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 think the point about @Arran2024 comment, for me at least, isn't whether or not it is homophobic or malephobic.

If you think, as I do, that surrogacy is wrong because the child is being involuntarily removed from their birth mother, for no better reason than to satisfy another adults desires then those are secondary issues.

It doesn't matter to me whether the 'intended parent' is a half-imagined gay couple who only want a child to stick on insta; or the equally half-imagined desperate, sympathy inducing, infertile woman who has been on a fertility journey.

I don't know whether a ban on altruistic surrogacy is desirable or even realistically enforceable, but I wonder how the child being born to be given away feels about being made an emblem of 'altruistic sisterhood'?

There are two ‘high profile’ gay men who have recently announced ‘their pregnancy’ with a surrogate- I saw it online and I found it quite shocking tbh. I don’t know how it will work at the very start for the baby but I feel the loss of its mother will be so very tragic.. I cannot really ever imagine thinking this will be ok.. the comments on social media were overwhelmingly all positive and no reference to the surrogate and the maternal loss whatsoever and it floored me how everyone thought it was so wonderful!!

my daughter was conceived with a donor egg due to severe endometriosis, I still carried and gave birth to her and anyone calling me an unrelated female and not her mum would get short shrift.

But according to surrogacy supporters, the woman who carries and gives birth to a baby conceived with a donor egg is not the baby’s mother.

Not sure where you've formed this view. As someone who supports (regulated) surrogacy, I certainly don't regard gestational mothers as not being mothers.

The reality is that a child born through egg donation and surrogacy has two mothers - a gestational mother and a genetic mother. They may also have a third mother if, for example, they are adopted.

There is not a one size fits all way to be a mother.

That could be because most people who object to surrogacy on the basis of the interests of the baby seem to judge the outcome for the baby versus a world where the baby remains with their birth mother and lives happily ever after. But in reality, the counterfactual for a baby born through surrogacy is not 'be raised by biological/gestational mum or by biological Dad and adoptive dad', it is 'not exist, or exist and be raised by biological Dad and adoptive dad'.

I can't imagine ever looking at a child and thinking that they would be better off not existing than existing in a scenario I found less optimal.

My son was born into an environment which was far worse than just suboptimal. I can't ever imagine thinking that a better outcome for the world, or for him, would have been to simply not exist. Of course the ideal world counterfactual would be that he could have been raised by stable, loving and safe biological parents and avoided the challenges his early life posed. But that wasn't on the table - so in a choice between existing with challenging circumstances or not existing, it is far far better that he exists.

That's quite an interesting perspective. It's quite similar to the arguments from those who oppose abortion, which I assume you do as well.

It goes a step further than the anti-abortionists though, as it includes hypothetical babies, with a potential for existing, as well as foetuses.

It's quite thought provoking though. At what point do we say, 'this child which might exist in these circumstances would be better off existing than not existing'? Should we ban contraception?

We don't have a quotation for creating new people so your argument doesn't work @PlanetJanette
The people who weren't able to have babies before did not stop existing.
If surrogacy stops tomorrow, there will be no non-existing people on a list somewhere.
New people will be created, as ever, through sex.
Surrogacy is a problem, not a necessary solution.

I might have a harsh attitude. I too dislike surrogacy for the reasons you mentioned..Im afraid I think that if you can't have children, you should kind of suck it up. There are plenty of kids here already who do n't have a nice home, or have no home, and it would be goid if they could be adopted..

I don't think it is similar to the anti-abortion arguments other than perhaps superficially.

The anti-abortion argument is essentially grounded in a right for a foetus to be born at the expense of a woman's bodily autonomy.

My argument is not grounded on a right for hypothetical people to be born, it is that the assessment when weighing whether surrogacy creates an unacceptable level of suffering to a baby born through surrogacy requires a counterfactual - and the correct counterfactual is not baby and birth mother living happily ever after. The counterfactual is the baby never existing, which is a preferable outcome for very few living people.

A better analogy still in the abortion space - the baby's wellbeing argument against surrogacy is a bit like saying that if a woman who has had several kids taken into care and adopted becomes pregnant, it is preferable (or indeed the state should mandate...) to have an abortion on the basis that the baby will likely also be taken into care, have considerable uncertainty in its early months or years, and possibly have lasting effects from the factors that led to them being taken into care. That position is wrong because it would interfere with that woman's bodily autonomy based on a flawed counterfactual.

For some Indian women the money is life changing and makes a massively positive impact to their family and its finances and gives power and control and agency to women - enables them to educate their children etc. Even in the 80s I never had a standard view of surrogacy however and I think it is too over regulated in the UK, so I doubt anyone will agree with me.

The point you seem to have missed is that we should not ban people from conceiving children on the basis that those children will have lives we regard as suboptimal.

As above, we don't ban people living in conditions that will lead to their child being taken into care from having children in the first place on the basis of the welfare of the child.

