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.

Yes all surrogacy is wrong. But gay or single men can now have babies without as much as ever speaking to a woman, never mind touching her. It puts the contribution of a woman to the creation of the child down to a monetary transaction - two in fact, as they usually use a different woman for the egg.

Basically this is dystopian. Men used to have to have a relationship with a woman to have a child. Now they can use their superior spending power to fo nothing more than send in a sperm sample, browse egg donors from a catalogue- super model or ivy league graduate? - then turn up and pick up the baby. In some LA hospitals they now have two rooms available for surrogate births where the baby is born in one and then rushed into the other, where the purchasers are waiting.

Many women who use surrogacy use their own eggs. This is clearly not possible when it comes to men. So all these babies have two mothers who are completely erased from the child's life.

Surrogacy is being pitched as the way to bring equality in fertility treatments to gay and single men, without any consideration of the profound issues involved both for women generally and the child in particular.

Men used to have to at least tolerate the child's mother. Not any more. Women are potentially just parts of the process and more and more men, gay or single, will take advantage of this.

You’re making the arguments against surrogacy yourself.

I didn't say I was pro-surrogacy, so there's that.

What I am saying is that people on here seem to have decided that surrogacy is ALWAYS a result of exploited women and that no other narrative is possible.

They have also decided that the surrogate is always the 'biological' mother, and if the biological dad is the commissioning parent that is irrelevant.

'your body your choice' doesn't seem to feature too heavily here - 'your body, won't someone think of the child' seems more applicable. Now where have I heard that before... ?

And that 'adoption' is thrown around as a solution to infertility (howsoever caused) with no regard to the huge implications that that also brings. But, hey! At least it's not surrogacy so we're all good.

and you accept that surrogacy causes the same trauma, why is it ok to deliberately create such a situation where this trauma will occur

No. I haven't accepted that surrogacy causes the 'same' trauma - that's your biased interpretation. I didn't say that at all. The trauma of adoption is not only being removed from the birth mother but also substance abuse in utero and/or abuse or neglect in early life before they are removed from the home. That's the trauma I'm talking about.

People on this board get very mouth-frothy if someone has a different opinion - and flounce off saying 'well if you're not going to toe the line then there's no point arguing with you'. It's just an echo chamber.

It doesn't need explaining to me. I just don't agree with the militant, generalising viewpoints on here.

Force teaming surrogacy with gay rights doesn't stop it being child trafficking and commodifying children and women's reproductive systems.

I have no time for it.

I don't care what the identity of the person trying to commission it. It's irrelevant.

So by this logic, IVF should never be available on the NHS or publicly funded?

So you don't understand the difference between surrogacy and adoption with regard to the circumstances the child is brought into the world?

I mean it's not exactly a difficult one. What are you struggling with?

And what are you finding so 'militant'?

I agree and find these supposedly feel-good stories where surrogacy is being promoted very manipulative. They're definitely latching onto the gay rights cause just as heterosexual transvestites did.

You could make that argument, yes.

But humans are built to procreate and if there are issues with that process at child bearing age, there is usually a medical reason.

Which is totally immaterial to the fact that if you can't conceive for whatever reason, that doesn't mean to you have a right to rent a woman's uterus to make it happen for you.

I said I didn't need it explaining, I'm not struggling with anything. I said I don't agree - that's not the same as lack of comprehension. HTH.

What exactly do you not agree with?

You were making out in your post upthread that we were hypocrites for suggesting there's a difference.

So which is it? They're the same, so same rules apply?

Or they're different and the moralities are not equivalent?

Surrogacy should be banned regardless of who is doing it. It is beyond cruel to deliberately inflict that on a child who cannot consent to it.

A medical reason but one that presents no risk to health. So IVF shouldn't be funded as having a child is not a right.

I see it (in terms of funding) as similar to a disability. A human should be able to hear, so while being deaf is no risk to health, it does impact significantly on quality of life, so it should be treated if possible.

Se principle can be applied to fertility during child bearing years.

However it gets very complicated when it comes to how many attempts should be funded and where the cut off should be.

Also treatong infertility may not be the same thing as ivf.

True. And you cannot ignore the absolute class disparities in surrogacy.

How often is it a working class woman being paid by some middle class + arseholes.

We're nowt more than commodities to them. Be that for sex, incubation or labour.

Our bodies are not our own.

It does but when Gay men do it there seems to be a particular celebration over it and criticism of people who object as homophobic.
ALL surrogacy is awful

Gay men often post about it on social media. Straight couples and single parents not so much. Further down the line they can pretend surrogacy wasn't involved in a way the guy men can't. And in their community it is seen as non controversial. Gay men want equal access to fertility treatments and here are men doing it. So they are lauded in a way that doesn't happen for the others, who are more likely to be told to adopt.

