‘It’s almost like a heterosexual relationship. I’m the provider. And this other woman that I met on Facebook is staying at home and having my kid for me.’
Hi, I love the Free Press and have been a subscriber for a few months. However I haven’t received anything in at least a month . Don’t know why! My email is essienash@gmail.com. Please respond Thank you,
I'm not going to even attempt to lay out a scientific or legal argument for my position. Suffice to say it is a my moral stance that human beings, children, should not be manufactured to order to meet consumer demand, nor bought and sold.
The decision to erase a natural mother or father from the life of a child from birth is extremely selfish. There are instinctual needs of children that are fulfilled differently by mothers and fathers.
What is to become of these children raised in this way ? The chances of behavioral issues later on in life are very high. .If you are gay I dont care but using surrogates to bypass the biological aberrancy of your marriage is bad practice.
When I see an article like this and then scan the comments, I am not surprised that many responses are powerfully shallow and not deep in the moral philosophy of the concept. Pregnancy continues to be a dangerous enterprise for many women throughout the world. I don’t know the exact number, but I think it’s somewhere like .01% or roughly 1M per year that die across the globe giving birth. Even one death in today’s society is one to many, but for the sake of this thought experiment what if we could eliminate this number through gestational robotics kind of like the science fiction movies where we could grow babies in pods assuring. 100% safety record. How many here would think this would be a worthwhile endeavor. Why? It reduces suffering; it ensures a positive birth rate for our species; it accommodates different parenting structure--both heterosexual and homosexual and others; and so on. I think we will get there some day. The question is why not now? Let the debate begin, but just like surrogacy and IVF there is never a right or wrong answer, but there are a lot of corner cases that draw upon the deepest emotional connections we have to ourselves and others.
Surrogacy is prostitution. More egregiously, it is child-selling. The Christian Right has not brought about The Handmaid’s Tale in real life. Rather, it’s their opposite number which has done so. And when surrogacy becomes too expensive in the US, where do folks go -- of course, to much poorer countries, but with the caveat that only the most handsome/beautiful and intelligent gamete “donors” (also a form of prostitution, being paid, highly in the case of women, for one’s sexual/reproductive capacities) be involved. A society that goes into conniptions over every possible Me Too transgression but applauds this stuff has lost its moorings.
Paris Hilton's publicity seeking, self-indulgent and vacuous life is how she has become known, apparently by her own choice. When someone decides that puppies are cute and adopts one, they do have options if buyer's remorse sets in. Just drop the unwanted animal off at an animal shelter. Done. Of course, we can learn from our mistakes. We may even aspire to a life of service. Paris can afford to indulge her every whim and cowardice; in this case, avoiding the pain of childbirth. This will surely set her up to change diapers or comfort an inconsolable infant, with unlimited love and caring over years. Paris is unconsciously, tragically, and more probably, going to inflict her narcissism, on a helpless, new victim. After all, that was how she herself was raised and abused.
Believe it or not, I am one degree separated from Jack Teixeira. I've never met him, but he's related to a friend of mine. Been following the story since it broke. Wife came into my office yesterday afternoon and said, "Don't you know this guy?" Nearly fell out of my chair.
This article was a good overview of the issue in many ways, although maybe a little too cheery and not quite critical enough, but I was really disappointed by not one mention or reflection on the impact on the babies themselves as so many others have already commented here. I'm 5 months pregnant right now, gratefully with my own precious baby, and I found the anecdote about the "parents" who ripped away the baby from her right after birth and didn't communicate further just gut wrenching. All three people involved, including the surrogate, participated in abuse of and potential trauma to that child in my opinion.
I am so disturbed and so disheartened by the Pandora's box we've opened with Big Fertility and how rarely I see ppl showing concern for the children caught up in this. It seems that no one in the industry nor its consumers are asking-- what is the health impact on the baby of conception through IVF (there's data showing a link with ASDs and obesity)?, what are the ethics of millions of frozen embryos? what are the downstream psychological and physiological effects of gene edting of embryos? what are the effects of years of synthetic testosterone on the developing baby when transmen get pregnant? what are the effects of not even having the option to breastfeed? what are the effects of not having a mother? what is the psychological impact of never knowing the woman who carried you in her womb? what is the psychological impact of later coming to learn that you were commissioned and gestated, at least in part, out of a desire for narcissistic gratification? It's all about the adults and their desires and comfort.
