California commodifies women and babies for gay men

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(100) Telling it Like it is Without the Gaslighting (substack.com)

Completely agree and it is an often spoken complaint: that surrogacy is only for the rich. Hence the drive for 'fertility equality': having a family is a human right, children make that family, everyone has a right to a child and surrogacy should not be just for the people who can afford it.

Then either the state/insurance pay for it or the price is driven down and risks and hours of effort are not compensated, leaving mothers creating babies for a pittance and enduring all the risks.

If that does not convince people surrogacy is not 'just a job' nothing will. What other job requires you to give access to your body, work 24x7 but not even get paid minimum wage, has 100% health consequences that are not compensated and risk of serious injury or death with no life insurance? Surrogacy would never meet health and safety standards for jobs. So how can you commercialise it? It is not a job.

TheBiologyStupid · Today 16:46

Apologies if this has already been posted: https://twitter.com/colwight/status/1670356195037822981

This is where this shit gets us. How heartbreaking for that poor baby girl

It is. “An ox sits on my tongue” for the rest of what I think.

Sorry, that was in answer to TheBiologyStupid · Today 17:56’s post.

having a family is a human right, children make that family, everyone has a right to a child and surrogacy should not be just for the people who can afford it.

Having children of your own simply isn’t a human right.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qvISFZ7bQcE

IncomingTraffic · Today 21:30
Thank you for that clip of George Carlin making fun of euphemisms in America. It is brilliant.

I wish they weren’t all being taken up in the U.K. On a serious level euphemisms are insidious.

Yes, it's the opposite. "Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance." UN declaration of human rights, article 25. It's the mother-infant unit that has the right to protection. There's no rights for baby buyers.

Thanks for pointing me to it.
As a survivor of early abuse I can attest to the fact that babies do know, they suffer pain, fear and trauma and they remember. I'm planning to visit my abuser's grave this year (50th anniversary of his death) and, so long as there are no funerals/ recently bereaved nearby, I'm going to dance on it and sing rude songs about him. If anyone objects I'll tell them why.
So yes, babies and children DO know that they exist.

In the UK at least the surrogacy agencies encourage wills and life insurance as part of the deal. However with respect to a will I had assumed that was for the benefit of the surrogate mother until I saw an article with commissioning parents complaining about how hard surrogacy is and how mean/annoying/uncompliant the surrogate mother was. Among complaints was the fact she didn't get a will organised promptly enough. It seems a big part of the Will is to make quite clear that the CPs are the parents and will get the baby - eg say she had a head injury near term and the baby was delivered by LSCS while she was unconscious or peri-mortem. To ensure they get the baby.

In the USA whilst no doubt some organise life insurance I'm not sure it is widespread. It is very difficult to track deaths through surrogacy as many contracts include a NDA and the agencies tell other SMs not to discuss it. Often the only way the death comes to light is when a gofundme is started for the benefit of the bereaved family. Which suggests that those women did not have a life insurance policy.

I've name changed because I just wanted to add, and remind people of the risks of pregnancy and childbirth generally.
In my hospital in the last fortnight there are/were two women critically ill as a result of pregnancy and childbirth.
One woman came to my department for a minor procedure, she is awaiting a lung transplant. She needs 6 litres of oxygen at all times (including at home obv) and frankly is in a pitiful state. She was a healthy woman until her last birth when she suddenly became very ill soon after delivery. Her problems have been ascribed to an amniotic fluid embolus.
The other woman was in ICU after serious complications of an ectopic. I understand she is improving but whether she will regain full health I do not know. Let's just say the complications went beyond the common complication of haemorrhage.

Of course the will provision is all about making sure the customers get their merchandise. Even in the ‘alteristic’ UK system (where the clinics, agencies and solicitors still get paid as normal).

It’s about limiting and controlling the woman’s rights in any way possible. Because she is just a vessel. And the baby is just a product to be delivered to an acceptable standard.

