Surrogacy Discussion

[LetticeProtheroe]

A child removed from from it's birth mother via surrogacy suffers the same profound damaging loss as a child removed for adoption. This is the same if the mother has no biological link to the child as they have had 9 months of attachment.
The mother is all that baby has known and the removal leaves a permanent mark on that child.

That is enough for me to think it should be banned but also women aren't rent a wombs. It leads to a trade in poor women who risk their health to give birth for payment. Giving birth is often the closest a woman comes to death and it has a serious impact on her body. I have lasting damage from birth injuries and I have several friends who nearly died.

 

[Not Now Bernard]

Even the phrase “gestational carrier” is boak worthy . Murky language is used to conceal what is really happening - she isn’t a surrogate or gestational carrier she is the baby’s mother.

 

[Reagent]

Infertility is tragic, but because you can doesn't mean you should. Buying babies is human trafficking. The baby is bonded in utero. Even family arrangements without payment is risky. Surrogate pregnancy carries higher risk of severe maternal complications not withstanding the psychological implications. Imo it should be banned worldwide.

 

[Nelly's mum]

I don't agree with surrogacy in any form. Family surrogacy is a minefield - what if the pregnancy goes wrong or the baby is disabled etc? This would be hugely damaging to family members and place a huge strain on family relationships.

I've heard people talk about the trauma of finding out that their 'sister' or 'aunty' is actually their mother, this happened to Eric Clapton - it would be even more traumatic to find out that you were deliberately created and carried by another member if your family - so your mum is actually your aunt etc - it's all kind of weird.

A baby is not a commodity to be bought or sold, most people seem to agree with this, but a baby's primary bond is with their mum - in this respect family surrogacy is just as traumatic for the baby.

 

[Jen667]

I'm totally against surrogacy also and wish to see a worldwide ban. Outsourcing your pregnancy has almost become the norm among the rich and famous. They are buying the use of impoverished women's bodies. Do you honestly think anyone woman puts herself through the stress of fertility treatment, pregnancy, birth and then the trauma of giving up the child if she wasn't truly desperate? Many women are forced into it by controlling husbands or fathers too (witness the Indian baby factories). It's no surprise to learn that the fastest growing centres for surrogacy are poor African countries. Follow Stop Surrogacy Now and Surrogacy Concern and you'll read some horror stories.

 

[Ray_of_Sunshine]

I have met someone who is extremely vulnerable and is currently carrying a child for her own mother and stepdad. She is using her own egg, and he has provided the sperm. I'm still not 100% convinced it was a "Turkey baster" arrangement, and there has been absolutely no involvement through any proper channels. This poor girl attended her booking appointment alone and was very open and honest. In my professional opinion, I have serious concerns regarding her vulnerability, her ability to fully understand the implications, and the possibility that she is being exploited. Safeguarding referrals have been made.

There are some situations like this that are very icky. Others are blatant rent-a-womb business transactions. It's an extremely murky area. Going abroad to buy a baby is also fucked up and should never be allowed! It just opens up the flood gates for sick minded individuals that will stop at nothing to abuse a real life child.

 

[klarakluckbag]

I don't agree with surrogacy in any way, shape or form, it exploits women and turns babies into a commodity. If I had my way, it would be banned worldwide.
The family surrogacy issue is murky at best. Who do we count as "family" exactly? Is carrying a baby for your sister ok? What about your brother and his wife? Your cousin? Or, as in @Ray_of_Sunshine 's deeply sinister example, your mum? I've seen stories of women having babies for their gay brother, or for their younger sister who had cancer as a kid, it always seems to be a woman who has to pay the price for the wants of others.
Having a child is a privilege, not an absolute right. I'm well aware of the sorrows of infertility, I've been close to people who have endured enormous tragedy in their quest to have children. But that's not a problem for another woman to solve.
A horrific practice, there are no situations in which surrogacy is ok. Not a single one.

 

[Lynn’ssnazzycardigan]

The anti surrogacy lobby confuses a sensory preference immediately after birth for the person who carried the baby throughout pregnancy with actual attachment, which doesn't come until months afterwards.

