California commodifies women and babies for gay men

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

It’s like arguing that 99.9% of women are denied an education and then only allowing Afghabistan to be used an example country. The hyper-focus on the worst of the worst to justify banning it here doesn’t give a picture of any accuracy. And frankly, we live in the U.K. so we should be talking about how the U.K. does surrogacy arrangements instead of thinking we should ban surrogacy here in the U.K. because of how Ukraine is basically a Wild West and not managing it at all.

At least I’ve posted a study instead of other posters on here simply making up statistics like “99.9% are rich western women exploiting poorer women”

Can you provide an example of a rich woman being a surrogate for a poor woman out of kindness? Can you provide examples of rich Asian couples commissioning other Asian women to be surrogates?

“pregnancy has a 100% complication rate”

Not a single woman in the entire existence of humanity has been pregnant without some impact on their body. No woman’s body is the same as before. Sometimes it’s a minimal effect. Sometimes it’s major. You want to disregard the possibility it could be major and impact a woman for the rest of her life some someone else can get a baby. Why?

And frankly, we live in the U.K. so we should be talking about how the U.K. does surrogacy arrangements instead of thinking we should ban surrogacy here in the U.K. because of how Ukraine is basically a Wild West and not managing it at all.

Ok then, as I asked, explain your framework of how you think the UK should do it to avoid exploitation and complications. I asked this of you earlier:

Example of point 6: a prenatal test shows high risk of Down Syndrome. The intended parents want to abort but the mother doesn’t. Who decides? Who looks after the baby afterwards if the intended parents don’t want it? Or vice versa: the intended parents don’t want an abortion but the mother does. Should she be made to carry on with the pregnancy? Now answer the same questions with any other of the things that can go wrong.

If you can explain how you would manage just this example of where there could be conflict it would be a start.

Not a single woman in the entire existence of humanity has been pregnant without some impact on their body.

Very true. I can date certain physical troubles back to each pregnancy and birth and when I get a twinge I think to myself “well I went through that to have my wonderful children” and it makes the pain bearable. It would be so awful to have those twinges and to think “That’s from the baby I sold to that rich couple”.

Too Italy has banned surrogacy which has caused couples going to places like the Ukraine as surrogacy tourists. It hasn’t stopped surrogacy.

Banning surrogacy in the U.K. would likely have the same effect. Couples will simply go outside the U.K.

“Results: SM is a prohibited and sanctioned practice in Italy; on the other hand, it is allowed in other countries of the world, which leads Italian couples, or couples from other countries where it is banned, to often contact foreign centers in order to undertake a MAP pathway which includes surrogacy; in addition, challenges may arise from the legal status of children born through surrogacy abroad: to date, in most countries, there is no specific legislation aimed at regulating their legal registration and parental status. Conclusion: With reference to the Italian context, despite the scientific and legal evolution on the subject, a legislative intervention aimed at filling the regulatory gaps in terms of heterologous MAP and surrogacy has not yet come to fruition. Considering the possibility of "fertility tourism", i.e., traveling to countries where the practice is legal, as indeed already happens in a relatively significant number of cases, the current legislation, although integrated by the legal interpretation, does not appear to be effective in avoiding the phenomenon of procreative tourism.”

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33429930/

I don’t understand how surrogacy tourists are allowed to bring a baby they weren’t pregnant with when they left, back into the country. Surely the anti-child trafficking measures would pick them up?

Read the U.K. survey I posted…plenty of examples there of rich women being surrogate mothers. In fact 77% of the surrogate women earned above the U.K. average wage. That’s not poor women.

All you need to do is Google Asia surrogacy reports and you will see. For example, China has an illegal surrogacy trade going on (which is very exploitative and a good illustration of what happens when you ban surrogacy). Also many Chinese are now going to the US for surrogacy arrangements.

