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.

You and other posters have been arguing for pages now that sperm donor fathers in heterosexual couples and adoptive fathers are also unrelated males and a risk to children.

So you have been saying that.

Who is saying sperm donors are unrelated, that doesn't make sense?

Adoptive fathers are certainly unrelated in the sense the research on the topic uses. Related, in that context, means biologically related.

It's true the research available hasn't really included adoptive or surrogate parents, so it's extrapolating to say they would follow the same pattern. But it's a reasonable hypothesis.

What they mean is infertile men in straight couples who use a sperm donor but raise the child as their own

sorry couldn’t follow this incoherent response. “Scientifically confused” lol.

No there is no evidence that suggests that gay surrogate parents are an increased risk to their children compared heterosexual dads who share their kids’ DNA.

You are trying to generalise/ extrapolate from evidence in ways that are not valid because the sample of people included in that evidence cannot be shown to reflect the population to which you are trying to generalise.

HTH.

There is practically no research on surrogacy. There have been cases in Anerica of gay couples where paedophilia was involved - of ciursecthese cases make the news when maybe a straight couples wouldnt. But it happens.

I don't think you've quite understood.

AFAIK, the research doesn't mention the sexuality of the 'unrelated males' in the child's environment.

'Unrelated', as previously explained, means in this context 'someone who doesn't share DNA' with the child.

[This wording is not a value judgement on the relationship that people with no genetic connection to their children have with them, like adoptive or step parents;it is what the research showed. They needed a descriptor for that group and 'unrelated' is what they chose].

So a gay male partner of a biological dad would be 'unrelated' for the purposes of this research.

In the same way that we know that men as a group are a risk to women ona population level, we know that unrelated men are a risk to children. This does not mean that every unrelated males is a risk (or that every man is a risk to women).

Its not saying 'if you have no genetic connection to your children you are definitely a risk to them'.

Its the 'genetically unrelated' part that is the apparent risk factor, not the 'gay' part (you would have to stratify the sample into representative 'gay' and 'straight' groups to get data on whether sexuality was a factor as well).

To put it another way:

No there is no evidence that suggests that gay surrogate parents are an increased risk to their children compared heterosexual dads who share their kids’ DNA.

This is absolutely what the research does show.

But the sexuality part that you've picked out in your example is a red herring.

The research shows a difference between Dads who share their kids DNA, and unrelated male partners of people who use a surrogate to have children (whether or not they are gay or straight, or the partner who is related to the kids is male or female).

Its the 'unrelated male' that is the issue. The rest of your scenario is extrapolation, but it's consistent with what we can say according to that data.

It absolutely does not. Where are you getting that from? Please link to the studies please.

You are not understanding. It's not about someone's 'sexuality', it's about the context of their relationship to the child.

You cannot take studies that examine dynamics in step/ blended (or even adopted families) and apply them to families using gamete donation and surrogacy. It's an entirely different context. It's a different population.

You cannot take a sample from one and draw conclusions to extrapolate to the other population. This is not scientifically valid.

Yes they share the characteristic of not sharing DNA with their children, but that is not sufficient to generalise.

It would be like saying "research shows 70% of women love unicorns!" Then it turns out the study you were relying on was either entirely, or almost entirely, conducted on 4 year old girls. Yes these girls share the characteristic of being female with adult women, but they are different in other important ways!

Obviously women are much less of a risk than men. Any men, related or not.

We are almost saying the same thing, but in a different way.

This research apparently didn't stratify results by sexuality, so we do not know whether or not sexuality is a factor. We can't say 'gay dads are more of a risk'.

We agree on this, yes?

However, you've muddied the water by choosing to exemplify two very specific sub groups (group A - heterosexual dads who shares DNA with their child, and group b - unrelated gay male partners of surrogate dads) from the more generalised data.

Group A are less of a risk because they are genetically related. Sexuality is irrelevant. This group is just a cherry picked heterosexual subset of the bigger group 'dads (of any sexuality) who share DNA with their child, which is a group tested by the research.

