Disappointed that Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie is promoting her use of surrogacy as compatible with feminism

[Carla786]

I loved Purple Hibiscus and recently got through the rest of her books from my library. I really like her novels and especially her GC stance, but I was discussing her on a feminist subreddit recently and her use of surrogacy came up. It's disappointing she promotes it here as compatible with feminism,

https://www.premiumtimesng.com/entertainment/naija-fashion/791804-ive-no-regrets-welcoming-my-twins-through-surrogacy-chimamanda-adichie.html

Infertility is of course extremely painful, but I don't think that justifies using another woman's womb.

If you think a committed heterosexual relationship involves exploitation, abuse of power, unconscious grooming, or any situation that doesn't involve informed consent - which are the examples I cited - then I really don't know what to say. Perhaps you need to raise your bar on what you expect from a relationship because none of those things are normal - or acceptable.

A healthy relationship does not involve any form of coercion or abuse - conscious or unconscious - unlike surrogacy.

I make no apology whatsoever in saying that women cannot provide informed consent when they are being exploited. You can't give willing, conscious, and informed consent to your own exploitation.

I can see how offering to carry a baby for close friends or family feels very different from the rest of the surrogacy industry. But surrogacy leads to industrial-scale exploitation of women's bodies. I think anyone who supports it should read this Times investigation.
https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/parenting/article/infertility-surrogacy-industry-undercover-cyprus-3qhwm9cbc

https://archive.ph/mk5oR#selection-2187.94-2187.271

Heartbreaking extracts include this: One tells me about some clients of his who changed their mind about wanting the baby, giving it up for adoption in Tbilisi soon after the birth. “That nearly broke me,” he says.

That covers just about every situation where a woman puts herself at any increased risk of injury or harm. Including planned pregnancy in a committed heterosexual relationship.

From a purely evolutionary point procreating your own genetic material is the entire point of having children. I know it's not a particularly popular position to take but it hasn't really helped society and women to ignore the biological underpinning of people's desire to procreate.

It’s very rare but significant events do happen.

A school friend’s post partum haemorrhage wasnt well managed and sadly she died having her third child. She was 35. Her 2 daughters were 2 and 5.

My cousin lost her baby after birth complications. The baby died a week after the birth from brain injury. Had the baby lived, his life long care needs would have significant.

Neither of these scenarios involved surrogacy and they are very rare outcomes, but they would need to be part of any conversation

Its the baby that I feel for most. I cannot imagine knowingly traumatising a baby by taking it from its mother. Horrific.

Yes. I had admired her previously.

Tragic that she has lost her son, though.

Out of interest, do you agree with paid for surrogacy, particularly international paid for surrogacy, on the basis of bodily autonomy? And if so, do you agree with paid for organ donation for the same reason?

Even puppies have to stay with their mother for 8 weeks in this country, because we know it's very detrimental otherwise. How have we got to a place where babies have fewer rights than dogs?

Sure and I have that risk with any pregnancy. I planned to have more kids. Could happen while birthing them.

These are class issues. Yes she is a feminist and a great writer but she's also from an upper class background and is used to servants and things done for her. Such people simply pay others to solve their problems.

Love the art not the artist!

Well, partly. But morals are not class based!

No that isnt what you said, you said:

"You can’t provide informed consent when you have been groomed but as women, that’s exactly what we’re subjected to from the moment we can understand speech. Surrogates are women who have been unconsciously coerced into carrying a child because it’s a “kind” thing to do"

You said that as women have been groomed from birth, we are incapable of giving informed consent. That means that we cant consent to sex as we have been groomed to be compliant. Are we really saying yes? When we agree to have a baby with our husband, is it because we enthusistically consent to it, or because we've been told to.be kind?

Because it sounds more like you think women can only truly consent to things you agree with otherwise they are being exploited.

No i dont agree with paid surrogacy but that isnt what I found in this country. As I said earlier, the most worrying thing i found was women who seem addicted to pregnancy and will be a Surrogate for anyone

Nobody is using AI, you answered a post i quoted of someone else and then insisted it was you. It seems more like you using a sock account that you forgot wasnt you posting from this account than me using AI.

Nobody used AI, I think i just uncovered you using 2 accounts though and that is why you thought you typed the words i quoted.

Yes - thats the point. What plans did you make for those scenarios?

Surrogacy involves a baby, not just the mother's body. So it is not merely a discussion of the mother's bodily autonomy. The baby is a sentient human being, who is trafficked and traded to satisfy adult desires.

Trading humans is abhorrent and should never happen. Deliberately conceiving a human baby with the sole intention of removing them at birth is barbaric.

We understand and acknowledge the need for other infant mammals to be left with their mother's for weeks after birth. We understand this benefits their growth, development, their immune system, their neurological mapping and their physiological and emotional regulation. But with human babies born into surrogacy we deliberately create a primal wound and negatively impact their physical and emotional well being. How can this ever be ok?

If a baby is not the surrogate's biologically then we know this leads to more risk of complications for surrogate and baby and it makes no difference to the primal wound for the baby who only knows that mother's heartbeat, voice and smell.

The same as any mother who prefers not to die in her subsequent pregnancies.

And the lifelong care issue?

ETA who was to be the nominated career for your child if you died?

Their father.....

These risks are present in all pregnancies. If it was somehow selfish for me to have my own children after I had my son, then it would have been also selfish to risk my life with a surrogate pregnancy. We don't usually call women selfish for having more than one child on the basis that the pregnancy risked her life.

We probably have women here who had a much higher risk first pregnancy than I did, meaning their chance of another high risk pregnancy was much increased. They still had subsequent children knowing they could die in the pregnancy and leave their existing children motherless.

For goodness sakes.

You said 'You didn't write that quote.' to @BootMaker

You meant '"With surrogacy it’s impossible to give informed consent because what a woman is actually doing is simply yielding to the societal view that she must be kind, helpful, and put herself last. You can’t provide informed consent when you have been groomed but as women, that’s exactly what we’re subjected to from the moment we can understand speech."' which was written by @SpidersAreShitheads and had already been replied to by @BootMaker

You said it to look like you meant a post written by @BootMaker

Why you are unable to follow your own bloody rabbit holes I have no idea but you make every little thing all about you and deliberately confuse people to what end I have no idea.

No, I directly replied to a quote by @SpidersAreShitheads. Then @BootMaker came to answer the question which didnt make sense because that isn't who wrote the paragraph I quoted. Bootmaker then insisted that she did write the quote.

I believe in abortion to the point of birth, not because I want to 'kill babies' but because every other option supposes that the woman is less important than the feotus and so few women actually would take that option (and only then for extreme reasons), that we shouldn't even have the conversation, the conversation feels regressive.

Until birth the health of the mother must always be prioritised (and is) but I cannot accept the woman’s right not to have a child living with adoptive parents that she never sees should be higher than the right of a viable full term baby to live. And at term that is the only choice - the baby is still has to be born. And if the mother’s right to not have biological offspring-spring is so high then why not kill the baby after birth?

Yes, babies are dependent on adults for a good long while. Where is the line drawn?

Fwiw I think UK laws and limits have it about right.

a - yes people respond to other people's posts in internet forums, its kinda what people do.
b - she said she wrote the POST that you QUOTED saying 'you did not write the QUOTE'. which was not even in the POST that you QUOTED.