Im not denying pregnancy has an impact nor am I disregarding that there is risk- I am objecting to wildly inaccurate claim that “pregnancy has a 100% complication rate” when statistics show (posted upthread) that it is less than one third of women have a complication during pregnancy or childbirth. You’re free to choose another word to describe these noncomplication impacts of pregnancy, just don’t choose “complications” which is a medical term and are tracked the world over to the same standard. Because doing that & defending it is pushing to misinform women and that is no different from fake news.

You appear to have been the one skimming. From your own paper: "Twenty-six (55%) of the surrogacies were for heterosexual couples, while 19 (40%) were for same-sex male couples"

What I said stands. And to dip into the accusations in the other post, I've raised no religious reasoning against surrogacy only arguments routed in ethics and the welfare of the mother and child. And though it's possible I've missed it I don't think anyone else's arguments were dependent on faith either. So it takes some cheek in a thread where you've been arguing with many people to try and cast opposition as religion based when everyone you're actually arguing with hasn't gone there at all.

Because surrogacy isn’t child trafficking.

It is.

Faith doesn’t have to be a religion. Faith includes any moral or ethics framework that is non-scientific.

Faith
Noun: The assent of the mind to the truth of a proposition or statement for which there is not complete evidence; belief in general.

The law would disagree. So that’s your opinion and furthermore not the majority opinion in most democracies.

Read the U.K. survey I posted…plenty of examples there of rich women being surrogate mothers. In fact 77% of the surrogate women earned above the U.K. average wage. That’s not poor women.

As has been pointed out, it doesn’t mean these women didn’t need the money. And these women represent a fraction of worldwide surrogacy arrangements which are invariably rich couples/poor women.

All you need to do is Google Asia surrogacy reports and you will see. For example, China has an illegal surrogacy trade going on (which is very exploitative and a good illustration of what happens when you ban surrogacy). Also many Chinese are now going to the US for surrogacy arrangements.

China also has an illegal trade in organ harvesting. So, best make it legal then?

You’re free to choose another word to describe these noncomplication impacts of pregnancy, just don’t choose “complications” which is a medical term and are tracked the world over to the same standard. Because doing that & defending it is pushing to misinform women and that is no different from fake news.

I will use whichever word I choose. It’s all complications. Just minor vs major.

Because surrogacy isn’t child trafficking.

Can parents go to another country and acquire themselves a 10 year old? Or a 5 year old? Or a 1 year old? No, it’s child trafficking. Why is a newborn different?

Do you intend to attempt to explain how you would structure surrogacy in the UK to avoid the issues, like the example I gave? Or do you acknowledge it can’t be done?

What example? And U.K. surrogacy is nothing like Ukraine. It already avoids most of the issues raised here. It is being done.

The claim was that 99.9% surrogate mothers are poor- this is not a fact. In U.K. only 23% could be called poor at the most generous definition of earning less than the average wage. You’re saying “they might have needed the money” is silly distraction because in the U.K. commercial surrogacy is banned and surrogate mothers receive NO MONEY beyond reimbursement of the costs of being a surrogate. They’re earning NOTHING.

China organs- red herring. Try to focus.

Well of you are going to use whatever words you choose and coincidentally pick a medical term that has an internationally recognised definition and apply your own definition to it, you need to put in a disclaimer because otherwise you are scaremongering to women by claiming there is a “100% complication rate” in pregnancy…when there isn’t.

I don't recall that question being directed specifically at me but as you're quoting it at me and asking now, I can give you my answers as you wish. They wont accord with what everybody else thinks. We're not a group mind, I think we're just generally united around a principle that selling children is wrong and then various explanations around that to a couple of you who seem not to share that moral foundation.

"a prenatal test shows high risk of Down Syndrome. The intended parents want to abort but the mother doesn’t. Who decides?"

The mother.

"Who looks after the baby afterwards if the intended parents don’t want it?"

The mother. Or if she is really unable to do so properly, give it up for adoption. But to me the mother has a responsibility to her child. I know this is a moral foundation you do not share. It is however a moral foundation of every civilisation I can think of. I guess the Spartans were said to throw babies off cliffs sometimes.

