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'm not the one who made this about gay couples. I simply used that example because it's what the OP made the thread about. Feel free to substitute for "straight couples" "single women" etc.

Birth is traumatic for babies - should we not do that either? Should they stay in there?

My point is, people do not spend their lives damaged and struggling because someone other than the woman who birthed them fed and changed their nappies. Children who are truly loved and well cared for will typically grow up happy and healthy, regardless of who provides that care.

Plus you weren’t separated from your mother irrevocably, forever.

Surrogacy does this on purpose.

It's also woeful ignorance to not recognise that babies are regularly separated from their mothers at birth for a myriad of reasons, not always within the mother's control. Those babies don't all then go up to spend their lives suffering as a result.

It's also woeful ignorance to compare a human baby to a dog.

Ok, so by this logic, do you think requiring a family court judge to decide if it’s ok to remove a baby from its mother is unnecessary? People can just…take babies away because no harm is done to the baby?

How do people this has happened to cope with it all? You think they’re all fine?

Yes - I understand that statistically my one example won't speak for everyone and doesn't make my comment an unequivocal fact. But nor do the blanket statements and generalisations I was replying to 🤷🏻‍♀️

I am again - and these are not rhetorical questions:

Why is it illegal to purchase a newborn baby?

Why can it be legal to purchase a newborn baby if the contract was signed before the mother became pregnant?

TempestTost replied, Part of it is because often the baby is in fact related to the commisioning parent, so it's not quite like selling the baby to a stranger. It's more like paying the mother, or mothers if a donor egg is used, to give up their parental rights.

Would it be acceptable to pay a mother to give up her parental rights over her newborn?

If a child has rights to have biological parents, doesn't selling those rights to another adult strip the child of something that belongs to them, not to the commissioners?

And I go back to my original point. All these things are unacceptable both morally and legally when done to a child - except when a contract to do these things has been signed before the child is 'begun'.

What is the difference?

A woman local to me gifted some embryos to a gay couple and once the men were satisfied with the size of their family they removed the right for the woman to use her own remaining embryos and it’s ended up in a bitter fall out.

They used her and discarded her once they had what they wanted in my opinion. It’s been splashed all over TikTok as the men see themselves as influencers.

Children growing up knowing that their mother purposefully conceived them to give them away is awful. Couples really wanting a baby is not a good enough reason to allow this to happen. It does seem taboo to point this out, and even more so when the couple involved is gay.

What an absolute leap to make - don't be ridiculous.

I'm saying a child brought up by their father, or their loving grandparents, an adoptive family or surrogate parents are not being fundamentally harmed.

It's like The Handmaid's Tale.

Dystopian.

Several decades of research into old style adoption says otherwise. The impact of not growing up in your birth family can be significant and life long, no matter how loved, cared for and wanted you are. Some do indeed 'spend their lives damaged and struggling because someone other than the woman who birthed them fed and changed their nappies'. Not all, but why risk it, unless there's no alternative way for that child to be raised?

In the UK, the bar for a legal adoption to take place is that nothing else will do to safeguard the child. That's a high bar. It has to be agreed by a judge, assessing evidence, that that is the case. Because adoption is about the child, not the wants of adults who don't have a child but want one. Finding the best solution for a child who exists,not creating a child then risking traumatising it, to suit adults wants.

Adopters have to be assessed over several months, complete group training and evidence that they've researched adoption and understand trauma, have to be DBS checked, provide references from family, friends, their employer, have family members interviewed, all of their previous partners contacted, then a report written about their home, their parenting ability, what kind of child the social workers believe they could parent, then have a report written about them and appear in front of a panel to be approved as adopters. Then once a match is identified between adopters and a child waiting for adoption that match has to be approved too, then introductions planned with social workers and foster carers, then once the child is placed the family are visited weekly by social workers and the child is still legally in care and the adopters have no parental rights and aren't allowed to apply to adopt legally for at least 12 weeks after the placement begins, then they gave to apply to the court to actually legally adopt.

Those buying a child through surrogacy just have to have the money. There are no checks or assessments on them whatsoever, all we know about them is they have enough money and so few morals that they're willing to buy a baby.

You’re the one making the leap, that everything we know about separation of babies from their mothers doesn’t matter because you were ok and others can be ok.

Generalisation in this sense is based on all that evidence and data we know.

their father, or their loving grandparents, an adoptive family or surrogate parents

The first three are done out of necessity when the mother isn’t available for whatever reason. It’s not the primary choice and is inevitably done under stressful circumstances. Invariably it is not an option that is chosen, is it?

But surrogacy is the only one where keeping a baby from its mother is the primary goal.

Don't you see a difference?

Of course children can be loved and grow up fine, but that doesn’t make it ok.

Firstly, it’s not “regularly” it is in a small minority of cases for medical reasons.