Group B are more of a risk because they are genetically unrelated.
This group is just a cherry picked subset of the gay members of the bigger group 'genetically unrelated dads' group from the research.

So your unfortunate example actually works according to the research. But not for the reasons you are incorrectly attributing to me, and other PP, ie 'gay dads are more of a risk'.

I have no reason to believe this statement as it's not what the research linked by the pp said.

These subtleties are really important when interrogating datasets.

No - again - it's not about sexuality, it's got nothing to do with sexuality. It's about the context/ circumstances of the reproductive pathway/ parenting relationship.

You cannot take studies that examine dynamics in step/ blended (or even adopted families) and apply them to families using gamete donation and surrogacy.

It's an entirely different reproductive/ parenting context.

You cannot assume the results will be the same, simply because both groups share one characteristic (lack of shared DNA), when there are so many other characteristics of the reproductive/ parenting context that are completely different.

I think it is you not quite understanding to be honest.

Tandora is saying, as I understand it, that the research proves that genetically unrelated men in a step-parent role (I’m using that term to describe any partner of a parent who has come into the child’s life without the primary objective of being their parent) pose a higher risk.

What Tandora is disputing is your claim that this research proves that the higher risk is because of the lack of biological connection.

And she is right I think. The research proves a correlative relationship but not a causative relationship between biological relationship and risk.

To actually make the claim that is being made stand up, you’d need to control for things like the age at which the individual entered the child’s life and whether they were always an intended parent of the child or not.

It’s not hard to see why - a step dad who meets a mum of a 12 year old is very different to a parent who adopts a 2 year old or who becomes a genetically unrelated parent through surrogacy. The latter two were the child’s parents or intended parents from the start of the relationship between them and the child. They have never known the child except in the context of a parental relationship. They will have all of the usual parent child bonding moments that biological parents have (obviously in the case of adoption this may depend slightly on age of the child at adoption).

So the claim being made requires evidence that the reason that males in step-parent roles pose a higher risk is because of the lack of DNA, rather than the lack of intention to be a parent to that child or the lack of bonding moments in a parent child context.

You're right, I shouldn't have snuck the 'because' in there! Posted in a hurry.

I was focused on trying to explain why the results do not show us to draw conclusions about sexuality.

Why do you assume that bonding moments will have any impact?

The fact is that there is very little research in this area. So all we can do is extrapolate from other studies.

And back to the original post, which is about gay men using surrogacy, in a gay couple, only one of those men is the biological father.

We can say "oh it's more like adoption" or "he has known the child since birth" but fact it, we don't know the risk level, and given the other studies about non related father figures, imo we should be vigilant.

I'm an adopter. I know a family where the man pushed for his wife to agree to adopt and all the time he was part of a paedophile ring and, long story, but the children he was planning to adopt had a lucky escape.

That doesn't mean we stop men adopting but it definitely shows why there are lots of checks - and remember, these just don't exist in surrogacy.

What we shouldn't do is impute causation to studies where none is proven.

You cannot see the need to assess risks for the baby then?
It's fine for any men to purchase a baby to please them with no checks. Why not allow any age child to be purchased by males then?
Nothing to see here...

Except I didn’t say any of that, did I?

FiLiA are holding a surrogacy law reform consultation meeting on Zoom on Wednesday 24th September at 7pm.

"This FiLiA Women’s Assembly online session will involve a discussion around the key questions asked in the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology "POST" consultation and women will have the opportunity to both contribute to FiLiA’s response and support to complete their own response to the consultation."

