
Yet you accept them.

What's the difference?

She is not a surrogate. She is,and always will be, the mother of that child. You can't just buy a baby and wipe out the absolute fact that that baby wouldn't exist without a mother.

Who said anything about evil? Are all things deemed illegal evil?

And why are you focusing on it being the mother who is being evil instead of the baby buyers?

Why should gay couples be limited to adoption? This whole thread shrieks of homophobia quite frankly. Just maybe … this woman properly considered the consequences of carrying a baby for someone else? Maybe people on this thread should stop battling for her when she hasn’t asked anyone to. Why shouldn’t she do something like this for her brother? The circumstances are very different to an impoverished woman having zero choice and having to give up a baby against her will.

The baby's rooting reflex doesn't mean it's "searching for it's mother".

A newborn has a strong instinct to suck, especially when something touches it's cheek, like a person's shoulder or arm while being held.
If a baby is bottle-fed it will readily suck from a bottle at this stage, no matter who is holding it.
Like many baby mammals they will then become attached to the person that feeds and holds them, regardless if they're the biological mother or not.

Why should gay couples be limited to adoption? This whole thread shrieks of homophobia quite frankly

Why is it homophobic to point out that two men can’t have a baby together?

So should a father never hold his baby?

Gay couples are not limited to adoption. Lesbian couples can have a biological child because one of them will be its mother and give birth to it. That’s absolutely fine. Men cannot do this. It’s not about homophobia at all, it’s about two men being physically unable to give birth.

Also, opposition to surrogacy means opposing it in all circumstances. That means ruling it out for straight couples too where the woman cannot carry a child. This will mean some straight people cannot be parents. Again, no homophobia.

Always the accusations of homophobia 🙄.

Why is prioritising the woman who is putting herself at risk and the baby being created to be traded away homophobic?