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=

Here we are, an article about "Anchor babies" as a means to buying US citizenship. Hope the link works.

cbc-network.org/2020/10/with-surrogate-mothers-us-citizenship-is-for-sale-2/

Oh but for the inability to see women as people!

She's repairing her own body. Giving her own body a chance to do its own thing.

Yes, undergoing medical intervention is a choice. You only undergo medical intervention when you've accepted your own body doesn't work. We choose to wear glasses, we choose to have vaccines. We are giving our own bodies a chance to function. It's your own prerogative if you don't want to. We can't force you to do anything for yourself.

It should not be a given that a kidney is produced because you are born without one or you lost one in an accident. We're not going to pull kidneys out of people just because they have 2 healthy ones and you need one.

No one has a right to anyone else's body parts. No one has a right to an entire baby never mind just the body parts.

So called "altruistic" surrogacy between friends and family can and does go horribly wrong.
This woman had a horrific twin pregnancy and birth and was dropped by what had been very close friends as soon as they had the babies.
Awful.

nordicmodelnow.org/2020/01/29/i-was-an-altruistic-surrogate-and-am-now-against-all-surrogacy/

@GiantCheeseMonster
what a great response

Would one of the couple be carrying the child for the 9 months, and remaining with the baby afterwards?

Or would they be using an entirely different woman to carry the baby who the baby was then removed from immediately after birth?

Former - no issue.
Latter - same issue as with a male gay couple. I'd also have the same issue it I was a hetrosexual couple using a surface mother too. It's not to do with the couple's sexual preferences for me. It's to do with another woman entirely being used as a 'carrier' for the baby. I don't believe a woman's womb (and all the additional biological processes that comes with carrying a baby for 9 months) should be treated as a commodity for others to buy.

What is a crime is using a vulnerable person (emotionally, financially etc) to carry your child to benefit yourself

I am yet to have it explained to me how we are meant to know. Who is checking the mother isn’t vulnerable? What protections are in place for her? Who is screening these arrangements? Because as sure as night follows day, if “altruistic” surrogacy becomes more normalised, it’s only a matter of time before a woman is coerced into making out she’s all for it and isn’t being pressured in any shape or form.

Because that’s what happens. Normalise the exploitation of women under the guise of “choice” and it’s no big leap to take that exploitation further. See also: the “happy Hooker” lie, OnlyFans and so on..

This is exactly how I feel ^

Surrogacy is horrifying.

I had a baby over a year ago, this was my third child after 2 amazing pregnancies and births (same father for all 3). I thought I was going to sail through the pregnancy and the birth, I entered into it almost cocky I'm embarrassed to admit. I ended up with a pregnancy that made me very unwell and a birth that has left me with injuries that are permanent. I couldn't walk further than 100 yards for about 6 months and couldn't have sex without pain until very recently. I have an amazing husband who has been great throughout everything (as you'd expect!) and I don't regret having my child, I was glad it was me who was injured and not my baby. If I'd have been a surrogate the person commissioning the baby would have probably taken the baby home after a day leaving me behind to deal with the terrible aftermath. Whenever I see a surrogacy birth announced and the intended parents jumping or skipping out the hospital door my mind always thinks about that poor woman somewhere usually hidden away who is potentially dealing with terrible injuries. We don't mention that though the people commissioning the baby get what they want, what does it matter? It seems carrying a baby is turned into no big deal when it's a huge deal involving lots of risks to the woman. Don't even get me started on the lack of rights fr the baby created!!

This is a really really tricky subject and one that I don’t believe is black and white. There will be examples of this set up not working and examples of it working. Whilst it is wonderful that the surrogate in this case is close to the couple I think perhaps it’s better to have a little distance in relationship I.e the surrogate won’t necessarily be involved in the child’s day to day life once they are born. Pregnancy is very full on (currently 38 weeks with my second so I know!!) but there is of course a huge element of choice for a woman to choose to be a surrogate. I do think though it is good if she has had her own child/children and her own personal family is complete so can look on the surrogacy process in a different way.

There is of course a duty of care to the mother too after the baby is born, regardless of whether her egg was used or not. Even if she totally understands what she is getting into she must never be cast aside, she needs properly caring for with love and understanding.

Because a baby needs a mum and no one is prioritising the baby’s needs.

The baby I'm carrying was created with my egg and my partners sperm. The baby aoife carried was created by a donor egg and sperm from one of the fathers.

Is the baby fully created at the time of conception? At the time if implantation?
Or is it being created throughout the whole pregnancy until the moment it is born?

I am if the belief that the creation of a baby takes several months, and that it doesn't just happen over a few moments, hours, days when an egg and sperm meet and implant into the womb.

