I think this piece just skimmed the surface of the negatives around surrogacy. There seemed to be a focus on the personal joy of couples, and the agency of a few, chosen surrogates.
What about the babies and their trauma of being taken away from their birth mother? Adoption trauma is well known, it applies the same to the surrogate babies.
I think this piece just skimmed the surface of the negatives around surrogacy. There seemed to be a focus on the personal joy of couples, and the agency of a few, chosen surrogates.
What about the babies and their trauma of being taken away from their birth mother? Adoption trauma is well known, it applies the same to the surrogate babies.
What about the immense potential for child abuse? Reduxx just published another story of a convicted pedophile operating a surrogacy empire, under investigation for baby trafficking.
Why is okay for rich women like Paris Hilton to outsource the risk of childbirth to financially poor women?
There will never, ever be a case of a rich woman choosing to be a surrogate for a family that she has no connection to. This alone tells you everything about this horrendous exploitation of poor women.
No one has the right to a biological child. Yes, that is absolutely heart-breaking, but that is the human condition.
Rich women arenтАЩt going to choose to be prostitutes either, but at some point one has to draw a line and accept that poor women have agency too and that illegal sex work has a tendency to drive them into much more problematic circumstances than does legal sex work.
No one gets guarantees with children -- I would have wondered about attachment and genetics too, when my bright and loving daughter turned ten and became a raging depressed "hormonoid" (my Mom's word for pre-teens). But, in my small town, she and I were the only two patients in the ENTIRE hospital, and being faithfully married, had no such explanation. Kids have their own development greatly effected by genetics, environment and so many factors it's impossible to "know" for certain. We all do our best...glad your son grew into a lovely human, as did my daughter.
haha, when our first was born, I was the only one delivering a baby in our small town hospital too. Good thing because I was paranoid about those accidental baby switching news stories.
First off, so this comment isn't misinterpreted, child abusers should be put in prison for LIFE at the very least.
That said, I would think the potential for child abuse with a surrogate child is EXTREMELY low. Who is going to pay $100,000 and then raise a child for years for the sole purpose of abusing it when they could just foster and get paid.
You should never underestimate the lengths men will go to to commit abuse. Look up Jose Prados on Reduxx as an example.
Certain agencies have no checks on the people asking to buy a human baby (unlike adoption agencies who conduct background checks), a single man can order a baby daughter, no questions asked. It is human trafficking.
This. As a gay man I had to face the fact that I wouldnтАЩt have kids. I processed that when I was young and found other ways to be fulfilled in life. IтАЩve come to call myself a rational naturalist тАж whatтАЩs natural to me, whatтАЩs a rational POV. IтАЩm not built to father kids for whatever reason. What else could I do with my life? I donтАЩt understand chasing an impossible dream.
Thank you for reminding us that there is someone else involved in this issue - namely the baby. You mentioned the trauma that often goes along with adoption. Hence, I I offer just a bit of my own story and that of my son whom we adopted over 50 years ago when he was 5 days old. It was a closed adoption as many were in those days , so we knew nothing of his birth parents or their history.
My son never lacked for love - he was the apple of everyones eye and was a very happy kid until about 9 , the age when his personality changed from a bubbly kid to one that began to exhibit issues of depression caused, I now know by issues of abandoment. The first words out of his mouth to me 33 years later after HIS son was born were "I can't imagine giving up your baby"
In those days, we knew nothing about the child recognizing in utero the voice of the mother - the movement of the mother's body - the breathing patterns, etc - that knowledge came long after if was possible to discover such things through medical advances. So in a very real sense, he was taken from the womb and handed over to strangers. It took me years to understand this.
His adolescence and teenage years were difficult for him and for us but we got through it and he is now happily married with a son of his own. He has not, however, in spite of the ability to do so and my encouragement, ever looked for his birth parents.
If I had had the book Being Adopted, the Lifelong Search for Self available to me 50 years ago I would have understood more of what my son was going through but I didn't read it until very recently. There are interviews in it with other adopted children - who are now adults. Several have carried with them for years the idea that "something must have been wrong with me to have my mother give me away."
I share this story only to say again - please don't leave out the most important person in this surrogacy story. While all the others involved might have fulfilled a life-long dream and be happy, it is possible there is another one involved who might struggle with the "who am I " question for years. .