NotBuyingThis · Today 08:20
Thank you for your post explaining the very real dangers of pregnancy.

It is interesting when you strip away the nice fluffy words and indeed treat it as a job with a commercial contract, how absolutely risk riddled surrogacy is and how the 'fertility equality' promotors are doing their best to ensure the buying couple is protected in that commercial contract, but not the mother.

If a buying couple had to fund all that I stated, based on a predefined list and costs, (out of their own pocket as no one has the right to a child) surrogacy would hardly ever occur as the only people who could afford it, would be the millionaires. Any contract that does not come close to what I stated, is not a job contract, but exploitation.

I wondered about life insurance for the surrogate mother so that if she dies her own family will get that money? Does anyone know how much that would be and who would pay the insurance premium?

What happens to the baby if during the pregnancy it is found to have a genetic condition, or another problem? Are the CP’s bound by law to carry on with the adoption?

The life insurance is for the SM family and the CPs should be paying the premium.
Not sure how much they would insure for.

In the past I worked in insurance doing medical interviews for life and income protection policies. Life policies are often connected to a mortgage so that if one party dies the mortgage is cleared and there may be a modest additional benefit. But if you are low income you can't just go and take out insurance for a million + the amount is normally expected to be at an equivalent level for income. Excessive amounts raise suspicion with the underwriters.

That said to truly compensate for the loss of a mother to a family, depending on the number and age of existing children one should really be calculating the cost of nanny, cook, cleaner, etc for a surviving parent to cover all those roles to age 18 so the amount would soon add up and a realistic sum might be well over a million.

"Fertility equality" males as much sense as "height equality' or 'intelligence equality'.

But equity type thinking seems to have gone to crazy heights in general.

I'm sure @sanluca can do the maths for us!

I have seen these calculations referenced for compensation claims eg if a mother dies of negligent obstetric care and there is a claim against the NHS. Not sure people actually get awarded the realistic calculated sum though.

You honestly don't see how surrogacy ( intentionally creating a baby for sale) differs to adoption? Really?

There are a few relevant stories here:

https://www.legalizesurrogacywhynot.com/stories

@Croneofakind I'm so sorry this happened to you.

My DS is still very much impacted by a incident which happened when he was 5 weeks old, in which he was not physically harmed in any way, and of which he has no conscious memories. The impact of early trauma is very real

David Farnell's story
What happens when a convicted pedophile is allowed by courts to keep a surrogate baby.

Fucking hell. This was the case that made Thailand ban surrogacy. They abandoned the boy with Down's then the mother tried to get the girl back.

Ms.Pattaramon tried to get Pipah back the following year after learning that Farnell was a convicted child sex offender. “I am very worried about my baby girl, “ she said. “I need help from anyone who can bring my girl back to me as soon as possible. This news makes me sick. I will take care of my twin babies. I will not give her or him to any family that wants a baby.”

horrifying, pedophiles can order their very own living sex dolls, trained from birth to think it's all normal

Quote from Rachel's story on that website, who was a surrogate

truthfully, commercial surrogacy is nothing but an exchange of money for children. It just is.
And in the mean time, I hurt my body so badly. I mean, I wrecked my body. Completely wrecked it. Like, I had five pregnancies in five years, and it destroyed my body.

Also from the same article by the surrogate

So I am still grieving. And when I feel like she’s not being the mother that I would have been, I feel both shame and guilt—that I had potentially damaged the child. Yes. That baby was wondering what happened to the sounds and smells that were me…that were her first contact with the world.

The onus should absolutely be on the supporters of surrogacy to show that there is evidence of no harm to the mothers and babies involved before this practice is allowed to continue. Long-term high-quality research is required.

Imagine a judge thinking a little girl can live with a paedophile sperm dad (?) who rejected her twin brother who had Downs Syndrome, and whose paedophile exploits the judge says she must read about.

That is a horrifying story.