Cameron Diaz “has third child” aged 53

[Namingbaba]

It worries me that some people just read headlines like this and think all these women have children naturally. At least that’s the impression I got from reading the comments on this story. The surrogacy sometimes isn’t even mentioned.

This. ^

Obviously someone like CD is going to pay her surrogate a decent amount of money and ensure she has the best healthcare. If something went wrong, I can't see her just washing her hands of the situation and allowing the person who carried her child to suffer. So in that sense it's different from the exploitation of women in places like Ukraine or India.

But although the conditions are better, it's still treating snother person's body as a commodity.

Im esp concerned about the use of eggs from one woman, another woman carrying the baby and then a third woman (or no woman) raising it. And when gay men mix their sperm so no one knows who is the genetic father. To me it's completely dismissive of a child's right to know where they come from, who is their real parent (even if that parent isn't raising them), There's no one who can claim that child as 'theirs' in a true biological sense because the egg donor thinks of it as 'just' eggs, the surrogate has no DNA connection - who is the 'real' biological parent? No one is thinking of the kids in all this.

And choices aren't made in a vacuum. How free is the choice to be a surrogate, if you are poor/under pressure?
We don't let people sell their body organs either, even though they are consenting adults.

I hated being the daughter of a single mother. At least I knew who my father was, and he'd occasionally appear (and he was a shit father), but I hated hated hated that I wasn't a part of a two parent family like all my school friends were.

No unnatural method of conception ever centres the baby and child, neither IVF nor surrogacy. It's always all about what the adult or adults want. I always think this when I read about it, and I think, well at least I didn't have it as bad as those children.

I think surrogacy should be banned full stop. IVF with a sperm donor too.

Yes, a vast number of terrible parents conceive naturally. And you can't legislate against that - but you can legislate against adding to the sum of human misery.

How does natural conception centre the baby/child any more than "unnatural" IVF? Of course it's initially about what the adults want in either situation - they're the ones making the choice to have or continue a pregnancy.

I had IVF due to unexplained infertility - no donor sperm or eggs. Her method of conception has had no impact on my child.

So the women in their 50s who get pregnant naturally should be forced to put the baby up for adoption?
Some women in their 50s are healthier and have a bigger support network than some in their 30s. I've worked with a few women who are bringing up their grandchildren, for various reasons, all all were great and the children were doing well. Obviously they didn't give birth, but did all the everyday work.

@Pistachiocake Women in their 50s ain't getting pregnant naturally, carrying to full term, and having the baby. This is not happening.

In addition, very few women are 'bringing up their grandchildren' in their 50s and 60s... Not in the 21st century.

.

Honestly, after multiple miscarriages, if I could have afforded a surrogate, I would have done it.

Not sure about that (the grandchildren thing). I've known quite a few, when the parents can't cope for whatever reason.

Your ability to get IVF means anyone can do it, not just 'deserving' inexplicably infertile couples with viable sperm and eggs like you and your partner.

So, some of these IVF babies will have a random donor as a biological father. This is even worse than a deadbeat or absent father. It just leaves a big anonymous blank in place of a father. Imagine how that would feel to a child growing up. I can, and I even knew who my father was.

People seem to think they are entitled to have children, whenever they want. I say no.

So their DC are not really theirs. Another woman made the child, not the celebrity 'mother'. The whole surrogacy industry stinks.

So what’s a mother then? Is it the person who protected you and nurtured you and told you off and raised you up…or is it strictly only the person who gave birth to you?

If I find out tomorrow my mother wasn’t my birth mother do I suddenly have to change our relationship to casual pleasantries because I’m now not “really theirs”?

No because that would be her choice to enter into such an arrangement she offered and genuinely wanted to help as did her husband. If she had gone ahead with it her next of kin would remain her husband. We would have no say in such an awful scenario. As is right.
Commercial surrogacy is problematic in those circumstances as I suppose it depends upon the law of the country the child is conceived and gestated in. However in an effort to understand this, I looked at the US federal and state rules. (As this was about an American family using a surrogate) There appears to be no ambiguity about a question of who makes a decision about life or death if each (mother and child’s) lives are at risk. The birth mother maintains absolute control over this decision. No surrogacy contract can over rule that and if she is not conscious then her advocate remains the only word that must be upheld. Failing that when no advocate for the mother being present then the attending doctor must have his patients care paramount and is obliged to save her life before that of a baby regardless of the contract .

This seems at odds with the narrative in this discussion.

A surrogate doesn’t usually use their own egg - so wondering why these older famous people don’t use a donor egg and do ivf theirselves - is it an age thing or that they don’t went to spend 9mths getting fat etc

This is simply not true. I’ve now spend the evening down a great big surrogacy rabbit hole.. nowhere does the surrogate lose the right to terminate within the laws of the country. Not India or Ukraine.

There seems to be lots of made up narratives on this thread.

The baby. The baby who will be taken from his or her mother at birth.

Deep trauma. Lifelong.

It amazes me that anyone could support the buying and selling of babies.

If it isn't grotesque enough for you, do please consider that single men are buying babies from surrogates.

My point is their mother is the woman who loved them and raised them, and that person will still very much be with them. What lifelong trauma will they get from being separated from someone they never met?

https://www.wired.com/story/the-baby-died-whose-fault-is-it-surrogate-pregnancy/

@DontSayItsOver adopted children can suffer trauma from being taken from birth mother, no matter how much they are loved by their adoptive parents.

Children may suffer trauma knowing they were a commercial transaction and treated as a commodity

I'm pretty sure, anyone who uses a surrogate does it because they have to.

Assuming you are not on the wind up, separating a baby from his or her mother causes severe trauma.

In utero a foetus/baby learns the sound of its mother's voice, the rhythm of her heartbeat, her smell.

It's well known and understood that babies will have serious trauma from birth separation. This is likely to be life long.

Acknowledgement and preparation for this trauma is part of adoption.

www.adoptionuk.org/introduction-to-trauma-and-attachment

If a child has to be removed from its mother for safeguarding reasons/relinquished, children's services will approach the grandparent(s) first. Its very common.

There is no buying involved in the UK, you pay expenses which is recognising that pregnancy is hard work.

You missed the current lawsuit in the US then, where the buyers wanted to force the mother to abort for a heart defect and the mother is now being sued for breach of contract.

Surrogacy contracts contain a lot that is illegal or on the verge of ilegal but knowing these are often poor women doing it for the cash, how many good lawyers do you think the mother can afford in comparison to the wealthy buyers?