I totally disagree. I can find you just ask many adopted kids who are happy and well adjusted - my husband to start. I also work in child welfare where adoption saves children. Yes there are kids who feel they arenтАЩt enough but thatтАЩs not the story of surrogacy. In many cases itтАЩs the biological child of the parents anyway, so who is the тАЬmotherтАЭ? The person who raises him and is genetically related or to one who gave birth?
Of course many adopted children are happy and well adjusted. Many are not, or at least they have difficulties. Much of what has fueled DNA testing over the years is adopted children seeking out their biological parents.
I completely disagree that it's okay to purposefully deny a child, from birth, a biological mother and/or father. If the child is the biological child of both parents, then there is significant mitigation. But that is not always the case.
I have had several friends, and dated a woman who was adopted. Most had this same experience, not feeling a full connection with their families, usually due to their "who am I" questions.
I completely concur with this. I appreciate that this article was written and loved many things about it, but there's no mention of the fact that when a mother is not biologically related to the child she is carrying, the risks are greater for her than when she's carrying her own child. This whole process gives me the "ick."
But thatтАЩs what informed consent is for. This is an amazing thing that humans can do for each other. Life is full of risks and people do so many dangerous things. This canтАЩt be singled out when two willing participants are involved.
There is no possible way to truly consent to the risks of surrogacy. In some states, women lose their right to end-of-life decisions while they are surrogates. But put all that aside: this is clearly an exploitative practice that primarily targets poor women. Rich people are buying the bodies of poor women for nine months. Then they buy a baby - immediately ripping that child away from the only mother is has ever known. Children are miracles, gifts that not one of us truly deserves, and having lucre to burn doesn't change that.
Well by that reasoning every time money changes hands it is exploitative. Paying football players to ram their skulls until theyтАЩre brain damaged? Where most of them are poor too. What about Amazon workers? What about first responders? Everything has risk. If they want to carry a baby for someone and be compensated itтАЩs not inherently exploitative.
You are making a ridiculous argument. By your own logic - that compensation makes act not "inherently exploitative" - then we should view being paid to make a coffee and being paid to give a blow job as equal, neutral acts of work for pay. These two things are not alike and if you say that they are, you are lying. You are ignoring your rightly triggered sense of moral disgust. Don't.
Like it or not, there *is* something inherently special about sex, pregnancy, motherhood, birth, and the parent-child bond. These are not acts or relationships we can disenchant just by saying so. The baby being "carried" by a "surrogate" - the baby growing in its mother's womb, surrounded by the sound of her heartbeat, her blood rushing by, her voice, her hands on her belly - doesn't and could never know that she "isn't really the mother." That baby, whisked away to people it does not recognize, is being bought and sold, exploited even before conception.
wow. I guess we have to agree to disagree. you don't have to give birth to a baby to be an amazing mother. I hate to use personal examples but I will. my friend lost a baby and her uterus in a tragic car accident when she was 8 months pregnant. Through a surrogate, she and her husband went on to bring four amazing kids into the world, all biologically theirs.
Is she less of a mom because she couldn't carry and deliver her own babies? nope she's not. she's amazing and the kids are perfect. the kids are not damaged or broken because someone else's blood rushed passed their ears for 9 months, that's patently ridiculous. This is a miracle of modern technology in every sense of the word. was it risky? yup. did the lady who delivered the babies struggle? probably. would she do it again? yes she would, if asked.
I understand what you're saying and I'm sure there are instances in which surrogacy is a blessing. A former co-worker once carried twins for a sibling who wasn't able to have them. But surrogacy has turned into an industry in which the risk of pregnancy is being transferred from the very fortunate to the less fortunate, and it seems like a lot of the risks aren't part of the discussion at all.
тАЬThere will never, ever be a case of a rich woman choosing to be a surrogate for a family that she has no connection to. This alone tells you everything about this horrendous exploitation of poor women.тАЭ
Yeah, funny how you never hear of multi-millionaires who feel тАЬcalledтАЭ to be surrogates for some random middle-class suburbanites.
I think this piece just skimmed the surface of the negatives around surrogacy. There seemed to be a focus on the personal joy of couples, and the agency of a few, chosen surrogates.
What about the babies and their trauma of being taken away from their birth mother? Adoption trauma is well known, it applies the same to the surrogate babies.
What about the immense potential for child abuse? Reduxx just published another story of a convicted pedophile operating a surrogacy empire, under investigation for baby trafficking.