That’s a bit of a reach. “Sensory preference”, are you referring to the experience of the baby in utero, that it is familiar with the birth mother’s voice, emotions (transmitted via hormones etc in the blood) and heartbeat? The only things the baby really knows when it is born. It’s not a brand new, blank product ready to be sold/donated/upcycled, it’s a person with feelings and emotions.

 

[IcanSpellBéchamel]

I am implacably opposed to commercial surrogacy -- it's human trafficking, leads to attachment disorders in the baby and it's exploitation of women (often poor and vulnerable). In addition, surrogate pregnancies with donor eggs carry hugely more risk to both mother and baby than those using the birth mother's egg. And unlike adoption - where there should be proper SS oversight of the baby - there is no such social services oversight for surrogate births unless concerns are raised by which time damage may already been done.

I'm not even very comfortable with surrogacy within close family, tbh. The depth of loss that the baby feels from being removed from the mother at birth is still there.

We don't allow puppies and kittens to be separated from the mother for at least six weeks (unless there are exceptional circs like the death of the animal); if a similar time limit applied to babies it would be measured in years. It's unconscionable to deliberately create a child with the intention to separate it from its mother at birth.

 

[LetticeProtheroe]

The anti surrogacy lobby confuses a sensory preference immediately after birth for the person who carried the baby throughout pregnancy with actual attachment, which doesn't come until months afterwards.

I am not part of the anti surrogacy lobby wtf that is, but it's a load of bollocks that babies do not form attachment with the mother during pregnancy. Obviously they develop other attachments after that but babies don't even know they're separate beings from their mother till 6 months.

Surrogacy is anti woman and makes both their bodies and babies property to be bought and sold. It's barbaric and shows how little society cares about women.

 

[Jen667]

I am implacably opposed to commercial surrogacy -- it's human trafficking, leads to attachment disorders in the baby and it's exploitation of women (often poor and vulnerable). In addition, surrogate pregnancies with donor eggs carry hugely more risk to both mother and baby than those using the birth mother's egg. And unlike adoption - where there should be proper SS oversight of the baby - there is no such social services oversight for surrogate births unless concerns are raised by which time damage may already been done.

I'm not even very comfortable with surrogacy within close family, tbh. The depth of loss that the baby feels from being removed from the mother at birth is still there.

We don't allow puppies and kittens to be separated from the mother for at least six weeks (unless there are exceptional circs like the death of the animal); if a similar time limit applied to babies it would be measured in years. It's unconscionable to deliberately create a child with the intention to separate it from its mother at birth.

I'm with you. So called 'altruistic' surrogacy is fraught with guilt tripping and pressure. I know someone that was placed under huge huge pressure by various family members to carry a baby for a sibling that was unable to due to cancer.

 

[TheMiceInTheShed]

Are there any mothers via surrogacy who are wonderful, in your view?

No, because surrogacy is inherently abusive IMO.

 

[esk]

A child removed from from it's birth mother via surrogacy suffers the same profound damaging loss as a child removed for adoption. This is the same if the mother has no biological link to the child as they have had 9 months of attachment.
The mother is all that baby has known and the removal leaves a permanent mark on that child.

That is enough for me to think it should be banned but also women aren't rent a wombs. It leads to a trade in poor women who risk their health to give birth for payment. Giving birth is often the closest a woman comes to death and it has a serious impact on her body. I have lasting damage from birth injuries and I have several friends who nearly died.

This is why I feel so strongly against it, even within families. I've never wanted to have children, but even if I did, I could never put any of my family or friends in danger like this, even they offered. The thought that my nephews or godchildren could grow up without a mother because I wanted a child is just awful.

 

[Popcornshovel]

I'm totally against surrogacy in any form. The science has developed so that it's possible but we're only just now seeing studies about the outcomes for surrogate mothers and babies.

Babies are biologically connected to their birthing mother - through her blood and micro-biome. To separate a baby from her mother when the baby knows it's mother's voice, smell and heartbeat is barbaric.

