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

Is it that you're against egg retrieval as well?

No, as I have previously stated in this thread. Women can and do chose to have egg retrieval procedures as part of their own IVF treatment. I am not against women who have had eggs retrieved donating spare / unused eggs - I do think that there should be rules against paying them / providing financial incentives such as lower costs for their IVF to donate eggs.

I'm genuinely not sure who you mean by "the mum of the surrogate would be happy to."

I do not think any woman should be impregnated with another woman's egg for no other reason than to deprive her of parental rights she would otherwise have. I believe this is justified due to the higher risks to both mother and baby. In the special case that the intended / receiving / commissioning mother is the egg donor I can see how the risk to her would not be a concern from an ethical point of view as it would only be the same as if she were undergoing a more conventional IVF route.

So whilst I'm very much against adverts for 18 years old paying them to do it I agree this isn't the same thing.

@NotBadConsidering
All my posts have been in relation to me saying I would be a surrogate for someone if I was younger. I'm not denying there are many examples of women being exploited, which of course is awful.

Perhaps a more rigor like the adoption process. Psychological assessments, proof no money is involved, a period of time getting to know the parents, health assessments...

@stillplentyofjunkinthetrunk

You're happy that women can harvest their eggs and give the spares away, but you're against women having other people's eggs implanted in them.

What else would happen to the spares?

I think in a lot of surrogacy cases it's the egg of the mother and the sperm of the father implanted in the surrogate mum.

Why would the surrogate mum have her eggs harvested if they were using her eggs anyway, they'd just send the sperm in surely...

This is an interesting thread.

I used to be pro-surrogacy, now I'm almost certainly anti.

I find celebrities who buy surrogacy babies then parade them on Instagram in an imagined perfect online world to be vulgar. They don't seem to want the baby, but the clicks?

Also the people buying the child often posting pictures online of how exhausted they are, as if they themselves have taken all the risks to give birth. Especially men. Nope.

There was a hoo ha on Twitter recently when The Royal College of Midwives organised an event with My Surrogacy Journey, an activist and advocacy site run my a gay couple who want the UK surrogacy laws to be relaxed. If you become a surrogate for them you ca get an annual Merlin Entertainment pass and other bribes benefits. I can't link here but both the RCM and MSJ got slaughtered.

Also why can't celebrities adopt?

I have read several different papers from different countries on the increased risks to the woman carrying the foetus. I only just read that surrogacy now piece today just before I posted it, after I had reread others and I have read the studies on and off over the past couple of years. I am in no way relying on the surrogacy now article.

So, you ‘take a punt’ that they were elective c sections? Again, you are very dismissive of women’s health here. I have had a c-section and lost a huge amount of blood, I also was then required to stay longer in hospital and was rather ill and took a long time to heal. You treat it like it is nothing and just what? A minor OH&S issue? Just part of the job, is that it?

What else are you prepared to excuse so some women can exploit other women to have a child?

So you accept that there will be women who will claim to be doing it out of choice but will actually be being exploited?

In that case, why are you criticising people who can see this and want to protect women from exploitation hidden under the guise of choice?

@NotBadConsidering would you stop all good things because there's cases of exploitation? Wouldn't it be better to stop the exploitation?

We can donate organs, but people are being exploited for their organs... We give our hair to make wigs, but women in India are being forced to shave their heads to provide real hair... We wear high street clothes, but how many people were exploited in the process... It goes on.

@Helleofabore I've said all along I'm against surrogacy being exploited and a majority of my posts have been about me wanting to do it.

If I would for legitimate reasons, I'm sure there's more out there. So I think it's just a case of differing opinions.

I am keen to know this as well.

Because there really seems to be a lack of understanding about power within relationships and how coercive situations arise. I cannot work out it is it because some posters simply have not thought about it deeply, or researched it, or because they are heavily invested because of their own circumstances.

It seems to come down to this idealistic fantasy of altruism and that no coercion or coercive element on any adult party to the contract is at play in these contracts.

I understand that you continue to deny the reality. You don’t need to keep repeating that you are all for one type of surrogacy that you, personally, choose to deny as exploitation.

Every surrogacy transaction exploits the child. Every single surrogacy transaction.

Every surrogacy transaction exploits at least one woman’s body, her fertility and ability to carry a child to term. It may exploit two women or more if pregnancies fail and other women are then exploited to fulfil that commissioning parent’s demand for a child.

Just because you choose to accept one form of exploitation as positive and another as negative doesn’t remove the reality.

Both are exploiting women’s bodies as resources and both are exploiting the child/children as commodities.

Donating an organ doesn’t require deliberately creating a child to be removed from the mother who carried that child.

Donating an organ also doesn’t require the donor to be pregnant for nine months.

Shaving hair is in no way comparable at all. The mental contortions you are going through to justify the exploitation of women and children is remarkable.

The difference here is that you can make a choice to wear synthetic wigs (or none at all), you can try to ensure the clothes you buy are produced as ethically as possible. But in every single surrogacy arrangement the child is being exploited. There is no possibility of avoiding that exploitation and therefore if cannot be done ethically.

