Another surrogacy nightmare

[GrabbyGabby]

What the fuck will happen to these babies?
www.newstalk.com/news/im-terrified-for-my-girls-safety-irish-father-of-triplets-born-in-kenya-1394106?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1666210282

This is what happens when humans are allowed to be bought and sold.

I understand not everyone will agree and I respect your opinions. I don't particularly enjoy being roasted on MN but that is my personal opinion.

You are on a feminist board on mumsnet. I am not quite sure why you would think that the exploitative nature of reproduction on demand through the use of another woman's body for either eggs or to carry a child would not be an issue that is discussed.

Or do you just look at the glamourised stories and not actually think about the women's bodies being exploited.

Surrogacy has been around for decades, I genuinely did not realise it was such a hot potato! Elton John is probably a prime example, I am glad he has been able to have a child with his longterm partner.

So, two males used a surrogate to have a child and a woman's body and life was put at risk to do this and you think this should be celebrated. And if that woman then suffered life long health issues due to that pregnancy? Still to be celebrated?

There are other means for people to have children in their lives, even for gay couples. Exploiting women's bodies is not acceptable no matter how rich the purchasers.

And perhaps you really should listen to the children who have been born from surrogacy when they reach adulthood and process that they were produced on demand and separated from the mother that carried them, the mother whose body created them.

Surrogacy is never child centred. It is only ever about the needs of the adults.

“As a surrogate, she says her connection to the baby currently growing inside her is nothing like the motherly love she felt when she carried her own 3-year-old twins. This is a job, and as part of that job, she signed a contract to let the baby’s parents make medical choices for her, including whether to get the COVID-19 vaccine.”

Oh my goodness, she really has gone all the way in giving up her bodily autonomy on this! To suppress your natural maternal feelings towards the baby you are carrying and not to get vaccinated on the say so of the people paying you seems to be giving up a lot.

Would she also have agreed to the termination if requested? Giving away the decision on whether the baby dies based on something that seems so arbitrary as a vaccination of the mother?I feel like she has lost something fundamental in this. Mind blowing.

Yes.

And this can happen to any altruistic surrogate too.

And what then happens if it is the pregnancy that has caused that woman to be in a situation where end-of-life decisions need to made.

This is really ignored when people focus on the 'the couple gets a child' aspect and not the actuality of the toll this can take on the woman being exploited. (Even if they are consenting to that very exploitation, their bodies are being exploited as a resource for the desires of another person.)

As a surrogate, she says her connection to the baby currently growing inside her is nothing like the motherly love she felt when she carried her own 3-year-old twins.

I find this sad as well. When a baby is born, they only know their mother, they recognise her voice and her smell.
Imagine growing up knowing your mother disconnected herself from you like this.
Maybe it's not a problem and it's all roses, I doubt it though.

Elton John is probably a prime example, I am glad he has been able to have a child with his longterm partner.

And does it occur to anyone else that there is a bit of a power issue here. Imagine being the woman who is forever tied to Elton John through being the surrogate of Elton John's children. That could be a pretty huge motivator for a woman to consent to her exploitation.

Sadly yes, we are a very sentimental lot and love a good sob story. That is admirable and right much of the time, most certainly not in this case. Sometimes we are so open minded, so keen to show how far we have come the awful things that were done in the past, our brains fall out. Ironically, this surrogacy business belongs in exactly the same space as previous horrors, with a similar lack of care for children and vulnerable women.

It's so noticeable the way the Irish media interviews those who have bought babies and not asking any hard questions of the baby buyers. However on parenting sites there are a lot of women not happy at how the interviews are conducted.

Depending on how the contract was drafted, it might not be a matter of requesting. This contract specifies that termination is at the election and discretion of the commissioning parents. It says: the right of the Intended Parents to request termination/abortion is absolute and does not require any explanation or justification to the Surrogate.

I found it via Jennifer Lahl. extract from twitter
Ppl are asking me abt surrogacy contract language. Here’s a contract executed in California addressing “selective reduction” & termination. Note the heavy handed language
twitter

So this Californian contract specifies about selective reductions as well. For those not acquainted, who don't have pre-existing knowledge about pregnancy with twins, triples and high order multiples, selective reduction is when one or more fetuses are terminated, in order to increase the chances that the other fetuses will survive. It's an agonising decision that women pregnant with multiples sometimes have to make, because pregnancies with twins or more are high risk for various complications. Sometimes women and their doctors do have to choose between terminating one fetus or risking losing all of them. It's not, to my knowledge, an option considered in the UK for pregnancies that are proceeding normally. Apart from anything else, like erm, the law, you have to consider the future, and what it's going to be like to explain such circumstances to a child later on. What are you going to say? "You were one of twins, but we didn't want twins, so we chose to keep you because you looked the healthiest on the scan?" Well, you want to cause psychological damage, I suppose you could say that...

As it is, it is documented that it can be very psychologically difficult for children and teenagers to learn that they are a surviving twin from a pregnancy where the second baby died of natural causes.

Bearing all that in mind, look at that screenshot. The contract stipulates that the commissioning couple have decided they will have one baby, and one baby only, and they have the right to demand that the pregnant woman has a selective reduction.

If you're on a screenreader, it says, the Intended Parents reserves the ultimate and sole right to selectively reduce before the completion of 20 weeks of gestation

and the right of the Intended Parents to request a selective reduction is absolute and does not require any explanation or justification to the Surrogate

Above my post, @Helleofabore said, And perhaps you really should listen to the children who have been born from surrogacy when they reach adulthood and process that they were produced on demand and separated from the mother that carried them, the mother whose body created them.

Surrogacy is never child centred. It is only ever about the needs of the adults.

