Normalising buying babies

[HarrietSpying]

I’ve been randomly following a bloke on Instagram with a wife who’s into tablescaping 🙄 No idea how or why I started following him, possibly due to his foodie posts. Anyway recent posts revealed a new baby, with mention of the ‘person’ who gave birth. His wife’s page reveals her ‘greed’ at wanting another baby - with other photos showing three other children - so they resorted to, what is in my mind, buying a baby. Obviously the birth of a baby is lovely news but is it so normal now to procure one from a ‘surrogate’ (awful term) that nobody really bats an eyelid. Just find it so depressing. Also very aware that there may be some jealousy on my part. Cancer meant I could only ever have one baby and I’d have loved a big family. But surrogacy never ever an option for me for ethical reasons.

I saw it too and could not agree with your more OP. But when you have that much money I guess you can do what you want.

The normalising of taking babies from their birth mother because they've been "commissioned" is horrendous.

Unfortunately, people are selfish and others can make money out of it so the misery caused to women and children is ignored.

💐 Sorry to hear about your illness. Child trafficking/exploiting mothers through surrogacy is utterly unethical.

I have a part of me that wishes I had more children too, and feels a primal twinge of envy when someone has a new baby - it’s part of our animal instincts.

Unethical, abusive and exploitative practices are constantly getting a cosy PR spin, especially if they make some people rich and preserve an unequal status quo. Prostitution, pornography, surrogacy, polygyny, etc. The careful staging works like propaganda and puts us in a conflicted state. Our internal voice says “I know this thing is all sorts of unnatural and wrong, but these people look so healthy, happy and okay with it, I can’t put my finger on it, maybe it is me that is wrong”.

See also the Observer’s piece on Martha Lane Fox today. I’m truly sorry for her injuries and her suffering, but the piece just casually mentions in passing that she has twin sons by surrogacy. No mention of the risks of a multiple pregnancy, presumably by IVF, to the surrogate (or indeed of the surrogate at all):

https://amp.theguardian.com/media/2024/apr/20/martha-lane-fox-mountains-dotcom-entrepreneur-charity-peaks-car-crash

I saw that as well as I follow her. I was really surprised, and I assume the surrogate is Mexican as that is where they were on ‘holiday’ just before the birth was announced.

I wasn't able to have children and find this normalisation of mainly wealthy folk and celebrities treating children as yet one more commodity beyond repulsive. We're about a generation away from the Handmaid's Tale at this point.

Paris Hilton has had a baby girl via surrogacy.

I saw it too and was also horrified.

I've seen the post. The woman in the hospital bed is not the mother who has given birth, is she? Why is she in a hospital bed?

I completely agree that this should not be allowed. I think in 10-20 years this will blow up into a huge public scandal.

Thanks. I’m glad it’s not just me. And yes there is that envy that I cannot escape, knowing I couldn’t add to my family. But I find it so disturbing that someone can feel ‘greedy’ for a fourth (!) child and just pay for it. Seems to be increasingly normal for those with funds and without morals. So depressing.

Indeed - what the hell is that about? Lying there in a hospital gown, perfectly coiffed. It’s all an illusion. The emperor’s new clothes.

So they’ve got a photo that suggests she’s been physically involved in some way??

I think it is always important to strip away the emotional linguistic protection some people use in these discussions.

I agree with you OP. There is never a good enough reason to exploit at least one woman’s body and fertility to produce an infant especially created on demand.

It's all the fashion now to pose in a hospital bed, occasionally supposedly doing skin to skin with the baby.
It's extraordinarily tone deaf. Why don't they announce the birth and have a family picture at home. Still erasing the mother.

This one takes the biscuit though. Absolutely obscene and disgusting that hospital staff would join in with this little mini broadway show.

https://x.com/surrogconcern/status/1777525717518962918?s=46

The delightful Stuart and Francis are hero worshipped. There is an infamous video of them describing their search for an egg donor with suitable physical attributes. It was like they were hiring a brood mare. One wanted someone with good hair because he had had a hair transplant. It’s hideous.
They talk about the surrogates but since that initial video nothing of the egg donor. It’s all entirely about asthetics. They also make their money from an MLM so women are exploited all over.

It is basically a scene from handmaids tale.
And so disturbing....

The acting out of "having" a baby to complete the "experience" they bought.

That's nauseating. That poor child.

This article was an eye opener for me.

The Pope’s right, surrogacy should be banned

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/140785ca-e2a8-4810-a371-6b906a478636?shareToken=a62e5b6bd38849ff1e5d47d4c7d52e9e

That actually make me want to heave. What psychopaths. The poor child.

I think surrogacy does have its place.
I know a friend whose sister carried her baby after she was infertile due to cancer.

But it’s too easy for rich people to get a baby.
Its almost like going out and buying a new puppy or kitten.

They usually select the sex of the baby too, which also makes me uncomfortable.

Khloe Kardashian was very open about using a surrogate and said that although she loves her child and had thought about it for many years, she felt very uncomfortable with the whole concept of it and felt guilty for the woman and struggled to bond with her child.

She got a lot of shit for being so negative about it but I think it’s so important to hear these sides of it.

It should not be easy to just buy a baby.

All very 'under his eye'.

Some of the responses on her Instagram make me 😡🙄🤯

One: ‘you brilliant lady. I am convinced you have today inspired so many to consider and pursue surrogacy’

I have no words.

The instagram/influencer thing makes me uncomfortable too.

So many "lifestyle influencers" on instagram/Tiktok wherever have their kids/pets as a big part of their brand. Lots of focus on babies (gender reveal, baby born, baby meets older siblings blah blah blah). Some people are creating content just because they want to share about their family but for lots its a literal profit making business (or they want it to be). That's uncomfortable enough when its their own kids...

I can think of examples when its obvious that the influencer is acquiring e.g. a new pet just to get more clicks/follow a trend. And there have been cases in the US with influencers adopting children and then treating them terribly - clearly part of the motivation for adopting the child was to make money.

So I am not saying that influencers would actually commission new babies to get extra attention on social media (older kids are less interesting) or to make money through them. That would be libellous. But I am saying the temptation to do so - or the danger of that being at least part of the motivation, is definitely there. But either way why, if you are so desperate to have a child (or a fourth child) that you go to a surrogate would your first instinct be to post about it all over social media where "the trolls" can criticise you.

And the "here's a photo of me in a hospital bed for no reason" ties in with that.