Surrogacy-help me explain to my daughter why this is exploiting women

[happydappy2]

Teen daughter thinks surrogacy is fine, as an opportunity for the woman to earn money.
I've explained that only impoverished women do it, not wealthy ones.
It's not fair on the child to be removed from it's natural Mother/protector.
It will be a high risk pregnancy for the surrogate.
Ultimately benefits mens, not women or children.
There have been cases of paedophiles commissioning surrogates
She just doesn't get it though-what else can I ask her to think about to get her to understand how exploitative this is?
I asked her, would it be ok for me to buy a 10 yr old child? No of course not, so why is it ok for wealthy people to buy babies?

She's nearly 18, I really need to help her critical thinking on this....thanks

About the fact that there doesnt need to be tragedies if something is a want?

Or about the fact that it is a want and not a need?

Would you like to quantify how many women and children you feel are acceptable tragedies to enable some adult humans to get what they want?

Getting back to this, this paper has just been released. UK mortality rate has again increased.

However, this has remained unchanged:

”Women living in the most deprived areas still have a maternal death rate more than twice that of women living in the least deprived areas.”

Do very wealthy women chose to be surrogates in the UK? I don’t believe so. So, if any person wishes to use generalised mortality rates to be compared to donor organ donation, at least start to drill into the details.

https://www.npeu.ox.ac.uk/news/2486-maternal-death-rates-in-the-uk-have-increased-to-levels-not-seen-for-almost-20-years?fbclid=IwAR1jt5O9171hmHfzM7i9kFrv0fiFVdidU3Xn2smEgQ5KEqog5r2OTwJjL7k

I don’t think I’m going to get an answer to my question of an example of a major conflict of rights, if there’s a major abnormality on a 12 week scan. So I’ll play out some scenarios and anyone game enough can explain how they would resolve them.

a) pregnant woman wants to abort, intended parents don’t want her to. I would assume most would support her choice to. But some surrogacy contracts stipulate this can’t happen. Is it enforceable? Who pays for the abortion? Is the pregnant woman compensated for the stress of this? Or the subsequent impacts? Can the intended parents sue for distress?

b) the pregnant woman wants to continue with the pregnancy but the intended parents don’t want her to. Can they walk away? Whose baby is it then? What if they don’t want the baby when it’s born? What if they say to the pregnant woman “if you don’t abort you’ll have to keep the baby or put it up for adoption and we won’t pay you any more expenses from now on”? Should they be forced to pay?

c) everyone agrees that the pregnancy should progress but the intended parents get cold feet closer to delivery, past a point of termination. What happens then?

d) the baby is born and the fallout from c) hasn’t been resolved. No one can agree who is taking the baby home. Should the birth mother be forced to? What if she outright refuses?

e) scenario b) happens and the pregnant woman decides to keep the baby but the intended parents change their minds and the baby has their DNA from egg and sperm and want to take custody of the baby. Should they be allowed to?

Bear in mind that major abnormalities on 12 week scans are not that uncommon so it’s bound to happen with a surrogacy arrangement, if it hasn’t already. So anticipating that this might happen, how does one create an arrangement beforehand to deal with the above scenarios?

There are only two general options:

1. you set up a rigid arrangement within which someone’s rights are majorly compromised and as such would be subject to significant challenge in any legal proceedings or

2. you just say “fuck it, we will just wing it and hope that doesn’t happen and figure it out if it does.”

And this is just one of an inordinate number of scenarios that could play out that would lead to conflict. You could spend months arguing the legality of a contract that just had this one thing written on it specific to a major abnormality on a 12 week scan and it would still not be possible to resolve it satisfactorily.

So multiply that by all the other scenarios that could lead to conflict: the 20 week scan, the mode of delivery, the actions of the pregnant woman, what she eats, whether she has sex, the complications she suffers, complications a baby could suffer, the postnatal complications, what happens if she dies, or the baby dies…everyone knows that it cannot be resolved beforehand.