But with gay men, each has a biological child and the other child is not biologically related, or only one is related.

This is new territory. One man is biologically connected and the other is not.

We will see how this pans out.

There was a long thread on mumsnet earlier this year from a woman whose husband had suddenly told her he didn't love their son, conceived with donor sperm. He hadn't expected to feel this way but he did. She didn't know what to do.

I think that generally people seem to be incredibly cavalier about donated dna, like it is immaterial if you use another person's egg or sperm.

I just don't agree. I couldn't have children and I was urged by my GP to use a donor eggs and I refused and adopted instead.

I think people paper over the issues of using donor eggs and sperm, and expect that every non bio parent will be happy. But that's not how it works.

Non related men ARE more of a danger to children. But also, gay men are having children who do have a mother, two mothers usually, and for their own reasons they are depriving the child of any contact with them or knowledge of them. Can you imagine not knowing who your mother is? Even adopted children are told this these days. It is outrageous, selfish behaviour.

I find this such a weird take from someone who has adopted.

Of course people may discover they are not as happy parenting a child conceived through donor sperm or eggs than they expected.

Just as some adopters discover that they are not cut out for adoption after all.

Just as some parents who have children the old fashioned way discover they should never have been parents.

We don't and shouldn't craft our rules around people's routes to parenthood around the possibility that some people may regret that decision. I also find it quite odd that you keep referring to non-biological parents as 'unrelated'. It's a really loaded term, because the implication is also that you and I as adopters are also 'unrelated' to our children.

But there aren't "routes to parenthood". There is one route by which women become mothers and their male partner or co parent becomes a father. Even if that's a sperm donor he is, in point of fact, a parent.

And then there's a route by which children whose parents cannot look after them long term gain parent figures - some of them permanent, some not, some create the legal fiction of being a parent, some not.

My children are related to me through legality in the same way I'm related to my husband. But we adopted them because they needed a home.

And finally there's a route to buy a human from a woman who generally must be capable of parenting.

I think adoption is different because of the honesty of the situation, where the children know they are adopted and the birth family is acknowledged, and because both parents (if there are 2) have the same ie no biological relationship to the child.

In surrogacy and use of donor eggs and dperm this all gets muddled up. People often aren't open about what has happened. They can't always talk about how they feel.

We are talking specifically about surrogacy here and so I am talking about bio versus non bio relationships.

I believe I am my girls' adoptive mother. I have never tried to pretend I'm anything else. I don't agree that I'm the same as a biological mother though. I didnt give birth to them and we don't share dna. My girls remember their birth mother and they know about her - i can't act like she doesn't matter.

No. I am my son's parent. I am his mother. I am not a 'parent-like' figure. I am not a 'mother-like' figure.

There absolutely are 'routes' to parenthood, and it is false to suggest that biologically having children is the only one.

No, of course you don't pretend like a birth mother doesn't matter or doesn't exist. That connection and that life story work is vital for our kids. I think this just proves the point though - there are multiple ways to be a parent. Biologically is one of them, the most common one but only one.

I'm afraid I don't agree with you about the 'honesty' of the situation. I'm not sure why that would make a difference. A child raised by two gay men knows from a very very young age that both cannot be and are not their biological parents. In my experience gay adoptive parents have been far more comfortable being open about life story work, the adoption process etc precisely because there can never be a pretence of the child being the biological child of them both (and usually, they are not coming to adoption after a long period struggling with infertility etc).

I cannot see how the situation of two gay male adopters is any different to two gay male fathers who have a child via surrogacy in terms of risk to a child - beyond the fact that the adoption process itself has some checks.

The difference is that when two gay men adopt, they are providing a child who already exists with the home and family that they deserve, whereas when two gay men use a surrogate, they are deliberately creating a child with the intention of removing that child from his or her mother at birth.

In the context of safeguarding risks to a child, why do you think that is different?

We're not talking about safeguarding risks.

A child may be perfectly safe and well cared for with two gay men and yet still suffer lifelong emotional damage due to being made motherless at birth.

Actually we were discussing safeguarding risks. The conversation you responded to was specifically about whether 'unrelated males' pose a risk to children in the context of surrogacy.

I've posted about your point about "lifelong emotional damage" before. That claim isn't backed up by any science - indeed it is largely contradicted by the science.

How is it "contradicted by the science"?

We are taking about safeguarding risks and the fact that @Arran2024 is claiming that any child born to a father who needed a sperm donor is at risk by living with an unrelated male.

Originally I thought this poster was homophobic because normal people refer to a father who needed a sperm donor on a heterosexual couple just 'the child's father ' and not an unrelated male, however it seems this poster would call the father in a heterosexual couple needing a sperm donor and unrelated male too. Which is really odd to me, but not homophobic. Just plain old bizarre.

The evidence that exists suggests children born through surrogacy have no worse psychological or emotional problems compared to anyone else.

Can you post a link to the research on this?