And that's why I believe the pregnant woman is far more that a 'carrier' for a baby.

I have never heard of this couple and I have just glanced through one article what strikes me is

1 they won't reveal who the father is. That suggests they have used a donor egg so Aoife is not the biological mother aka it is not one of her eggs they have used to create the baby. She is the one who was pregnant and gave birth but it is not a biological child of hers.

2 OP You don't get why a woman's 3 days post a c section isn't on social media?? Really you don't? I have 4 children I was not up for social media pictures within 4 days of natural birth let alone a c-section.

Personally, I do not feel that surrogacy should be illegal I would like to see some stronger laws about it - such as not being permitted to use a surrogate from overseas to have the baby, all over the world, however in this case. I offered to be egg donor for my sister once when she and her then-partner discussed a child and my sister had been through early menopause. They decided against it and later split up so likely the right decision for them. I personally would not have carried for my sister but I had no issue with her having a egg that came from me and then her partner use this and she carry the baby.

Like many other hot topics, the desire to be kind and inclusive puts some peoples desires and rights above others.

Maybe if a child is brought up in a community where her family arrangements are common, she won’t feel the absence of a mother. But going by a small child in my own family, whose mother died when she was tiny, that desire for a mother figure is innate. I hope this couple do the right thing by everyone involved.

Only got to page 7 so this could have been mentioned.

From a legal point of view in Ireland, she is still the child's mother. She signs over guardianship. However if she wanted to changed her mind and apply for guardianship, custody or shared custody of the child she could do this at any time in the next 18 years.

The babies father is the biological father. He has guardianship. The other partner has no rights to the child until that child is at least two years old, he can then apply for guardianship. If they seperated before he got guardianship, the other person could take the child and he'd have no access at all.

Roseanna Davison is an Irish person who used a surrogate. In the eyes of Irish law she is not that child's mother. If her husband wanted to leave her at any point she would have no rights to that child. She can apply for guardianship after a few years. But in their case they brought their surrogate over from the Ukraine. In Irish law, the surrogate is that child's mother and she could apply for guardianship, and custody at any point over the next 18 years.

Irish courts very much favour mothers, and children having access to their mothers and fathers were possible. If this lady changes her mind at any point in the next 18 years she will have options and most likely get shared custody.

Couldn’t agree more, OP

Here's one of the stories that I referred to of a "nanny" keeping a surrogate born baby for an extended time. I saw her posts on Tiktok at the time, I suspect she woke up to find her SM gone mad (and probably the commissioning parents) after the DM had picked up on it and she deleted quite a lot of her posts about it though there are some still. It makes me very sad to see how the baby interacts with her and her teenage children and that he was removed at just over a year from this loving family.

The back story is that she has been a surrogate mother three times and now earns her living looking after newborns until such time as the commissioning parents collect. She has had several although this baby was the longest period. At the time the problem arose due to covid (although I still question why the CPs couldn't sort the paperwork sooner, or go over and be with the baby until it was) and she had recently delivered a baby for a Chinese couple. Recognising the emotional attachment problems of looking after a baby she has given birth to, this baby went to another "nanny" (also a SM I believe) and she took on this baby. If you find her Tiktok there's quite a lot of explanation there.

These babies are just passed around with very little oversight, I find it incredible. No doubt if surrogacy law in the U.K. is loosened up as the Law Commission proposes we will start seeing an international trade in the UK and suddenly our social services will be busy overseeing fostering of babies that haven't been collected here to, at the expense of the U.K. taxpayer. Even if the CPs are just a bit late for some reason - I would expect that the baby would be cared for by midwives in the maternity unit (as happens with babies that are going to be adopted until a foster placement or foster to adopt arrangement has been sorted). I hope hospitals will charge for this service.

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-9698243/Nanny-raising-UK-couples-surrogate-son-10-months-COVID-19.html

Paying to use a woman’s body for certain reasons is shameful and not a thing you would celebrate publicly, no matter how willing the woman seemed to be to take part in the transaction. Your average respectable man would not Instagram the prostitute he just paid to have sex with, because we know that renting a woman’s body because she has something you don’t have and you want it is just a grim thing to do. I don’t understand how renting a woman’s female organs for reproductive purposes is somehow a less shameful or exploitative thing. And creating a baby and then subjecting it deliberately to the trauma of losing it’s mother (because the baby is certainly not thinking ‘that’s not my mother, it’s just a birthing body’) is disgusting.

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 can see why surrogacy is problematic

But even if you could see ‘raw emotion’ and ‘rooting’ from one snapshot alone -
the mother has just given birth, emotions are obviously all over the place regardless what’s going on. It may have nothing at all to do with handing the baby over to her brother and his partner.
And many babies aren’t breastfed.