Free to attend and you can register here:
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/filia1/1864283

There are significant ethical issues with surrogacy, but I'm not sure why OP is having a go at gay men specifically, it does come across as needlessly homophobic. Lots of heterosexual couples also use surrogacy, either due to infertility or often because the woman doesn't want to go through pregnancy and childbirth (seems to be becoming more and more common with celebs and the wealthy). Personally I don't think commercial surrogacy should be legal in any circumstances, the sexuality or gender of the prospective parents is irrelevant. I'm not even sure altruistic surrogacy should be legal either. This was a dreadful (commercial) surrogacy case I read about recently in America. This woman and her partner hired 2 surrogates simultaneously, didn't disclose a genetic issue which made the pregnancies high risk, one surrogate nearly died during childbirth and had to have a hysterectomy, and the other had a stillbirth and has been horrifically harassed by the woman who hired her ever since, and left with the medical bills.
https://www.wired.com/story/the-baby-died-whose-fault-is-it-surrogate-pregnancy/

Gay men are not using surrogacy as a solution to infertility- when surrogacy was first introduced, it was as a sisterhood thing, a way for one woman to help another woman who could not carry her own baby.

Now it is a complete free for all. Men can obtain babies without as much as speaking to a woman. Yes straight couples do it too, but usually after years of infertility treatments.

Gay and single men are exploiting two women - the person they buy the eggs from and the surrogate. Straight couples often use their own eggs.

Gay men are the ones posting about it on social media. Straight couples tend to keep a low profile. So when people complain in response to social media posts, it is overwhelmingly about gay men, whose posts are ads for other people, especially, to dovthe same.

Thing is, gay men have huge purchasing power and are well placed to fund a purchase. They, and single men, are leading the way in a Handmaid's Tale dystopian future where the only women giving birth are the poor, as everyone else uses a surrogate.

And they are deliberating motherless children. You may not have a problem with that - plenty of people think that's a sorrow. I support gay men adopting, as adoption is the solution to a difficult situation, but to deliberately create a child and to remove it from its mothers, both of whom are probably fit and well and out there during that child's childhood, is bizarre. Imo children need their mothers unless there is a catastrophe. That's not being homophobic - it's being child centered, something the surrogacy industry certainly is not.

Have you read the article I linked? That woman certainly wasn't keeping a low profile or having any sense of 'sisterhood' with the two women she exploited! Neither were the many other cases I have read about. From what I have seen the women and the gay men who use commercial surrogacy generally behave with often the exact same disregard for the womens welfare. It sounds like you are letting your biases get in the way. And I've made it very clear that I do have a problem with that, I don't agree with surrogacy for anyone male/female gay/straight, and I do agree with adoption for any gender/sexuality.

I disagree with all surrogacy. But we are talking here quite specifically about gay men using it and I do believe that there are particular reasons for concern.

In a child centered world, the babies would come first.

This is not the case with surrogacy at all.

These babies have no rights. None of the agencies or adults involved are thinking about their needs

But gay and single men are not who surrogacy was introduced for. We were told it was an altruistic act from one woman for another. It has gone far from that, partly driven by this huge new market of gay and single men, who are deliberately creating motherless children. I don't see that as progress.

Like I said, I'm against all surrogacy - is have two adopted children and I have seen at close hand how much sorrow is involved when a child loses its birth mother. In adoption the child couldn't remain with her. In surrogacy the adults are choosing that for their own purposes.

But gay men are a completely new and growing market and normalising/ celebrating/ encouraging it isn't good. Can you imagine not knowing your mother,?!

I just think focusing specifically on gay men rather than issues with surrogacy in general makes it much harder to advocate against surrogacy effectively as it comes across as homophobic rather than focusing on the child. I see what you're saying but even in heterosexual surrogacy the child is deliberately being created to be taken away from their birth mother.

So the premise of this answer is that surrogacy involving gay couples is worse than surrogacy involving straight couples.

Now most of your post is about the trauma for the baby of being removed from their birth mother. Which is fair enough as a concern but is not worse for gay couples than straight couples.

You then slightly switch to using the term ‘motherless’ suggesting that what you think makes gay surrogacy worse is the lack of any mother in the child’s life rather than specifically just the lack of a birth mother.

Is that correct? Because that seems to go beyond just concerns about surrogacy into a general value judgement based on whether a child is raised by a straight couple or a gay one.