The difficult truth is that no one has a right to a child. I'm less clear on what I think about IVF but much more clear that surrogacy is flat out wrong and exploitative at its core. I say this counting myself incredibly lucky to have gotten pregnant at 37 on our first try. I knew that ease was not guaranteed and a sense of panic and regret overcame me before getting pregnant--I had waited too long, had put my career first, and had ultimately fallen victim to the sway of progressive/leftist/liberal ideology telling me it was more valuable to be a girl boss and to put myself and my self-gratification first at all costs, only to realize as I moved into my mid-thirties, still single at the time, that what I wanted more than anything was to be a mother and have a family.
Over the last few years due to witnessing unhinged leftism and primarily due to covid overreach and vaccine hysteria, I have pulled back the curtain on what the liberal ideology I was raised with has become, and looked on in horror and disbelief. Perhaps this is the inevitable logical conclusion of progressivism. I don't know, but the narcissism, the tunnel vision, and the refusal to put children first, in really any way, greatly disturbs me!
@KNP - complex issue for sure. And a question arises with altruistic surrogacy - one would hope parents would voluntarily care for and compensate their carrier for the time, risk and dedication it takes to carry and deliver a baby. But is it fair to expect women to do something so significant without any expectation of reciprocity? I guess once again it's only as good as the people involved.
“Kids, to me, come with marriage,” Briskin said. “I didn’t think there could be a situation where you’re insured in the United States, in a country in which gay marriage is fully legal, that we would have to fight for this additional right that every other married, or unmarried couple enjoys.”
I’m sorry but having kids is not a right and children are not a commodity to be bought and sold. This is really messed up thinking. I could say more but won’t.
Paris Hilton is even worse than I thought. Having children is not for the faint of heart. The idea that the hardest thing about them is giving birth is stupid beyond belief. Demanding abortion control and particular characteristics of the surrogate is profoundly disgusting. Children are not defective Prada bags!! They are human beings with souls and deserve our utmost care, even if that means losing your stick figure, becoming permanently exhausted, or sacrificing your own wants to their needs for the next 20 years or so. We have become far too focused on adult wants, to the point of buying and selling body parts. Next up: buying children outright.
This trend has made me think a lot about how sympathetic situations lead to an eraser of social norms. then are Commodified. We lean on the sympathetic examples to avoid the tricky questions of “ what does this mean?” “Is this leading someplace very very bad”
Yes I am sympathetic to couples who can’t birth children
Yes I am sympathetic to people who can’t live with the sexed bodies of their birth
But......
And yet.....
Tara Heanly’s lean out substack has a good interview on this about; feminism against progress
No. Just no, on any and all of this _playing God for money_. That is what it is.
I have tremendous compassion for couples who cannot have their own biological babies through their own bodies, but there are so many babies that need to be adopted. Do that instead!
The other distasteful thing in this whole idea is, as so many before me said, you don't find the rich doing this for the poor. For that matter, how many rich to you know who are helping the poor who haven't been able to properly feed or clothe the children they've got, or prevent themselves having children they don't want or can't afford? So, in my humble view, for the rich this is pure selfishness.
There actually aren’t so many babies that need to be adopted - at least, not domestically. People wait on lists for years without ever getting a baby. Because the foster care system tries to reunite families, babies in foster care typically aren’t babies by the time they’re available for adoption (if they ever are).
Most young women with unplanned pregnancies aren’t interested in adoption.
This is amazing story, as far as it goes. It doesn't meantion the "negatives" surrounding surrogacy today, including. I have long wondered why we have not seen more stories about surrogacy, especially as it is utilized by the gay community. That's not the focus here, but it is very interesting and illuminating. It's at least a good start.
Hi, I love the Free Press and have been a subscriber for a few months. However I haven’t received anything in at least a month . Don’t know why! My email is essienash@gmail.com. Please respond Thank you,
Esther Sherrett
I'm not going to even attempt to lay out a scientific or legal argument for my position. Suffice to say it is a my moral stance that human beings, children, should not be manufactured to order to meet consumer demand, nor bought and sold.
The decision to erase a natural mother or father from the life of a child from birth is extremely selfish. There are instinctual needs of children that are fulfilled differently by mothers and fathers.
What is to become of these children raised in this way ? The chances of behavioral issues later on in life are very high. .If you are gay I dont care but using surrogates to bypass the biological aberrancy of your marriage is bad practice.