So most people opt for option 2. “Fuck it, we will just wing it and hope none of any of that stuff happens.” They’re prepared to risk it all for the sake of getting what they want and others who support it are prepared for women and babies to suffer occasionally for the sake of the cases where, by sheer luck, nothing significant goes wrong and everyone gets what they want. In some jurisdictions, like California for instance, people can opt for rigid contracts with such clauses as “if the pregnant woman is rendered in a vegetative state, the intended parents get to decide whether to turn off life support, not her own family.”

It’s utterly despicable. All of it. Commercial, altruistic, whatever. It’s a despicable practice anyway you look at it. And the people who support it, like on this thread, refuse to acknowledge any of these issues, cannot engage their brains and put it in the too hard basket, because to acknowledge these issues means acknowledging you’re wrong about surrogacy or a morally bankrupt individual.

And do you really think surrogacy doesn’t happen in countries where it’s outlawed?

Murder still happens in countries where it's outlawed. I don't think that's a good reason not to outlaw things just because they still occur outside the law.

@Helleofabore that’s entirely fair.

it’s horrifying that it’s gone up
so much - a 30% increase is appalling. I did flag up that poverty will increase this - but three times higher is awful. In jurisdictions where surrogacy can be paid for (something I abhor) this will increase pressure on impoverished women. I don’t have any data on the demographics of surrogates in the UK, but I agree it’s not likely to be wealthy women.

In terms of mortality, it is still very much less likely to lead to death than a liver lobe transplant (2.5%) but still very high, and morbidity is much higher. There is no data in the article on morbidity, but I imagine that’s increased, too.

One reason I mentioned organs was because the subject did come up in my family - we thought that my daughter might need a kidney transplant and living donation was something we considered. So the association was there - I did think it was a rational analogy, but maybe you are right and it’s not a relevant comparison.

@NotBadConsidering

Under English law.

Surrogacy contracts are not enforceable.
The surrogate is the mother and her civil partner/ spouse is the other parent at birth, regardless of genetics.
The surrogate doesn’t have to give the child up, and the donors don’t have to raise it.
The donors have no legal say what the pregnant surrogate chooses to do with her foetus.

So, the donors can walk away at any time.

a) pregnant woman wants to abort, intended parents don’t want her to.
She can abort.

b) the pregnant woman wants to continue with the pregnancy but the intended parents don’t want her to. Can they walk away? Whose baby is it then?

Yes, they can walk away, the baby is the surrogate and her partner’s

c) everyone agrees that the pregnancy should progress but the intended parents get cold feet closer to delivery, past a point of termination. What happens then?

They can walk away, even after delivery.

d) the baby is born and the fallout from c) hasn’t been resolved. No one can agree who is taking the baby home. Should the birth mother be forced to? What if she outright refuses?

She is in the position of any mother with an unwanted baby.

e) scenario b) happens and the pregnant woman decides to keep the baby but the intended parents change their minds and the baby has their DNA from egg and sperm and want to take custody of the baby. Should they be allowed to?

The mother always has the choice, as do
they, but the surrogate is in law the mother and can refuse the parental order.

You haven’t addressed the problems these decisions raise though.

She can abort.

And then what? What about the expenses she incurs up to and including that point? What if she suffers a complication? What if she wants bereavement counselling? What if the intended parents won’t cover expenses? What if they’d promised expenses paid at the delivery of a healthy baby?

Yes, they can walk away, the baby is the surrogate and her partner’s

Again, a superficial answer. What about the consequences of this? What if the surrogate doesn’t want the baby? What if her partner doesn’t and it breaks their marriage as a result? Again, what if the intended parents won’t pay expenses as a result?

They can walk away, even after delivery.

Again, a superficial answer. What about the consequences of this? What if the surrogate doesn’t want the baby? What if her partner doesn’t and it breaks their marriage as a result? Again, what if the intended parents won’t pay expenses as a result?

What support is in place for surrogates left in this situation? Are surrogacy agencies responsible? Who are they responsible for? What if there’s a conflict of interest?

Will this have any impact on the attachment of the baby? Do you know? Do you care?

She is in the position of any mother with an unwanted baby.

And what of the consequences of this? A baby abandoned by two parties? Does it matter to you that this may happen and leave a baby in this scenario when it could have been prevented?