Too right. When I read this contract specifying that selective reduction will happen, I cannot help but contrast it with the anguish women on multiples support forums feel when considering whether to ever let their son or daughter know that they're the survivor(s) of a medically necessary reduction procedure.

Yep. Nothing to see here. It is all lovely and wonderful in the land where surrogacy can only ever be viewed as a wonderful and kind gesture and everything is awesome!

Women should have the choice of what to do with their own bodies, I hear, including the right to sign over their medical decisions to people they've never met. Outsourced to people who've given her a contract to sign that implies Cerebral Palsy can be detected by antenatal screening!!

Not only can it not screened for, cerebral palsy in babies is most commonly caused by oxygen deprivation during birth, as in a birth injury.

And if that pregnant woman doesn't have a termination as ordered, she will be in "material breach" of the contract, and responsible for all her own medical costs from pregnancy.

I used to work with a woman who'd been a surrogate at least a couple of times. I don't think she had any children of her own. Looking back she was probably only about 30 years old. She told me she really liked being pregnant. She seemed a bit fragile somehow. I didn't really question it at the time. I suppose I'm in no position to judge.

He is a member of the travelling community which is why his spelling etc mightn't be the best as they are usually removed from school very young. A lot of them can't read or write. It also explains why he is trying to keep the fact he is in a same sex relationship quiet as it's massively frowned upon in their community

I suppose I'm in no position to judge.

I think if someone you know cannot make a judgement about your mental health regarding being a surrogate when you have no children of your own and knowing that that pregnancy could have the impact of you never having your own children, who can?

As a young woman without a child, without having been pregnant, I would have shrugged and said ‘their choice’. Now I am older and I know the risks and I know just how much can go wrong and I would question how much that person actually understood vs how much that person was financially or otherwise coerced.

Back when I was a naive teenager, I offered a gay friend of mine my womb as a surrogate when we were older.

After experiencing pregnancy myself, there is no way in hell I could go through all of that and then give up my baby too.

I wonder if it those saying ‘their choice’ had easy pregnancies. Having only one that was not without issue and a difficult delivery, I know that even one pregnancy can be high risk.

Yup. Childless/childfree women who've not been pregnant before, cannot make an informed decision.

That brings you to the rule that only women who've had a child already should make such a decision.

But then, I ask, what is the impact on the family of seeing mummy have a baby, and being told that the new brother/sister is not your brother/sister and he or she is going to be given to someone else to bring up? Upthread, I quoted an interview in which a woman said as a surrogate, she says her connection to the baby currently growing inside her is nothing like the motherly love she felt when she carried her own 3-year-old twins. This is a job, and as part of that job, she signed a contract to let the baby’s parents make medical choices for her, including whether to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

Can she stop her children forming a connection? If they're three, probably yes. What if they were a bit older? What is it going to be like for them when they're grown up and look back on this?

What if they were a bit older? What is it going to be like for them when they're grown up and look back on this?

yes. I couldn’t image finding out my own mother risked her life to provide someone else with a child to order.

We're all literally living in the period when the human consequences of the forced infant adoptions became impossible to ignore.

You have to be living under a rock not to have seen the media coverage of mothers looking for babies they regret relinquishing, people searching for their mothers, and people searching for their siblings.

imagine having to come to terms with the fact that you lost your ability to have your own child because you provided someone else with eggs or a child.

I am sure that hearing it was your own choice and you made someone so happy for either money to pay for your student debt or for food or just to feel good and getting lovely attention is a warm consolation.

Or if you have lost your fertility then maybe you think someone else should risk their’s and keep the cycle going.

One young woman lost her fertility and had a stroke as a result of selling eggs.

How much was she paid to start with? $5,500.

twitter.com/JenniferLahl/status/1422580725610541060?t=t25mKmCIG3rcMNpJWWviEQ&s=19

Add the DNA companies that have sprung up. So even if the mother (I will use this term for the pregnant woman) gives away all rights, uses a false name and jumps through other hoops to hide it, it's only a DNA test away to find out who she is.
Imagine in the years to come your child finding you and then you have to explain why you sold them.

I'm very upset about some of the contracts I've seen. The buyers have so much power over the mother. It is insane. They can demand a certain diet, to not go certain places, to have or not have medical procedures, even to abort and even after all of that they can walk away if the child is not to their liking eg disabled. Ffs where does the child come into this?

I can only imagine how bloody awful this is going to be in years to come. Adoption can be bloody awful on children, I know I was adopted, but there are usually good reasons and it's a last resort, this appears to be the first resort.

The only way surrogacy is at all,in any way, acceptable is if....

You've given it no deeper thought whatsoever.

The Irish public love stuff like this. They will surpass that 30k goal. Sadly a lot of irish society see nothing wrong with what's happening here

Yea I find it so weird after all the revelations about forced adoptions and mothers being forced to give up their babies even though they also signed consent forms we now know it was often under massive duress and pressure from families. Theres a real cognitive disconnect going on.

I often wonder how many poor women are pushed into surrogacy by abusive husbands or family members and the women never see a penny especially in countries with poor records in women's rights. So sad.

I agree. Even the concept of the much praised "altruistic" surrogacy is an abuser's paradise.

See this thread, about a woman on reddit whose sister had agreed to act as a surrogate (how to you say no to such a proposition?) and whose husband was pressuring her to give him permission to shag her sister. You know, to save on IVF costs.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4491024-Man-tries-to-exploit-surrogacy-arrangement-to-have-sex-with-his-wifes-sister

Ffs where does the child come into this?

The child doesn't, the child is a mere commodity, that is why ALL surrogacy is abhorrent and should be banned.