@JustanotherMNSlapperTwat the child's being exploited by being given a life it wouldn't otherwise have had. Makes sense.

Has anyone actually looked exploited up in the dictionary?

Exploitation is the act of using someone unfairly for your own advantage

The advantage is getting a child without having to go through pregnancy or adoption

The using someone unfairly is the baby who doesnt have a say in being given away

the child's being exploited by being given a life it wouldn't otherwise have had.

That sounds incredibly close to pro life arguments

I completely agree.

@JustanotherMNSlapperTwat

Its not unfair if the surrogate mum wants to do it.

It's not unfair to help people to have a child who wouldn't otherwise be able to have one.

It's not unfair to give a child a life that wouldn't otherwise have one.

It's only exploitation if there is exploitation involved.

But that’s not the point of my post. You said:

I'm still so shocked so many women are against other women in this country being able to make these choices themselves.

But now you acknowledge that the posters here are rightly concerned that there may be some people who are not making these choices themselves.

You have gone from “stop restricting women’s choices” to “stop restricting the genuine women’s choices just because some women are exploited.”

@NotBadConsidering

That was in response to the backlash after I said I'd like to do it. I shouldn't be stopped, the exploitation should be.

What I find interesting is the people who vehemently support surrogacy and say they they are willing to do it for the poor childless people aren't having babies and putting them up for adoption

After all one of the things that puts people off adoption nowadays is that there are mostly only older children with either a lot of trauma or health problems available. So for those who either want to adopt a baby or are nervous about taking on a child with additional needs there aren't many options

So it would be really easy to solve if all of those quite happy to give a poor childless person a baby were to just get pregnant and give their babies up for adoption. Of course they wouldn't get paid "expenses" and they wouldn't get all the attention and you wouldn't get the kudos and the accolades.

Almost like altruistic surrogacy isn't altruistic at all but driven by other needs either financial or emotional. Neither of which are particually good for someone making this decision

Now I'm sure a surrogacy supporter will be along in a moment to tell me it's different, because they couldn't give away "their" baby but the baby in surrogacy isn't "theirs". Well that assumes a biologically connection is necessary, which quite frankly is insulting to adoptive parents, and that there is no sense of connection with a baby you have carried for 9 months - and quite honestly if that is the case then that sort of dissociation again calls into question the mental and emotional state of the person being the surrogate.

I don't have to have been pregnant to see the connection women have with their babies from before they are even born.

So if you support surrogacy because you feel sorry for childless people, then go ahead and have a baby and put it up for adoption. At least then the parents would be properly vetted

It is unfair to the child and if you cannot use arguments other than pro life ones then you cannot make a case for women being able to do what they want with their bodies

No pro-surrogacy argument centres the child. None.

No adult has the right to be a parent. Yes, that is incredibly sad and painful for those who experience infertility.

Not every surrogate mother feels exploited. But the entire existence of the industry exploits women. Much like the sex industry, grid girls in F1, or page 3 girls in The Sun. Those individuals may have felt empowered but the industry exploited women.

As a feminist I absolutely do not have to support all choices made by women.

@ItsMyPartyParty No pro-surrogacy argument centres the child. None.

Because it’s the same as a baby being born to its biological mother. No one ever says oh it’s all for the baby and the baby is the one benefiting from this birth. No. When I gave birth it was very much for me initially! But then the baby is immediately loved and cherished by its primary carer. And it begins its life. It doesn’t really matter who takes it after birth. We all think it does, the emotions for the birthing mother are extreme. But the reality is that as long as one primary caregiver immediately takes over their love and care then the baby is ok. Often it’s the birth mother, sometimes the father(who was not pregnant either) and sometimes another person.

'The mother wants to do it' forgets that if you have a relative who is desparate for a baby and saying you are their only chance, its difficult to say no. Thats emotional manipulation even if you love that person. It clouds your judgment to be able to say yes or no truly freely. Any surrogacy where someone knows the other party before the agreement CAN NOT by definition, be truly without 'undue pressure'. And that should be a red flag.

It also doesn't go much into the mental health of these women who feel that they need to do this. Why? Whats REALLY going on there? Are these vulnerable women who have issues going on in their lives so they feel the need to 'get something' from handing over a baby. I'd really like to see the psych profiles on that in terms of the type of woman who does this - keeping in mind how advertising works and how sales pitches are targetted even in supermarkets based on psychology. In other words, these clinics know to pitch to women with lower self esteem quite deliberately. They don't pitch to high flying career women to be surrogates do they? We know this is done for commercial surrogacy - what makes anyone confident its not done for 'altrustric' surrogacy.

It also forgets that its not about the woman who 'wants' to do it. Its about the child first. A child that is ultimately made into a comodity to be handed over.

There is no such thing as surrogacy without tugging on emotional heart strings - and that says everything you need to know.

@RedToothBrush
I said I'd be a surrogate mum if I was 10 years younger.

I don't have mental health issues
I have a good job
I'm not vulnerable
I certainly wouldn't be guilt tripped into it
I haven't seen any surrogacy advertising

I just think it's an amazing thing to do for people who wouldn't otherwise be able to have a child. I have friends I'd do it for in a heartbeat.