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.

Or they can coparent w each other, as Germany for one encourages, and people in other places also do.

Posted twice, sorry!

I too have questioned all parentage journeys where the child looses contact with their natural biological families.
They often seem to have missed that later in life and crave to find the missing pieces. Mostly all turns out fine and positive, to be fair.

I tend to view gay couples who manage to have children with other gay couples and who ensure both biological parents remain in contact as more favourable than using donated eggs or sperm implanted in donated wombs often in other countries.
There is room for so much exploitation.

I also view donations of womb, sperm or eggs within families as having better outcomes for the offspring. Just my opinion - no real research.

It's all hunches and if I had actual personal experience I would, no doubt, feel differently.
What is important is that children are well cared for, loved and wanted.

They CAN have babies. They just need to coparent w a lesbian or maybe straight woman to do that. Germany, for one, sensibly encourages this & facilitates w websites.

I think you're quite right, on both of those.

Donor sperm & eggs are bad, whoever is using it, unless they are using a known donor who the child will regularly see.

So if a heterosexual couple adopt a baby they are equally upsetting & exploitative to you?

Ever heard of orphans? Or people who justifiably want a better life for the children they can't raise that are most likely to be raised in inhumane conditions?

Here's the thing about facilitators of exploitation, it's ultimately about who you vote for & whether their policies further expose people in poverty to such difficult decisions.

In other words, the voter & the exploiter are one.

Or for coparenting arrangements, rather than surrogacy.

Arguably it makes a mockery if a woman does similar w a surrogate. But even Kim Kardashian wasn't that brazen- or was she?

Seems more of a male thing to boast like that, not exclusively but more often.

What if they coparent w the mother?

What do you think of gay men who coparent then? They aren't breaking the bond.

But as this sensible lesbian Substacker w a kid points out, too few do that, preferring to use surrogates. We need to ban surrogacy & promote lesbigay coparenting like Germany has.

www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=reactionarylesbian.substack.com/p/why-dont-gay-men-want-to-co-parent&ved=2ahUKEwj3v9n4w8WPAxWXVEEAHRzRLi0QFnoECEUQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1dFMRKU6_kLQrKvbyZqfgl

It is illegal in the UK too! At least to pay any more than reasonable expense, without a court order. That's why you get so many couples going to i.e. the USA etc. as it is very hard to find a UK surrogate.

For someone asking about ethnicity, generally the egg donor is separate from the surrogate to reduce the likelihood of the surrogate wanting to keep the baby.

So that's why you get third world country frequently used as surrogates. That's obviously also the riskiest part, as pregnancy is risky.

Hence my comment about it feeling like a new form of colonialism. If you think it's okay to have a private "womb" market why not include your fellow countrywomen? Urgh.

They need to coparent w a lesbian or maybe a straight woman friend. Or adopt.

Nobody should use surrogates or sperm or egg donors w no contact. Wr need to follow the German method where surrogacy is banned & gay men are encouraged to coparent w lesbians. No separation from bio mum or bio dad, ideal solution.

Nobody should use surrogates or sperm or egg donors w no contact

The problem with contracts for surrogacy is two fold.

One, they can’t possibly account for all eventualities that might arise from a pregnancy, meaning it’s inevitable that events will occur that fall outside of the contract and require a court to decide.

Two, it isn’t possible for a contract to protect all three parties’ rights equally. Something has to give, someone has to be given lesser rights in order for it to work. I don’t see how it is ethically and morally acceptable to allow parties to enter into a compromising contract where the transaction of a human to be deliberately separated from its mother is the outcome.

Surrogacy is gross exploitation no matter who is doing the exploiting, but yes, the gay situation is particularly reprehensible when critics (sometimes gay themselves) are accused of "homophobia".

I'm all for equality - I want surrogacy outlawed for everyone equally.

No, no you misunderstand. I don't agree w surrogacy at all. I meant to write 'contact' not 'contract'

What I meant was, I don't agree w sperm donation unless the lesbian couple coparents w the man so the child will know their bio dad. For this reason I think lesbigay coparenting is the way to go. I don't think it's right for a man or woman to donate sperm or an egg and then have no contact.

I don't mind sperm donors @AliasGrace47 it's long been around for heterosexual couples, not that uncommon but people don't talk about it.
Most sperm donors aren't looking for a long term relationship.

Without wanting to be crude, men can regardless just spunk and go. There's not the same biological connection and women do bring up babies in groups in some societies, from my little understanding.

There would be also no easy way to prevent it, how would you tell if a woman had had sex with a man to conceive a child with a lesbian partner? Some do just use men they know!

No ons has a right to a child

I'm all for equality - I want surrogacy outlawed for everyone equally.

Me too

Have people seen this article. The horrors within are on another level.

archive.ph/Wh7Rv

Granted, this commissioning parent is downright evil, which the vast majority of people will not be. But it just shows you what happens when you make human life a commodity that can be bought and sold.

Sorry, I misread contact as contract!

I agree OP.
Gay men. Not the allies women seem to think

I don't think that's good though. Fathers are important too, w unique contributions to make, and it can be really upsetting to for children to grow up and find out their bio dad just 'spunked and went". I also think it's bad for men to get in a mindset where they just donate sperm & completely disregard their offspring afterwards.

There are many accounts of the sadness of sperm donor-conceived children. The Reddit forum DonorConceived, for one, or the website We are donor conceived.

Most sperm donors don't want a long term- ofc at the banks they don't. That's why lesbians who want a gay man to be the bio dad usually use friends (or try & find via coparenting websites). It is possible.

Obvs ONSs can't be prevented. But I really doubt many lesbians do that.

I have a lot of lesbian friends and use some mainly lesbian forums (I'm bi) and they all feel absolute repulsion at the idea of sex w a man. Many do IVF bc they don't want to inject the sperm directly into their body.

I'm sure a few women did that back when IVF was not an option , sperm banks were less common & gay men were often more likely to be painting the town red rather than settling down to family life. But times are different now thankfully, and there are other options.

A friend made the argument that gay men 'have no choice' but to do surrogacy if they want a biological child, that straight men can just have a baby of their own if they want one. Her argument assumes that straight men have some inalienable right to make women pregnant.

They don't even consider that straight men still have have to convince a woman to mate with them...and we all know men have impregnated women w/out their consent since time immemorial, they have controlled our reproduction, our kinships, our money, our children and our access to our children.

Like an earlier poster said, gay men are no different in believing that all men should get what they want.