Another story of surrogacy regret

[OhHolyJesus]

This is heartbreaking to read. I'm horrified and just really sad that women are being treated like walking wombs and this is supposedly 'altruistic' surrogacy within a family. The poor woman ended up in therapy for a post traumatic stress disorder.

twitter.com/wombsnotforrent/status/1681004715675353089?s=46&t=3vhG_KDq77qvuwlnTiE6jg

She had to gather her courage to tell her story and I'm sure there are countless others, we just don't hear about them as the media are so focused on the lovely fluffy stuff, a new family, a brand new baby, and the glossy pictures covers the ugly horrors underneath.

Trouble is - in this and various other societal developments - children are reduced to being commodities - inanimate objects to be purchased (like carrots!) and once the financial transactions are concluded, they're treated like any other purchase - handed over the the buyer.

The protected characteristic of age is meant to protect children - yet reading some of the surrogacy cases that hit the courts, it's interesting how the legal comments focus on adult rights with the needs of children seemingly absent.

Downgrading the need to safeguard children (in this case babies) appears to be prevalent at the moment.

This makes me think, if it is okay to sell newborn babies then why not 2 year olds, or 5 year olds, or 16 year olds, how about my 20 year old daughter, would it be ok to sell her? What is the difference? Just the passing of time? Just age? It all starts to sound dangerously close to condoning slavery… do purchasers “own” the child? Do all parents “own” their children as if they were possessions. We don’t usually see it that way, we believe that and behave as if children have rights. We try to protect them, even from their parents. Somehow that is all irrelevant in surrogacy.

The depersonalisation of mother and child in this is disturbing.

Children are not commodities and neither are women. Women who carry a child for nine months cannot predict how they might feel, and as in this case may have been encouraged to accept conditions that are then changed as soon as they hand over their child.

Why? What's the pattern in all this?

It's the need to make mothers dehumanised, seen as machines or as if they're turning out a report or piece of work instead of handing over their child. It's a need to delete the humanity and equality and feelings of the mother and child. Because they are threatening to the illusion of 'this is my child (not hers)' and if they had to be considered the whole thing becomes too wrong to go along with.

Mother and child are being sacrificed to the feelings and desires of the person with the money to have a blank slate child and no strings. Or rather no harms to the mother and their child that they have to think about or feel responsible for. In adoptions those kind of beliefs would mean you never passed the screenings.