Gay men and surrogacy - the new “be kind”?

[Tootingbec]

Just seen a LinkedIn post from a gay man who is writing a book about the surrogacy “journey” he and his husband went through. Cue gushing comments about how amazing this is…..

It has really upset me. The sheer fucking privilege of gay men to buy babies and then be lauded and praised for it like they were super heroes. And untouchable to criticism due to blinkered “be kind” beliefs about the poor gay men who just want a family like heterosexual men.

Where do people think these babies come from? Do you think people delude themselves that all these gay men just have kind, altruistic female friends who happily have a baby for them? As opposed to exploiting vulnerable and desperate women in India, Mexico and the like.

I feel so angry - women are just fucked over and abused time and time again by men and it is all dressed up as progressive when it is the exact opposite.

When I was a younger women I loved having gay men in my social circle. They seemed like “nicer” more lovely men than most straight men. Now I realise that underneath it all they just the same sexist, privileged tossers as many straight men are. They want a baby? No problem - buy one! They want to invade women’s spaces? No problem - just reinvent yourself as “the most vulnerable in society”!

It’s like the scales have fallen from my eyes.

I agree it's better to have supported contact early rather than unsupported later. An ounce of prevention etc.
We can't wait and see which preteens will want to find birth family on social media when they are teens.

I too am an adopter and it is because of the sorrow of losing a parent that i am anti surrogacy. And my girls are not even interested in contact with their birth parents (girls are mid 20s now). They were removed due to severe neglect - they both nearly died - so in many respects it is reasonable to not want to chat to these people as if nothing happened.

But I do get the point about the loss and sorrow of being removed from one life and plopped into another. My girls moved from one part of the country to another. They lost cultural links, their accent, as well as a extended family and neighbours etc.

And I don't think you have to be a proponent of the Primal wound theory to work out that it might not actually be that great to lose your mother for no good reason.

It doesn't impact at all how I feel about my girlsbor how they feel about me. This is separate.

Anyway, for me, removing a child is
something that shouldn't be done lightly. And also imo, it IS done lightly in surrogacy. Men in particular can just send in a sperm sample, choose the egg donor from a catalogue, pay the agency, then go pick up their baby a while later, very few questions asked. They don't have any requirement to tell the child anything about their mother(s) - at least in straight couples the woman is using her own eggs.

There are definitely extra issues around men using surrogacy imo but equally, I don't understand why regulators are not learning from adoption practice and insisting on bio info being given to these children.

Terrible. That must have been really horrible for you

I do think contact for those who want it should be supported, but it does seem that their voices are the only ones being heard. And obvs there are many issues to consider, given that birth parents have to have had serious issues for the children to be removed in the first place

Def agree. On the issue of surrogacy tho, it's worth noting that sometimes egg donors are used, so it's not even the mother's egg.

Parental orders are only applicable for surrogacy.

https://todaysfamilylawyer.co.uk/rise-in-foreign-surrogacy-sparks-calls-for-uk-legal-crackdown/

https://todaysfamilylawyer.co.uk/twofold-increase-in-the-number-of-parental-order-applications-for-older-surrogates/

The child is given away, or more usually, sold, by the mother after it is born.

Would you really argue it would be ok for me to seel my child as long as I made the contract before she was born?

Having access to parents, extended family, and culture are rights of every child, the fundamentals are laid out by the UN on this.

Of course sometimes circumstances outside human control mean we have to try and just do what is best in the situation.

But there is no special class of person who can have contracts made about them before birth which somehow invalidates their basic human rights. That's the logic of chattel slavery.

Going through social services for ongoing contact is one thing - what you are suggesting is potentially very dangerous.

In my situation the birth father turned out to be highly dangerous and there was a court case and he was sent to prison - imagine if he had our phone number!!

We did set up contact with birth family members when the girls turned 18 (and letterbox stopped). This was facilitated by social services, with counselling for everyone involved. We had to set out our expectations and agree to rules. When things were going well, social services stepped away and we dealt direct.

And it has not been remotely easy. Quite the opposite in fact.

Yes, you're right, sorry, i meant to say they might use their own eggs - of course this isn't possible with gay or single men.

The majority of commercial surrogate pregnancies are from donated eggs.

The complications like pre-eclampsia, post- partum haemorrhages are roughly double for IVF pregnancies compared to not IVF pregnancies.

IVF with donor eggs complications is higher again, roughly triple typical pregnancies.

Quite. My children's birth parent set fire to a public building before his age was in double figures. One of his siblings was a convicted murderer before he was old enough to vote. Not a chance these people are getting my phone number!

And to bring it back to the topic of the thread, either of those deeply dangerous men would be able to buy a baby via surrogacy, if he had the money. There are literally no safeguards on surrogacy, and babies have been purchased by paedophiles, violent criminals, and other unstable people, as well as recently a couple in their 70s when the baby was born. It's indefensible.