The mother always has the choice, as do
they, but the surrogate is in law the mother and can refuse the parental order.

And has this been tested in law? How confident are you it would be successful? A few years ago I wouldn’t have thought it would have been legally possible for someone to extract sperm from their dead husband, but here we are.

How damaging would a court case be to all parties involved? To the child?

Your post is just one big shrug, exactly like I said. Your thinking is superficial and it seems you can’t think through the actual consequences unless they happen. I’m talking about real world consequences, not superficial platitudes of “if x happens, the result is y.”

Because I genuinely agree that there are situations where it is acceptable.

And besides, even murder isn’t black and white is it 😂 what about self defence? What about abortion? We all know the debates about this. And I think it’s a little ridiculous comparing surrogacy to murder but maybe that’s just me.

And I think it’s a little ridiculous comparing surrogacy to murder but maybe that’s just me.

What was ridiculous was your notion that there’s no point having laws against surrogacy because it will happen anyway, which basically means you think there’s no point having laws about anything that happens despite laws existing.

When is it acceptable to deliberately create a human to be transacted?

Why is coercive control this invisible thing?

It IS illegal in the UK but hardly anyone actually understands what it is, how it occurs and what the consequences are.

This includes institutions - even the police and family courts. It's still massively not on the radar yet and I think it will be a couple of decades before it does even start to get taken seriously.

This ignorance is HIGHLY relevant to ANY discussion of surrogacy.

The number of posters who either don't have it on their radar at all (see the superficial post above) or just deliberately and willfully gloss over it because it's a bit inconvenient to them wanting to do nice things never fails to amaze.

Yeah, let's have no laws at all because jail's are full so the laws clearly don't work...

I agree.

Some of the posts on this thread are definite red flag territory for me for reasons to be a surrogate. Plus the power of coercion is so often misunderstood as being one direction.

That wasn’t my point at all!! I said not to ban it! I definitely think there should be rules and regulations. 🙄

Who on earth said no laws at all? That’s ridiculous. I feel like you’re purposely missing my point because I don’t agree to an all right ban.

Given multiple posters, including myself, read your post in the same way you might want to consider that people aren't being ridiculous or purposely missing the point, but that in fact you didn't actually make the point you wanted to make very clearly

I did create a long post about how I wanted there to be regulations but ok.

The trouble with 'regulations' is the starting point for them will be to say that buyers have rights too.

That in, and of itself is part of the problem because we are talking about wealthy entitled buyers versus much more vulnerable, often uneducated and definitely financially less well off surrogate mothers. It raises allsorts of problems.

I don't believe it would remove many of the most vulnerable surrogate mothers from the system because of the lack of understanding and knowledge about coercive control. I worry about how some could be coached to pass screening too. And what happens in family situations if a potential surrogate DOES fail to pass some sort of screening? How does that protect these vulnerable women who are, by definition, deemed as 'at risk' from the family dynamic?

So it doesn't actually resolve issues of coercision in practice because few surrogate mothers would be in a financial or emotional position to enforce their rights against that. If anything there is plenty of potential to make their position WORSE compared to the current situation because it would crystalise a legal position for buyers when they already come from a position of greater power.

The idea that a surrogate can 'change their mind' and keep the baby, is one that forgets that decision involves committing to a HUGE responsibility and isn't taken lightly either.

I don't think regulating surrogacy really has the effect of improving the situation for surrogate mothers as a result.

Does this improve things for the children involved? Of course it can't as much as people think, because precisely because it reinforces the rights of prospective parents and weakens those of surrogate mothers. It might prevent some of the worst prospective parents who are wholly unsuitable but it certainly wouldn't be as comprehensive to protecting children and surrogate mothers as most proposing regulations would like to have us believe.

It just santitises the argument and legitimises surrogancy more and makes it even harder to recognise coercision and the vulnerability of some of those involved tbh.

Nothing but a ban recognises this adequately.