If separating a mother and child why is adoption any better? Adoption from birth surely leads to the exact same trauma?

As has been pointed out again and again and again on these threads- what’s the alternative? Leave the child with birth parents who are likely to abuse or neglect them; possibly even kill them? Or leave the child in a care home and then release them into the world aged 18 with no grounding, no parenting, no roots?

Placing a child with adoptive parents is done when it is the least worst option. Most adoptive parents make an absolutely excellent job of raising the child(ren) they have adopted. The child gets much better opportunities and life chances than they would otherwise have had. The child gets to experience being loved by a family. And even when it goes really well and the child grows up happy, settled and with good mental health, still damage very often remains from those very early experiences. I know a number of adults who were adopted- all are thankfully doing well in life, now have their own families, enjoy successful careers…. But still there remains a wound from not knowing the woman who grew and birthed them.

Sorry- least worst option sounds awful. I mean adoption is almost always the very best option for a child who has been removed from (or given up by) their parents.

If separating a mother and child why is adoption any better? Adoption from birth surely leads to the exact same trauma?

I don’t think anyone has said adoption is better for the child. Adoption comes about when a mother is unable or unwilling to care for their child and it is removed. Very similar issues to surrogacy except that nowadays, extra care is taken to maintain contact between mother and child and also VERY careful vetting of adoptive parents.

Therefore adoption is safer for the child than surrogacy.

The issue is that a child being put up for adoption is a last resort when all else fails. Surrogacy deliberately creates children who are likely to suffer the same separation issues as adopted kids but with almost no vetting or reasonable expectations of the parents in age for example to protect them.

In Ireland surrogacy is quite a big social/political issue - there have been court cases around the nationality of children born to surrogate mothers outside the state, and the parental rights of the 'new' parents.

While I can think of one high-profile gay male couple here who have children, [the surrogate mother in that case was the sister of one of the men] the issue is always, in my experience, set in the context of heterosexual couples who are unable to have children, and who believe that their wish to have children, via surrogacy if necessary, is paramount, and should be facilitated by legislation.

The usual argument is that the desire to have a child is so fundamental and biological and visceral and undeniable that anybody who hasn't experienced infertility cannot understand it - and by implication should not interfere with their right to have a child via surrogacy.

That 'mom and apple pie' defence of surrogacy is very powerful, and I've heard some very emotional interviews with heterosexual couples who are very distressed by their inability to have children, and equally distressed at anyone who suggests there is anything wrong with surrogacy, especially anyone who has not experienced infertility themselves.

Mentioning 'the welfare of the child' or 'the freedom of choice of the mother' or 'ethics' doesn't seem to carry much weight against the emotional 'you can't understand the desire to have a child, to be a proper family' argument.

It's all from the same idea that having a child by any means is an inalienable right, whatever your biology, whether you are a man, gay or straight, and therefore not able to become pregnant and give birth, or a woman with medical issues that make her unable to have a child.

Sadly, I think when an organisation has a financial interest in someone passing psychological screening, the person is unlikely to fail.

Yes, look at Tom Daley, cosy cardigan wearing poster boy for surrogate use. Using his profile to promote it for all and ‘remove the shame’.

It’s a pity that ‘removing the shame’ will just create more motherless children. Not good for them.

I think some of the posters here are approaching it from the angle "what is the best way to ensure every family can have a child - is it IVF, surrogacy or adoption?"

The posters against surrogacy (myself included) simply don't think every family CAN have a child and we shouldn't design policy to ensure that, if the cost to our society (including the children in it) would be too high. We think in particular the cost to babies deliberately separated from their mothers at birth is too high.

IVF is a different issue. Individuals may agree/disagree about whether the financial costs of 1, 2, or more rounds of NHS-funded IVF are also worth it, or the emotional costs on donor-conceived children; the underlying logic of "don't impose 'rights' without considering the costs" is the same, but it's a different set of numbers in each calculation.

That's not to say it's not heartbreaking to not be able to have a baby. I'm sure we all acknowledge that.

It's a good question.

Maybe she did pass the tests but what happened drove her over the edge.

However I do think her profile (ferociously high achieving woman used to spending big to get what she wants) should have rung some alarm bells.

Ultimately, I think it shows you can't legislate/screen your way out of the issues here. Human babies, human bodies, life and death are all far, far too complex.

It's particularly shocking that two surrogates have suffered so much. The first is grieving the child she carried while Bi tries to bankrupt her/get her jailed for murder. The second had placenta issues and had to have a hysterectomy. And Bi is looking for a third!