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.

In the UK (at the moment anyway) the birth mother is the mother legally until she willingly gives up PR. If the commissioning father is also the biological father he can also get PR but they can't take the baby without the birth mother's consent.
In the US in some states the birth mother has no rights to change her mind at all.

I've not seen this but it sounds horribly reminiscent of the wives in the Handmaid's Tale pretending to give birth surrounded by others chanting 'breathe, breathe' while in another room the handmaid is actgiving birth. 😬🤯

Alice Naylor-Leyland shares new photos of her newborn https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-13337199/Princess-Beatrices-pal-Alice-Naylor-Leyland.html?ito=nativesharee_article-nativemenubutton

Sorry about the DM link but this illustrates so much about what is wrong with surrogacy.

Sorry - I see that has already been shared!

@BridgetD In California she is not the mother. The intended parents are the legal parents of the baby. They do a huge amount of screening for surrogates to make sure that scenario doesn't play out but if it did the surrogate would have no legal recourse in California. Alice's baby is her and her husband genetically.

Yes is seems oddly pedantic. Through Etsy I have ‘commissioned’ items, but at the end of the day I just wanted to buy them and if I could have got them off the peg I would have, to save any delay.

Commissioning is basically agreeing to buy something before it is made, in advance.

See I think choice feminism is bullshit and I'm not in the least illiberal.

I wanted to just say that I am finding moving hearing from the adoptive parents on this thread. It’s such an amazing thing to do - two simultaneous, enormous, selfless tasks - raising a child, whilst also managing and healing their wounds. It must be so challenging and you speak with such compassion for the children. It’s absolutely worlds away from the way surrogacy advocates speak about the children being ‘commissioned’. Hats off to you.

believe in personal choices

Choices which have a profound and lasting affect on others are not truly ‘personal’.

Bravo, bravo and did I say bravo?

I know in the grand scheme of surrogacy, it's likely a very minor percentage but I think it's worth discussing the impact of babies born via surrogacy and then not collected by their 'intended' parents.

Women who have birthed babies, for other people, who are then forced to either raise the baby or give it up for adoption.

I've read a handful of articles where this has happened; most notably a set of twins and a child born with Down Syndrome.

Surrogacy, I think, has the illusion of altruism but if it goes wrong, and it does, the consequences are too profound to justify the risk.

I feel like there's some cognitive dissonance with some people who watch or have read The Handmaid's Tale. They think that in that it's bad, in the real world it's good. (And even then the babies aren't taken straight from their mums like they are in the real world.)

Feel like this is another thing where animals are treated better than humans. We don't take baby animals away from their mums when they've just been born. Baby humans are fair game though. Have these people even heard of the fourth trimester?

We don't take baby animals away from their mums when they've just been born.

Dairy cows. And yes, it's horrific for the cow and calf.

We do and it is horrific.

Oh, well that's just awful. 🥺 Poor cows and their poor calves.

Each state in the US has different laws on this.

Is there really freedom of choice when economic factors come into play?

Are we free to sell our organs for example? Or sell our existing children?

Sorry posted too soon.

....or actually do we have a moral responsibility not to do certain things that exploit even if we have 'choice' ?

@sailyclose

Organ donation is not the same. We don’t grow new organs. If one chooses to donate an egg; or carry someone else’s foetus to birth does not leave them without a vital part of their body.
Same goes to selling of existing children.

Morality is a relative, not an absolute concept. And it evolves we progress. Very few things are absolute.

For me - choice is important.
If I could and wanted to help a friend, a relative struggling with carrying a pregnancy - I do not agree that ‘morality police’ should be able to tell me i can not do it.
If i wanted to donate my eggs - it is My choice.
And - as some one said upthread - if i wanted to charge for sex - again MY choice.

To me - this is a definition of respecting women and their choices. Their - being important here. And recognising that people can have different opinions.

But here we have a group of women who seem to want to control how other women think and feel. And even down to the words we use describing our pregnancies.
Doing exactly what men used to do to us.

Personally - i understand that other people have opinions about surrogacy and egg donations. I don’t think they are wrong - they have a right to have their opinion.
Sadly - like with all divisive topics there is no real discussion - of facts or anything objective. Just repeated shouting and indignation..

Indicative of how we are as a society, really.

Can you explain what you mean by “Same goes to selling of existing children.” please @MMmomDD ?

I would like to know why you think deliberately creating a child to be sold/given away is different to selling an existing child.

If it can be guaranteed that a woman undertaking a pregnancy for surrogacy is absolutely 100% choosing to do it with her own agency, and 100% has the choice with how she conducts her pregnancy and birth, she is still choosing to inflict deliberate separation on the baby (not through unforeseen circumstances) and subject it to potential trauma. Her choice affects other humans. As a result, her choice isn’t the be all and end all of it, other things have to be considered and can override that freedom of choice, particularly when there’s a child involved.

And I would add that the percentage of surrogacy cases where there is genuine choice on doing it and managing one’s own pregnancy with one’s own choices is actually tiny.

But why do you think this isn't a discussion?
And why do you think people are shouting?
I'm not.
I just don't agree with your opinion.
I can completely understand your point of view, I still don't agree with it, and I don't mind you don't agree with mine.

I have been taught about the trauma that babies experience when removed from their birth mother as I recently went through the Uk adoption process.

Babies are sometimes removed from their birth mother's either at birth or before leaving hospital, the effects of this aren't hard to understand and in adoption circles is considered a huge loss & bereavement even though it's court ordered to protect the child from greater harm.

Many a potential adopters who think that adopting an infant at birth (relinquished or not) will not be traumatised/damaged by this severing from their birth mother 'because they don't know her' are put straight pretty quickly.

I adopted through my Local Authority, not some hippy-dippy organisation, they were very clear about this severing (although for the right reasons) being a massive loss that will be felt throughout a persons life (and for the birth mother too).

We are entirely helpless at birth, our birth mother's smell, touch, voice, suckling at the breast (if possible) etc tell us that we are safe and help regulate our fear and lower cortisol.
That is why skin on skin is encouraged after birth. That is why often very young infants can not be soothed by anyone but their birth mother's. That is why parents are encouraged to visit/talk/touch/sing to their unwell infants who go straight NICU after birth. It's why parents often choose to co-sleep or at least sleep in the same room as their infant child.

I'm suggesting that our 'choice' as adults should not top-trump a baby/child/teenager/adult's choice not to have this trauma inflicted upon them.
(Still not shouting).

I think m being adopted by people completely unrelated to you under the circumstances that your mother is so stressed she cannot possibly care for you simply isn't the same as being adopted by your own genetic parents. If the surrogate is well cared for and truly wants to do this then it's a truly different scenario. The baby will never going looking for their family because they're in their family. I don't think the two scenarios are all that similar.

Really well said, thank you.