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.

One reason why these men may pose more of a risk to a child born through surrogacy is that there is no screening process similar to that for adoptive parents as far as I know.

This is how one man mentioned earlier in the thread was able to get so far through the surrogacy process before he decided to make public his intention to abuse the child as soon as it was in his care.

In surrogacy they don't need to reveal the name of the egg donor or surrogate until the child is 16 (18 for more info) and that just refers to UK surrogacies, while most people are going abroad. In some places the commissioning parents can even get their names on the birth certificate and in others the original certificate is sealed. So the child can't find out its mother/s.

I personally think this is awful /absurd. How on earth can this be allowed, after all we know about adopted children and their search for their roots?

These children never asked to be removed from their birth mother. Their birth mother should imo be part of their story, like the birth mother is in adoption.

That’s a very fair point and I would agree that the child should have the right to that information. But how does that point relate to the safeguarding issue where you describe a child’s adoptive father as an ‘unrelated male’ and suggest he poses a particular risk because of that?

To clarify, I think that unrelated men pose a risk to the children who live with them and the figures support this.

I support gay adoption because all adoption aims to solve a problem, which is children who need a permanent home. All adopters are scrutinised in extreme detail and educated about early trauma, expectations v reality, identity issues etc. Gay adopters can make great parents.

Adopters, gay or straight, can abuse children but the systems are in place to try to make sure this doesn't happen. There is the approval process, which involves speaking to ex partners, then the child is placed for at least 6 months, with high levels of social worker supervision, before the parents can finally legally adopt.

Even with sperm donation there is usually counselling involved, and the mother is usually the biological mother.

But men using surrogates arent doing any of this. They just pay their money and pick up the child, not questions asked, no supervision. Sure, straight couples do the same, but the father is usually the bio father. In gay couples only one dad can be the bio father, so there is an in built issue.

Btw here is the thread about the father who can't cope with the boy he calls his son but was born from donor sperm - i just think people go into these situations without really understanding the potential issues https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5348870-am-i-being-unreasonable-to-think-dh-resents-our-ds ì

To clarify, I think that unrelated men pose a risk to the children who live with them and the figures support this.

I understand that this is your point. I just think it's really bizarre to call a male donor child's parent and unrelated male. If a heterosexual couple needed a sperm donor due to make factor infertility, I would call that man the child's father, not an unrelated male. And I think the majority of people would.

In the same vein I wouldn't call a gay man who chose to have his own child an unrelated male just because his sperm wasn't used to create the child.

I don't think people go into these things without thinking them through.

In the UK you have to have genetic counselling before proceeding with donor gamete IVF. It's a huge decision and IVF alone is a huge emotional gamut to run. Trust me, no-one just wanders into an IVF clinic by accident and just picks up a donor gamete because surely it will alright on the night 🙄

Some people may regret it, plenty of biological parents regret their children too. Lots of children's biological fathers don't love them or abuse them or abandon them. The way a person becomes a parent doesn't make them more likely to be a shit parent in my opinion.

Please post the research that proves surrogacy irreparably emotionally damaged children for life.

I have not found that when reading about the subject personally.

From what I have read a lot of adoption trauma comes from feeling unwanted or abandoned, surrogacy and donor conceived children were never abandoned, they were extremely wanted and as long as their origin stories are shared with them they are well adjusted emotionally.

But the children of old style 1940/50s adoption weren't usually unwanted or abandoned, they were taken from their mothers because the mother was young and unmarried. And then given to 'nice' married straight infertile couples who could provide a reference from the vicar, and they were extremely wanted too. For that matter, children of modern adoption aren't usually unwanted or abandoned either, that's never been the main driver of adoption in the UK.

There's plenty of evidence about how many children adopted the old fashioned way as tiny babies struggled emotionally, struggled with their identity and wanted to know about their birth family, and tried to find their birth family. Adoption in the UK now acknowledges how important it is for children to know their story and to be able to have contact with birth family if possible. Even if it's not possible while they're a child, all the records exist for when they're an adult.

Children of surrogacy won't be able to find a poor Ukrainian woman who was sent back to Kyiv straight after their birth. Or a woman from an Indian baby farm who likely no one even bothered to note the name of.

I think you know that there's not "research that proves surrogacy irreparably emotionally damaged children for life", but there's evidence that children adopted in closed adoptions back in the day often were damaged by that system, that's part of why we don't do it like that anymore. No one is saying it's a guarantee, but it's certainly a sizeable risk that I personally don't think is justified.

The question “how should gay men have children then?” is a nebulous dog whistle because all gay men do not have the same options.

Surrogacy - is not free. UK altruistic surrogacy with free health care is still going to need the legal costs covered and that’s only if a woman is prepared to self inseminate her own egg and not claim expenses for being a surrogate. If such a “kind” woman is not available it’s legal fees, cost for donor eggs and IVF/ICSI costs.

Commercial surrogacy is upwards of £25K.