But the issue when discussed on here vilifies intended parents

I very much do vilify parents who use surrogates to grow and birth their biological children.

A woman posted on a neighborhood FB group that she and DH were searching for a "gestational surrogate" outside the "constrictions of an agency" after giving her sob story of a previous painful pregnancy. They offered to pay surrogate mother for her services.

Of course, the moderator left all the gushing comments, and critical comments removed, even some that were very mild like, "surrogate mothers deserve to have legal representation to protect them."

I have absolute contempt for those intended parents. They want to take advantage of a financially desperate or vulnerable woman.

So are you suggesting that the mother/baby bond, both psychological and physical, with the transfer of antibodies to the baby etc is completely without value and not to be prioritised in any way? It can’t be effectively replaced by another person, especially men.

Um - she just said that gay men are the same as straight men in terms of their attitude to women.

Not sure how that's homophobic.

Reading comprehension is useful.

Yes. They seem to downplay the health risks to the mum even though many types of surrogate pregnancies are more dangerous than even a normal pregnancy.

An industry has sprung up around convincing women to do something that INCREASES their risk of death and downplays that risk to them. Why would they do that?

Normal policy is try to make things safer for people.

From this article about a mum that died having a surrogate baby:

The maternal mortality rate in the USA has been steadily rising—the only developed country where this is true. The USA maternal mortality rate more than doubled from 1991 to 2014, and American women have the greatest risk of dying from pregnancy complications among 11 high-income countries. Over 700 women die of complications related to pregnancy each year in the USA, and an additional 50,000 American women suffer from life-threatening complications of pregnancy. Black women in the USA are three to four times more likely to die in childbirth than white women.

In the mean time, surrogacy pregnancies, which we know to be far more dangerous than traditional pregnancies, are continuing to rapidly increase. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine reported a 30% increase in surrogate births in the USA between 2004 and 2006, for a total of 1,059 live births in 2006.

www.legalizesurrogacywhynot.com/michelle-reaves-story

So how would you comprehend a post that said:

"When I was younger I loved having gay women in my social circle - they seemed like “nicer” more lovely women than most straight women. Now I realise that underneath it all they just the same stupid, hysterical bitches (insert your choice of derogatory female stereotype here) as many straight women are."

Not a problem, no? No sweeping negative generalisations about any groups there?

As an adoptee I cant abide surrogacy. Reliquishment trauma will never, ever leave me and I dont believe I will ever get over it.

The only ethical way is to adopt.

I would think that the poster doesn't like women much, or at least thinks a lot of women are awful.

It's not derogatory toward lesbians in particular.

Quite a lot of women on MN thing that a large proportion of men are scum-bags. I don't particularly agree but they certainly exist.

Her point, quite clearly, was that she thought gay men were differernt, and now thinks they aren't.

Well, it might be misogynistic, but it wouldn’t be homophobic.

Yes. I think a lot of people assume that people wanting to employ a surrogate to produce a baby go through any kind of level of checking similar to that of adopters but they don’t.

We need to ask some serious questions as to why all these checks are needed for prospective adoptive parents but not for children produced by surrogate. Even when children are adopted by a relative there are thorough checks

It’s misogynistic as I said.

But I really despise the measly whiney word “problematic”.

@PlanetJanette has no experience of the bond between a woman and the baby she has grown inside her and given birth to.

I took it that she’s asserting a belief that many, many men are sexist privileged tossers and admitting to a former naivety that led her to think gay men were different because of their sexual orientation.

Gay men being bigger consumers of babies has now led her to view them as no better than straight men, as in men are men.

OP’s insults are male-centric and relate to men using women to acquire babies, so difficult to apply like for like insults to lesbians, if they were suddenly to become prolific in using surrogates. “Hysterical” and “stupid” don’t really link to buying/commissioning babies. The original insults could better apply, as the women would arguably be sexist and privileged to be using other women in this way: “Now I realise they are just sexist privileged tossers.”

Evidence of surrogacy going back thousands of years?????? Hmmm, I’d like to see some of that. I suspect you are stretching the definition somewhat and mistakenly applying a modern framing to a tiny number of cases of babies being brought up by another family member.

Childbirth is harmful to women???
What, always without exception? Bollocks.
Childbirth can be many things, but it always utterly profound, sometimes exhilarating, exhausting, and sometimes dangerous. Harmful is simplistic and ignorant. I suspect you know nothing about it.

And how could childbirth be a new idea??????

Thank you @cosimarama - I think that is a fair summary of my feelings.

I like and love many men in my life but sadly most (not all!) bad things that happen to women are as a result of male privilege and power.