There is definitely an important debate to be had about ethics around surrogacy, but what you’ve focussed on here doesn’t really contribute to that debate in my opinion. You’ve honed in on two complete non-points, because they are simply based on your own purposely emotive assumptions interpretations rather than actual situational facts. It’s a conversation starter for sure. But it does seem somewhat contrived.

@Ella28_

I'm afraid you have much reading up to do on the ethics of surrogacy.

Your comparison to adoption shows your complete ignorance.

Very few babies are voluntarily "given up" for adoption nowadays. Most babies who are adopted are removed from their birth families for safeguarding reasons, where there is no alternative . This is an extremely tragic situation for the mother and the baby. To DELIBERATELY create a baby with the express purpose of removing it from its mother is ABHORRENT.

lower the tone I know but has anyone seen the episode of the Kardashians where Khloe is planning a surrogacy and is genuinely shocked that she doesn’t get to have as much of a say in the surrogates decisions etc?
watching that show is a really interesting take about this process. Also as sisters and incredibly rich women they aren’t acting as surrogates they are paying poorer women.

also the amount of adverts young women in Facebook etc are bombarded with about selling their eggs as an altruistic thing without understanding the impact especially if they haven’t had kids yet.

But you don't know any of that, you're just projecting and making up emotive statements to paint the picture you want to see.

Regardless of your views on surrogacy, there's a lot of extrapolation on this thread of what everyone must be doing / feeling / thinking based on very little evidence.

Personally, I do not feel that surrogacy should be illegal I would like to see some stronger laws about it

I posted this several pages ago but I think it’s worth posting again, if you’re talking about stronger laws:

For those who think a woman and a couple - regardless of sex or sexual orientation - should be able to enter an agreement for surrogacy, answer these questions:

If a severe abnormality is found on NIPT or the 12 week scan, who gets to decide what to do?

If the woman wants to abort but the intended parents don’t (this is Ireland after all), whose wishes matter most?

What if the intended parents do want to abort because they don’t want to look after a child with a severe disability. Should the mother be made to undergo such a procedure?

What if the mother suffers a complication resulting in death or disability? Who will look after her in the event of the latter?

What if there is an accident and the intended parents die, say in a car crash, before the baby is born? I remember a surrogate posted on MN once in an “Ask Me Anything” style. She was asked this question on page one and despite already having the embryo implanted, hadn’t even considered this possibility. She came back later with “put the baby up for adoption” 😵‍💫.

Essentially there is a multitude of potential complications for both the mother and the fetus/baby, both antenatal, perinatal and postnatal: who has a say over what? One contract in California stipulated that the intended parents would get final say over the withdrawal of life support for the mother should there be the possibility of keeping the fetus alive long enough to reach a viable gestation. Is that reasonable to have that control over a woman’s body instead of her family?

Why does support for altruistic arrangements always assume that nothing will go wrong, the parties won’t fall out, and it’s only possibly to have a positive outcome?

How do you create a framework that legally or morally protects all three parties involved? Or is it just a case of “hope for the best”?

Because at the moment this is what is deemed a success: the mother and baby fortunately got through relatively unscathed (I say relatively because pregnancy has a 100% complication rate) and the baby hasn’t yet demonstrated any signs of the potential lifelong trauma. Is this “success” to you? That “thank god nothing went wrong and they all seem happy”?

As a society we have to create such a framework that deals with those scenarios where it doesn’t: where there’s disagreement that develops, where there are complications, where there are unseen consequences, where the child’s rights are considered. Show me your framework that factors these things in to allow for such problems, which can then support the cases where everything goes swimmingly.

You can either come up with a legal and moral framework that covers all eventualities for all three parties to ensure protection for all three parties or you acknowledge that such a framework is not possible and successful surrogacy relies on a good deal of luck. Which is it?

For those who are jumping to accusations of homophobia, have you thought properly about how you would feel about a single straight man commissioning a baby via surrogate? After all it isn't just gay men that can't have a baby without using a women's body, and if a man hasn't found a partner and wants a baby is he also justified in buying a baby because of the unfairness of biology?

Men can adopt, or potentially even make an arrangement of shared parenting with a single woman who wants to be a mum, but in my opinion surrogacy should be illegal for everyone, no exceptions.

Do people really think when children grow up without a mother they just say like some have here that the position of mother is non applicable? Is that really going to be the average position?

The homophobia charge is ridiculous and if anything can be countered with a sexism charge. Men aren’t going to have as much control over reproductive as women - in a civilised society. So it’s a shame if you’re a gay man/single straight man who wants a child as it’s harder for you but there’s a good reason there is. To give men control over women’s bodies is not a route we want to go down.