Why can’t we compare humans with dogs or any other mammal when it comes to giving birth, feeding milk and aftercare? Many instincts are the same. Puppies and human babies both root around instinctively for milk. We’re not that different except humans are born at an earlier stage of development than dogs because of our brain size.

Anyone who has given birth and held the baby shortly after knows this.

Birth is natural process so a very poor comparison.

Babies are separated from their mothers at birth, generally because the mother is judged to be not fit to keep the baby from harm. The trauma caused by separation is weighted up against the risk of death from neglect or abuse.

What evidence do you have to back your rather bold claim Those babies don't all then go up to spend their lives suffering as a result.?

How do you know? Have you not read accounts from people removed from their birth mother for adoption etc and the impact it’s had on their lives and mental health? It sounds like you have no idea what you are talking about and have just assumed.

And yes, we know that puppies suffer long term issues if separated from the mother too early, just like we know that human babies do. It’s a perfectly good comparison.

I don’t feel it’s homophobic to feel that surrogacy is wrong for homosexual couples. I feel it’s wrong even for heterosexual couples, especially in this day and age where we are pretty overpopulated and have climate crisis issues.

I am not here to deny homosexual couples the right to having a family, but I am here for advocating against surrogacy for all. That is my opinion. That is free speech. I am here to advocate for the child in these circumstances.

it would be interesting to access research related to both adults and children who were born from surrogate mothers — I wonder how THEY feel about it. I am interested in their personal experiences growing up. Growing up in a world where they are not with their biological mother perhaps. I can’t imagine that. I wouldn’t want to do that to a human willingly.

A rather fundamental difference with your situation is that the separation from your mother was only 3-4 weeks. Then you were reunited, and presumably she visited you in NICU?

That is not the same as a child removed from its mother at birth permanently.

i don’t know what’s wrong with adoption - surrogacy shouldn’t exist where we have adoption

I fully understand and recognise what you're saying, and I'm not trying to claim surrogacy is fine and dandy as it is. I have already said I can see how it could be exploitative. There likely does need to be further legal guidelines and procedure in place around it.

But with adoption were talking about taking a child from a place of safety under care, so all the steps in place which you have discussed are to ensure the child will remain safe with the new family.

With surrogacy those lines are a bit blurred. We're going from potentially a birth mother who we have no idea how safe and stable her situation is, to a childless couple who are equally an unknown. To me, that's no different in terms of the child's safety than any parents having a child for the first time. Other than a quick pop in from the health visitor, there's nothing to ensure biological parents are adequate.

My partner and I are suffering fertility issues, but I would never ever consider surrogacy. I feel it’s far too traumatic and selfish.

Yes, imo surrogacy is wrong, regardless of the sexual orientation of the parents purchasing the baby.

I have seen one article about the experience of an older surrogate child and it wasn’t good as you’d expect. For the child it is the same effect as adoption and we have many accounts from adults taken from their mother in the days of more common forced adoptions from unmarried mothers and many of them have suffered.

Sadly, because this is a multi million pound industry, in the same way that evidence of harm of transing children and young people is suppressed, evidence of harm to surrogate children will be suppressed. Human beings are becoming a commodity to be exploited for profit by the medical industry.

To me, that's no different in terms of the child's safety than any parents having a child for the first time

But that’s what the court process for removing a child proves. It’s only in cases where it can be absolutely proven a baby will suffer significant harm to be left with its mother that judges rule for their removal. So even if a mother is awful, but not truly, truly awful, all steps are made to keep the baby with her.

Yes, I agree that we don’t know what people are going to be like when they take their newborns home. Yes, there’s a degree of societal trust that the baby will be cared for. But on balance, the majority of babies will be best off with their mothers, and to deliberately create a situation where that doesn’t happen and justify it is to suggest that this balance doesn’t exist.

"My point is, people do not spend their lives damaged and struggling because someone other than the woman who birthed them fed and changed their nappies."

Some don't. Some do. We can't know which, so best to avoid where at all possible.

The point is that we should not buy and sell people.

Where exactly have I said that all babies separated from their mothers at birth are absolutely fantastic? I simply said not all grow up damaged by that. The same way that not all grow up absolutely fine with it.

Not everything is black or white. I'm not here claiming to be an expert, it's a forum where we discuss opinions. My opinion is that just because surrogacy means that babies are separated from the woman who birthed them, doesn't mean to say they will suffer because of that. It doesn't mean they won't either. But it also doesn't mean children who do stay with their birth mothers don't regularly suffer either. The main factor is that they're cared for and loved by whoever raises them. And so I don't think that alone is an argument against surrogacy.

Whether surrogacy is right or not, for me, is more about potential exploitation of the women involved. And if it's all done in accordance with UK law, then that shouldn't be an issue.

Well that’s a surrogacy advert from the woman’s point of view. Anyone care to write one from the hours old baby’s side?

“We should not buy or sell people.”

Seven words. Says it all.