Arguing that a ban wouldn't stop people so determined to do it anyways, misses the point that those same most extreme cases of prospective parents and vulnerable women also probably wouldn't be stopped by regulation either for the same reason. So what do you actually achieve in practice? You enable cases which don't involve the most extremely vulnerable / potentially abusive parents with regulation but you really don't eliminate coercison to protect the very few cases of 'true altrutism' (which I don't really believe exist if I'm honest). Its the same kind of PR as green washing or virtue signalling which is superficial but actually acts to hide many problems by creating a situation where the public can buy into the idea because its now 'safe'.

The other significant unintended consequence would probably be to actively ENCOURAGE MORE surrogancies because it would make it easier and remove some of the stigma. That in itself would increase the real terms number of women and children at risk and perhaps not reduce the amount of harm done overall.

No. I'm saying you just are not thinking in any level of depth about what could be achieved by regulation versus a total ban. You STILL want to 'be kind' and centre the prospective parents and you aren't thinking about unintended consequences.

A straight ban has the biggest protective effect to ALL parties. If this means some people can't have children, then thats just a great leveller - keeping in mind that poor people don't have access to surrogacy anyway (because of the costs of fertility treatment even in altruistic situations). And the idea of surrogacy on the NHS is one thats totally abhorrent and not one which would wash with the public well in the current climate due to the cost. Life sometimes isn't fair when it comes to health...

So explain how there should be rules and regulations! Why do you start by explaining how you would have rules and regulations for the one example I used, a serious abnormality on a scan. If you look at at my previous posts on this and can address all of the issues that would come up with this common occurrence there may be some hope that your proposed rules and regulations could be applied across the other variables of a surrogacy arrangement.

I find these type of discussions fascinating. They tend to have the shallow side making a proposal, but having no actual idea of the detail of what they want to bring in. Its just a vague concept of 'there should be a law', but no detail of what that should look like. (See Brexit for the best example of this). This puts power into the hands of ideological groups without proper levels of accountability. This is where it tends to go then go badly wrong.

Interesting article, I’ll say balanced. Two children born via surrogacy with different views. An example of failed counselling and legal fallout.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-14/pope-francis-surrogacy-deplorable-others-australia-gift-parents/103313940?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=link

Before she became a surrogate, Anna was an egg donor for three different families. "I got hooked on the wonderful feeling of helping others in a really meaningful way," she says. "It's addictive."

This is a big red flag to me - it feels almost like narcissism. What about the children who've been born of this?

Yes. People who declare they just want to help others by having a pregnancy for them need to have their reasons thoroughly checked. They may very well have underlying mental health or trauma issues that mean that this is not something they should be doing at all! I doubt it gets picked up with a couple of hours ‘counselling’ that may be given.

We will have all sorts of posters deny it, but it does happen. I would predict it happens much more often than ever reported. I remember once reading about a surrogate who was told by her eighth surrogate pregnancy that it was now incredibly high risk for her. She had her own children too. She ignited it. Her need to be pregnant, to ‘selflessly’ give away the child was so great.

it was never about the child. It wasn’t even about the other parents. It was a significant need within her. She would put each child at even higher risk and her own child at risk to be motherless to do this.

That is a power over the decision making that needed to be explored. Yet, which regulation will cover that issue? And if the mother denies they have the issue or it hasn’t been drilled into by the counsellor because time and reasons, it isn’t about to appear in a capacity report.

Maybe those declaring that tighter regulations can explain how to protect from this? Or is it that they believe that the woman is there for the utilising and bodily autonomy means she should not be protected. Thereby a woman such as this is grist for the mill in one way as she is useful. But her need is also a negative power position that is impacting the arrangement. She too is using the human being transacted for her own reasons.

It is not an altruistic transaction at all in my eyes. I find once you start drilling down, understanding the different sources of power that are not just financial or obviously emotionally coercive, that I now doubt any of these transactions are ‘altruistic’. Everyone adult in the transaction may be exploiting the human that has been transacted. But it seems that should be allowable.

Because that transacted human is fulfilling an adult’s needs, usually to alleviate their emotional pain.

And in every single post supporting any surrogacy, that foundational fact is ignored. Usually due to the fact someone then uses an emotionally manipulative appeal about the pain that parent may feel.

And then that cycles around to the untold damage to that child of the burden then on them to continue to alleviate pain. Which they won’t work out until maturity usually. It must be a complete headfuck.