Article about surrogacy in The Guardian

[IcakethereforeIam]

It's quite long and mostly skewed but there is some input from a woman against it.

The gay male couple got my back up, they seem to think the only problem with women being trafficked for sex is that the women don't get the money! I hope that was an editing cockup.

Sorry, forgot link:

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/oct/01/how-gay-parenthood-through-surrogacy-became-a-battleground

They come across as entitled pricks.

Literally!

The article presents both sides, but gives a disproportionate space to one of them.

I’ve read as far as the byline, and all I can think is: but there is no right to parenthood. None at all.

It’s something that may or may not happen in your life - for all sorts of reasons. And even if it does, it’s not at all about rights. It’s entirely about responsibilities.

It strikes me that this languages of rights and entitlements is the problem. And without any sense that becoming a parent through anything other than the standard biological route is actually just piling more responsibilities into the process.

And this:

“This isn’t an oversight, it’s discrimination, Briskin says. “The policy is the product of a time when there was a misconception, a stereotype, a prejudice against couples that were made up of two men – that they were not capable of raising children because there was no female figure in that relationship.”

Is a good illustration of why biology matters. These men not being able to afford to use a woman’s body and loads of medical technology to become parents is nothing to do with the idea that two men can’t raise children. But it is entirely the product of it being biologically impossible for two men to conceive a child and carry it to birth.

Telling you that you have to accept the fact you are both men is not homophobia. It’s just how it is.

Their sense of entitlement is astounding.

I liked the article as the woman presenting the case against surrogacy was awesome, and the two men unintentionally came across terribly.

The sheer gall of those men - being a parent isn't a right! They aren't being discriminated against, they're just bloody male.

The campaigner sounded so on the ball, she was great. A shame the article devoted most of its time to the other side of the argument.

And that it came first. It’s very long and there’s a considerable amount of entitled whinging to get through before you get the other side.

thing is, putting the other side first would mean that the entitled whinging looks even more entitled and ridiculous. If you come to
that after being asked to think about women being treated as chattel, it would really hammer home how unbelievable the arguments really are from people who, quite simply, cannot conceive or gestate a child because they are both male.

Sheesh.

oh but what about women shouldn’t be an afterthought. The commodification and exploitation of women’s bodies is the headline. The fact that men don’t get what they want is incidental to that.

The woman having so little space in the article did annoy me

Until I realised the more space you gave the 2 men, the worse and worse they came over until in the final paragraph they were full on MRA.

The baby didn't get a mention except in passing. And after all, it should be centre stage.

Yes, just seemed to be a lifestyle accoutrement that they were upset they couldn't have.

It is odd that babies are omitted fron these types of article. They're just the macguffin. Their genetic mother barely warrants a mention, their gestation bucket explicitly says they mean nothing to them and the 'parents', just something they want for themselves, as part of themselves or adoption would be acceptable.

Yes, surrogacy is harmful to the woman, but it's harmful to the baby too. The idea that you can just remove a baby from its mother's arms straight after birth and take it away, without any kind of lasting trauma.

This!!!
This is almost always the case when talking about things like surrogacy and infant adoption in places like the US.

I’ve seen lack of access to ‘routes to make a family’ for gay couples referred to as “discrimination” in several articles now. It always perplexes me because the reason they can’t have a baby is because they are a same sex couple, not because they are being discriminated against. It’s a reality of reproduction that you need a person of each sex. In fact even a heterosexual couple who wanted to reproduce using someone else’s body would face these same issues, so it’s not a discrimination issue.

Also infertility treatment I guess is a form of health care for people facing infertility due to medical issues. That’s different than not being able to have a baby with the person you want because you are the same sex, and it’s VERY VERY different to being only able to reproduce by using the body/parts of a third person.

I think other routes to making a family are more ethical including linking up with a woman who also wants a baby and would agree to do parents and bring the child up together.

I find it offensive when people refer to it as infertility. It's really not and it's offensive to all the heart wrenching treatments people with infertility go through. Not infertility, just male. The lady was spot on.

I’ve heard it referred to as “social infertility”, but I don’t like that term.

it’s not infertility. It’s basic facts that 2 people of the same sex cannot reproduce together.

It’s not discrimination, sunshine, it’s biological reality.

Funny how everyone knows what a woman is when it comes to surrogacy, isn’t it?

Yes, funny that...and these bellends would almost certainly the same type to be shrieking about trans rights. Although they seem so breathtakingly self-involved, perhaps not..

'What about adoption? “We consider adoption [to be] a form of volunteering. It is not a way to become parents,” he says.'

Oh, that's nice. Way to invalidate and disrespect adoptive parents and children.

I also dislike the mention of Adoption, because adoption is/should only be done when it’s the absolute best option for a child, not as a family completion aid.

we see in the US when infant adoption is overly marketised and glorified you get young mum, vulnerable mums being coerced into relinquishing their babies and adoption agencies making profit fro. Adoptions.

Pretty good article, actually, but not in the way the pro surrogacy lobby intended.

Felt like an ad for the surrogacy agency at one point, but you’d have to be really desperate for the money to make babies for entitled pricks like that.

wild that the American surrogate mothers were both having babies for overseas men - presume that’s a circumvention of the men’s national laws?

Biden should count the babies exported and use them to offset the immigration figures...