Babies can feel deep distress when they grow up and learn they were born via surrogate.

 

[Not Now Bernard]

Motherhood is not defined by pregnancy and birth.

Ok then - I’ll settle for the phrase “birth mother”

 

[Padparadascha]

My baby recognised my voice and my smell. In a pitch dark room all we had to do was speak and cuddle and he immediately settled. When my mum or anyone else tried it, he howled until me or his dad took him.

His dad spoke to my bump throughout pregnancy and when the baby was handed to him minutes after being born because I was being stitched up and he absolutely knew my husband's voice.

He then developed an issue which meant he spent a few days in Nicu in an incubator and that fucked up the initial bonding somewhat and he was a very clingy baby and toddler.

I think unless you go through the 4th trimester (post natal) its not something you fully understand until you see it in action. I cant even explain it effectively now. All I know is that my baby knew who his parents were from as soon as he was born.

Until then I thought family surrogacy was a noble endeavour. Less so commercial surrogacy mind, but I thought that a family member being a surrogate was a lovely gift to a childless couple.

We lucked out with one successful pregnancy in a scatter of infertility issues and miscarriages. I always knew it was a privilege not a right to have a child. I knew that our circumstances excluded us from adopting (finances, health issues) and I was fine with that. Adoptees need more than the average child woulf and whoever they are placed with do need to have extra time and resources to meet those needs.

Surrogacy needs to be regulated, if not banned entirely. Id prefer the latter

 

[Lynn’ssnazzycardigan]

Newborns can recognise things like their mother's voice and smell. But that doesn't mean that separation after birth inevitably causes lasting harm.

Developmental psychology distinguishes between prenatal familiarity and postnatal attachment. Attachment, in the sense used by attachment theory, develops through consistent, responsive caregiving over the first months of life.

Newborns don't have self-other differentiation it's true, but that's a feature of infant development generally, not of their relationship with the gestational mother specifically.

You raise some interesting points and it’s good imo to have differing opinions on a thread. I’m not the type to demand receipts but you write as though you have knowledge of child development, I wonder do you have skin in the game? My opinions are just that, opinions, but I do feel babies would feel safer surrounded by familiar things such as birth mother’s presence when they are born into a world made entirely of new and overwhelming experiences. I have done trauma informed therapy and was told that adverse events in utero and neonatal period can have a lasting effect on the child, I would think separation from birth mother would fall into this category. Even if baby goes to NICU they still get to hear mum’s voice and smell her so they get that bit of comfort. So I naturally make the leap that this would help with forming healthy attachments when they get to the age you are talking about because they have had that familiar presence that is part of them. I think the point stands that surrogacy creates a baby who will suffer this otherwise avoidable separation and for most people on this thread that’s one of the reasons they don’t agree with it.

 

[TheMiceInTheShed]

Ok then - I’ll settle for the phrase “birth mother”

Agree. There are many adoptive mothers/ foster mothers who are wonderful.

But "birth mother" is acceptable as opposed to "purchaser" or "buyer" or "commissioning individual", I suppose.

 

[Lynn’ssnazzycardigan]

I find it extremely odd how celeb male couples always choose to adopt/surrogate male babies.

I’ve noticed that and I think of a few reasons. The kind me thinks it’s because being male themselves it’s natural to just add to the numbers and do all the boy stuff. Lots of people have a preferred sex after all, even if they don’t admit it. Unkind me thinks it’s that they maybe dislike women and having already removed the female who made it possible they don’t have any use for our sex beyond that. If you were desperate to start a family surely you would just be happy to have a child but sometimes it feels like a baby is an item on a shopping list for these celebrities. So it’s less about the excitement and surprise of having a brand new person in the family and accepting the gift you are given, more about meeting the product specifications. Either way you would hope there will be “aunties”, grannies etc so they get to know and feel comfortable with women who aren’t just the hired help.

 

[CrazyGiraffeLady]

I feel like surrogacy between family/friends would be okay if there was some kind of rules in place. When people are paid for it it becomes exploitation in my view.