Why is okay for rich women like Paris Hilton to outsource the risk of childbirth to financially poor women?
There will never, ever be a case of a rich woman choosing to be a surrogate for a family that she has no connection to. This alone tells you everything about this horrendous exploitation of poor women.
No one has the right to a biological child. Yes, that is absolutely heart-breaking, but that is the human condition.
Rich women arenтАЩt going to choose to be prostitutes either, but at some point one has to draw a line and accept that poor women have agency too and that illegal sex work has a tendency to drive them into much more problematic circumstances than does legal sex work.
I was just about to come on here and ask what could possibly go wrong. This is absolutely horrifying on so many levels.
No one gets guarantees with children -- I would have wondered about attachment and genetics too, when my bright and loving daughter turned ten and became a raging depressed "hormonoid" (my Mom's word for pre-teens). But, in my small town, she and I were the only two patients in the ENTIRE hospital, and being faithfully married, had no such explanation. Kids have their own development greatly effected by genetics, environment and so many factors it's impossible to "know" for certain. We all do our best...glad your son grew into a lovely human, as did my daughter.
haha, when our first was born, I was the only one delivering a baby in our small town hospital too. Good thing because I was paranoid about those accidental baby switching news stories.
Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore
First off, so this comment isn't misinterpreted, child abusers should be put in prison for LIFE at the very least.
That said, I would think the potential for child abuse with a surrogate child is EXTREMELY low. Who is going to pay $100,000 and then raise a child for years for the sole purpose of abusing it when they could just foster and get paid.
"Who is going to pay $100,000 and then raise a child for years for the sole purpose of abusing it when they could just foster and get paid."
People who view a child as a commodity to be acquired.
People with more money than ethics.
Check out the Zulocks in Atlanta.
You should never underestimate the lengths men will go to to commit abuse. Look up Jose Prados on Reduxx as an example.
Certain agencies have no checks on the people asking to buy a human baby (unlike adoption agencies who conduct background checks), a single man can order a baby daughter, no questions asked. It is human trafficking.
You can't adopt a rescue dog without a minimal check of yard and vet history. Seems we should perhaps do a little more for a human.
тАЬ No one has the right to a biological childтАЭ
This. As a gay man I had to face the fact that I wouldnтАЩt have kids. I processed that when I was young and found other ways to be fulfilled in life. IтАЩve come to call myself a rational naturalist тАж whatтАЩs natural to me, whatтАЩs a rational POV. IтАЩm not built to father kids for whatever reason. What else could I do with my life? I donтАЩt understand chasing an impossible dream.
Bravo, Vernon. I imagine that was hard. Good on you for giving yourself to the things you could.
Thank you for stating this, Vernon. - LM
I appreciate your comment here Vernon and maybe understand something about this as a woman without children.
Thank you for reminding us that there is someone else involved in this issue - namely the baby. You mentioned the trauma that often goes along with adoption. Hence, I I offer just a bit of my own story and that of my son whom we adopted over 50 years ago when he was 5 days old. It was a closed adoption as many were in those days , so we knew nothing of his birth parents or their history.
My son never lacked for love - he was the apple of everyones eye and was a very happy kid until about 9 , the age when his personality changed from a bubbly kid to one that began to exhibit issues of depression caused, I now know by issues of abandoment. The first words out of his mouth to me 33 years later after HIS son was born were "I can't imagine giving up your baby"
In those days, we knew nothing about the child recognizing in utero the voice of the mother - the movement of the mother's body - the breathing patterns, etc - that knowledge came long after if was possible to discover such things through medical advances. So in a very real sense, he was taken from the womb and handed over to strangers. It took me years to understand this.
His adolescence and teenage years were difficult for him and for us but we got through it and he is now happily married with a son of his own. He has not, however, in spite of the ability to do so and my encouragement, ever looked for his birth parents.
If I had had the book Being Adopted, the Lifelong Search for Self available to me 50 years ago I would have understood more of what my son was going through but I didn't read it until very recently. There are interviews in it with other adopted children - who are now adults. Several have carried with them for years the idea that "something must have been wrong with me to have my mother give me away."
I share this story only to say again - please don't leave out the most important person in this surrogacy story. While all the others involved might have fulfilled a life-long dream and be happy, it is possible there is another one involved who might struggle with the "who am I " question for years. .
I
Thank you for this. It's remarkable (or is it?) how little concern there is for the child. "Being loved" is essential but not sufficient.