So “how should gay men have children then” creates new questions. What about gay men who can’t self fund surrogacy? Because currently it’s a small percentage of gay men who can finance the option to have biological children through surrogacy.

This does of course also apply to heterosexual single men and women, lesbian single women, lesbian couples and heterosexual couples with some differences in what the NHS will cover in regards to IVF/ICSI. Which also varies depending on where you live.

Whichever way you do it surrogacy is only an option for those with the cash. But y’know, it’s (insert manipulative baby/gift/kind trope here) definitely not treating women and babies as commodities. The 5 billion a year the US reports as coming from surrogacy suggests otherwise,

Decent fair paying actual JOBS is what gives women agency and opportunities for them and their children. Not being a womb for rent for rich western couples.

If it was such a great way to make money, why is it only poor women from low income countries that do it? Why aren’t women in the UK signing up to be surrogates (all be it claiming “expenses”)

But that assumes that being a gay couple equals fertility issues which require a solution. You can use the same arguments for older couples who get together in their 50s or 60s - there have been people in their 70s commissioning babies.

No one is entitled to a baby.

So you acknowledge that in surrogacy a baby is deliberately removed from its mother?

I think you know that there's not "research that proves surrogacy irreparably emotionally damaged children for life

Well there needs to be if people are going to claim it is true, as they do often do on this board. Otherwise it's just an opinion and that doesn't mean anything.

As mentioned previously there is research showing there is no negative emotional impact on donor conceived children when their birth story is shared with them. I found it after being quite upset by all the unfounded claims made here that donor conceived children are always damaged and their parents are selfish. There isn't any evidence I have found for that claim either but it is regularly touted here.

There are likely to be *reasons why there is little funding for research into a £multi million industry that may show undesirable facts like poor outcomes for children.

We know adoption hurts children emotionally, the onus should be on the surrogacy industry to prove that its broadly similar (but with less safeguarding) practice does not.

We don’t remove puppies from their mother at birth yet we do this with babies.

Obviously it would be impolite to go around pointing out to these men that they are unrelated males.

However, with regard to the statistical analysis, they are unrelated males. They are not men that are biologically related to the children are they?

Nobody has said that every single child born from surrogacy is permanently emotionally disabled though, have they?

But the evidence from several decades worth of children who were removed from their mothers at or very soon after birth, taken by another family who very much wanted them, and brought up with no knowledge of or contact with their birth family, is pretty relevant to the discussion of what surrogacy does to the children involved. What happened to children in old style adoption is, from the child's point of view, what happens to children in surrogacy now. Babies don't know about egg donors or who provided their sperm, they only know about being removed from their birth mother, so that information is pertinent. And we know that it caused trauma to a lot of those children. Not every single one, but enough of them for it to have been recognised and steps taken to try to avoid and to address it in adoption practice.

Of course no one who is making money from surrogacy, or who wants to obtain a baby via surrogacy, is at all interested in drawing those parallels, why would they be? Still valid nevertheless.

Of course no one who is making money from surrogacy, or who wants to obtain a baby via surrogacy, is at all interested in drawing those parallels, why would they be?

Exactly. It’s an industry. The fact the word industry is applied to the exchange of human beings is bad enough, but no industry is ever remotely interested in self-regulation or research that might impair its own interests.

Or a woman from an Indian baby farm who likely no one even bothered to note the name of.

A girl at my DD’s school has two male parents and was from a surrogate in India. When she was little, she used to tell her school friends that when she grows up, she is going to go to India to meet her mother. She doesn’t mention it now ☹️

Well as heartbreaking as your single anecdote is, thankfully there is actually real research into the psychological wellbeing of children born from gamete donation and surrogacy and the findings were that if the families were open with the children about their birth stories there was no negative affect on their emotional wellbeing or the bond with their parents and there was no statistical difference between these children and naturally conceived children. Here is the research.

APA PsycNet FullTextHTML page https://share.google/LcCAuXUlFIWB1aNIL

I'm still waiting for the research that proves these children are emotionally damaged by surrogacy and show separation trauma and attachment trauma for the rest of their lives.

That’s heartbreaking.

Two boys at dds school were born of a surrogate mother(s) for two gay dads.

If you look for surrogacy research, it's very much tiny sample sizes and limited follow up. No one wants to discover that it harms any of the participants. It is a huge industry and it suits everyone to say there are no drawbacks. The studies also tend to look at relationships between the children and their parents rather than the child's feelings.

One of its mothers, yes.

You do know that commercial surrogacy as we see it today has only been happening st scale for 10-15 years. There were only 83 surrogate births registered in 2010 so there hasn’t yet been time for the full emotional impact to manifest.

We do know however, the impacts on children of adoption. You don’t seem to have explained how it will be any different with surrogacy.

Nice casual dismissal of a little girl deprived of her mother and clearly upset about it btw.

So do the multiple mothers carry equal standing and equal importance in your view?