I would be pretty favourably disposed to her suing buyers for breach of contract and getting healthy ongoing payments. Not really an option for Ukranian women against American citizens though - major power imbalance there.

Or vice versa: the intended parents don’t want an abortion but the mother does. Should she be made to carry on with the pregnancy?

They should have no power to force her to have an abortion.

Now answer the same questions with any other of the things that can go wrong.

I don't need to - answers seem like they'd be pretty much the same to me. Honestly, I'm starting to think you're not able to comprehend the responses you're getting. When you say my answering the above questions "would be a start", you seem to think I have to convince you of anything. Selling children is wrong is "the start". It's on other people to convince the rest of us there's something wrong with that principle. And please, for the sake of intellectual honesty don't go down the route again of "commercial surrogacy is outlawed in the UK so nobody is selling babies" because when UK couples are buying kids from Ukranian women that's plainly disingenuous.

In prostitution, for example, some procurers pay for the ‘girlfriend experience’, some people work in industries which are borderline prostitution, as hostesses, or pretending to have some other sort of special relationship with the client. This is ‘work’ or ‘Labour’ of those who are doing the pretending, playing the role.

Human trafficking is ‘forced labour’ - ie that the person doing it has no choice, they are coerced into performing the tasks and playing the roles demanded by the procurer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking

In the case of surrogacy, where the child is procured from abroad to circumvent local laws, in order that the British couple can pretend to have a natural family, the child who was separated from its mother, who was sold by its mother, will then be forced into playing the role of their child. Like being forced to play the ‘girlfriend experience’ the child is forced to play ‘the happy family experience’, for its procurers.

Yes, good post this is exactly how the law reads currently. No surrogate mothers are being forced to have abortions or continue a pregnancy.

"Try to focus."

And the tone becomes ever more lecturing and hectoring. It's weird that given the subject is the sale of children, it's those seeking to justify it who seem to be increasingly angry and personal in this debate whilst the rest of us are arguing, I think, much more honestly.

🤣😂 This is so ridiculous, I’m not even going to try and unpack it.

What example? And U.K. surrogacy is nothing like Ukraine. It already avoids most of the issues raised here. It is being done

The example of finding Down Syndrome on a prenatal test. I’ve asked it multiple times and you’ve ignored it. As one example of things that can go wrong. How is the UK avoiding this issue? If it’s found in a baby in Ukraine, the intended parents just walk away. What would happen in the UK?

You know most women are poor. Try to focus.

Explain how you would make sure problems in other countries wouldn’t happen in the UK.

Too Italy has banned surrogacy which has caused couples going to places like the Ukraine as surrogacy tourists. It hasn’t stopped surrogacy.

But Italy is planning to ban surrogacy tourism too.

Truly the way you manage to somehow interpret my answers as supporting surrogacy is astounding. I did wonder what the angle was supposed to be in trying to set up obvious gotcha questions because I couldn't see what the "gotcha" was going to be. Now I understand why I couldn't - because the gotcha doesn't make sense, it's just a weird twisting of words.

If you walked in a straight line you'd get dizzy. I think I'm happy at this point to say I've made my case successfully and possibly I'll bestow further replies upon you if I am at leisure later.

You think buying human beings is fine and dandy so…

Children are not being sold. I’m not angry..lol.
Oh, did you see the post to me saying I know nothing about pregnancy, childbirth, babies and so on? That wasn’t personal at all…lol.
The “rest of you” are not arguing honestly not when one of you does personal attacks like that and others of you are making up fake statistics and misusing medical terminology to suit your narratives. Not to mention claiming surrogate mothers who earn £0 from being a surrogate mother somehow “needed the money” to pivot from the ridiculous argument that it’s only poor women doing it for the money…I mean that’s dishonest right there.
😝😅

No I don’t, because I know what slavery really is. This isn’t the buying of human beings. To compare surrogacy to slavery is a mockery of slavery and a low & dishonest argument tactic. 👎🏿