I totally disagree. I can find you just ask many adopted kids who are happy and well adjusted - my husband to start. I also work in child welfare where adoption saves children. Yes there are kids who feel they arenтАЩt enough but thatтАЩs not the story of surrogacy. In many cases itтАЩs the biological child of the parents anyway, so who is the тАЬmotherтАЭ? The person who raises him and is genetically related or to one who gave birth?
Of course many adopted children are happy and well adjusted. Many are not, or at least they have difficulties. Much of what has fueled DNA testing over the years is adopted children seeking out their biological parents.
I completely disagree that it's okay to purposefully deny a child, from birth, a biological mother and/or father. If the child is the biological child of both parents, then there is significant mitigation. But that is not always the case.
I have had several friends, and dated a woman who was adopted. Most had this same experience, not feeling a full connection with their families, usually due to their "who am I" questions.
I completely concur with this. I appreciate that this article was written and loved many things about it, but there's no mention of the fact that when a mother is not biologically related to the child she is carrying, the risks are greater for her than when she's carrying her own child. This whole process gives me the "ick."
But thatтАЩs what informed consent is for. This is an amazing thing that humans can do for each other. Life is full of risks and people do so many dangerous things. This canтАЩt be singled out when two willing participants are involved.
There is no possible way to truly consent to the risks of surrogacy. In some states, women lose their right to end-of-life decisions while they are surrogates. But put all that aside: this is clearly an exploitative practice that primarily targets poor women. Rich people are buying the bodies of poor women for nine months. Then they buy a baby - immediately ripping that child away from the only mother is has ever known. Children are miracles, gifts that not one of us truly deserves, and having lucre to burn doesn't change that.
Well by that reasoning every time money changes hands it is exploitative. Paying football players to ram their skulls until theyтАЩre brain damaged? Where most of them are poor too. What about Amazon workers? What about first responders? Everything has risk. If they want to carry a baby for someone and be compensated itтАЩs not inherently exploitative.
You are making a ridiculous argument. By your own logic - that compensation makes act not "inherently exploitative" - then we should view being paid to make a coffee and being paid to give a blow job as equal, neutral acts of work for pay. These two things are not alike and if you say that they are, you are lying. You are ignoring your rightly triggered sense of moral disgust. Don't.
Like it or not, there *is* something inherently special about sex, pregnancy, motherhood, birth, and the parent-child bond. These are not acts or relationships we can disenchant just by saying so. The baby being "carried" by a "surrogate" - the baby growing in its mother's womb, surrounded by the sound of her heartbeat, her blood rushing by, her voice, her hands on her belly - doesn't and could never know that she "isn't really the mother." That baby, whisked away to people it does not recognize, is being bought and sold, exploited even before conception.
wow. I guess we have to agree to disagree. you don't have to give birth to a baby to be an amazing mother. I hate to use personal examples but I will. my friend lost a baby and her uterus in a tragic car accident when she was 8 months pregnant. Through a surrogate, she and her husband went on to bring four amazing kids into the world, all biologically theirs.
Is she less of a mom because she couldn't carry and deliver her own babies? nope she's not. she's amazing and the kids are perfect. the kids are not damaged or broken because someone else's blood rushed passed their ears for 9 months, that's patently ridiculous. This is a miracle of modern technology in every sense of the word. was it risky? yup. did the lady who delivered the babies struggle? probably. would she do it again? yes she would, if asked.
I understand what you're saying and I'm sure there are instances in which surrogacy is a blessing. A former co-worker once carried twins for a sibling who wasn't able to have them. But surrogacy has turned into an industry in which the risk of pregnancy is being transferred from the very fortunate to the less fortunate, and it seems like a lot of the risks aren't part of the discussion at all.
Gosh, like we've never heard of healthcare providers who fail to give full chapter and verse on the risks, have we?
How do you feel about selling one's kidney?
I don't know of any kidney that has ever hosted an embryo.
Amen. I wish this piece had explored these concepts more.
The egg retrieval process can be dangerous to women as well.
тАЬThere will never, ever be a case of a rich woman choosing to be a surrogate for a family that she has no connection to. This alone tells you everything about this horrendous exploitation of poor women.тАЭ
Yeah, funny how you never hear of multi-millionaires who feel тАЬcalledтАЭ to be surrogates for some random middle-class suburbanites.
and you never will..