When I see an article like this and then scan the comments, I am not surprised that many responses are powerfully shallow and not deep in the moral philosophy of the concept. Pregnancy continues to be a dangerous enterprise for many women throughout the world. I don’t know the exact number, but I think it’s somewhere like .01% or roughly 1M per year that die across the globe giving birth. Even one death in today’s society is one to many, but for the sake of this thought experiment what if we could eliminate this number through gestational robotics kind of like the science fiction movies where we could grow babies in pods assuring. 100% safety record. How many here would think this would be a worthwhile endeavor. Why? It reduces suffering; it ensures a positive birth rate for our species; it accommodates different parenting structure--both heterosexual and homosexual and others; and so on. I think we will get there some day. The question is why not now? Let the debate begin, but just like surrogacy and IVF there is never a right or wrong answer, but there are a lot of corner cases that draw upon the deepest emotional connections we have to ourselves and others.
Surrogacy is prostitution. More egregiously, it is child-selling. The Christian Right has not brought about The Handmaid’s Tale in real life. Rather, it’s their opposite number which has done so. And when surrogacy becomes too expensive in the US, where do folks go -- of course, to much poorer countries, but with the caveat that only the most handsome/beautiful and intelligent gamete “donors” (also a form of prostitution, being paid, highly in the case of women, for one’s sexual/reproductive capacities) be involved. A society that goes into conniptions over every possible Me Too transgression but applauds this stuff has lost its moorings.
Paris Hilton's publicity seeking, self-indulgent and vacuous life is how she has become known, apparently by her own choice. When someone decides that puppies are cute and adopts one, they do have options if buyer's remorse sets in. Just drop the unwanted animal off at an animal shelter. Done. Of course, we can learn from our mistakes. We may even aspire to a life of service. Paris can afford to indulge her every whim and cowardice; in this case, avoiding the pain of childbirth. This will surely set her up to change diapers or comfort an inconsolable infant, with unlimited love and caring over years. Paris is unconsciously, tragically, and more probably, going to inflict her narcissism, on a helpless, new victim. After all, that was how she herself was raised and abused.
Believe it or not, I am one degree separated from Jack Teixeira. I've never met him, but he's related to a friend of mine. Been following the story since it broke. Wife came into my office yesterday afternoon and said, "Don't you know this guy?" Nearly fell out of my chair.
This article was a good overview of the issue in many ways, although maybe a little too cheery and not quite critical enough, but I was really disappointed by not one mention or reflection on the impact on the babies themselves as so many others have already commented here. I'm 5 months pregnant right now, gratefully with my own precious baby, and I found the anecdote about the "parents" who ripped away the baby from her right after birth and didn't communicate further just gut wrenching. All three people involved, including the surrogate, participated in abuse of and potential trauma to that child in my opinion.
I am so disturbed and so disheartened by the Pandora's box we've opened with Big Fertility and how rarely I see ppl showing concern for the children caught up in this. It seems that no one in the industry nor its consumers are asking-- what is the health impact on the baby of conception through IVF (there's data showing a link with ASDs and obesity)?, what are the ethics of millions of frozen embryos? what are the downstream psychological and physiological effects of gene edting of embryos? what are the effects of years of synthetic testosterone on the developing baby when transmen get pregnant? what are the effects of not even having the option to breastfeed? what are the effects of not having a mother? what is the psychological impact of never knowing the woman who carried you in her womb? what is the psychological impact of later coming to learn that you were commissioned and gestated, at least in part, out of a desire for narcissistic gratification? It's all about the adults and their desires and comfort.
The difficult truth is that no one has a right to a child. I'm less clear on what I think about IVF but much more clear that surrogacy is flat out wrong and exploitative at its core. I say this counting myself incredibly lucky to have gotten pregnant at 37 on our first try. I knew that ease was not guaranteed and a sense of panic and regret overcame me before getting pregnant--I had waited too long, had put my career first, and had ultimately fallen victim to the sway of progressive/leftist/liberal ideology telling me it was more valuable to be a girl boss and to put myself and my self-gratification first at all costs, only to realize as I moved into my mid-thirties, still single at the time, that what I wanted more than anything was to be a mother and have a family.
Over the last few years due to witnessing unhinged leftism and primarily due to covid overreach and vaccine hysteria, I have pulled back the curtain on what the liberal ideology I was raised with has become, and looked on in horror and disbelief. Perhaps this is the inevitable logical conclusion of progressivism. I don't know, but the narcissism, the tunnel vision, and the refusal to put children first, in really any way, greatly disturbs me!
@KNP - complex issue for sure. And a question arises with altruistic surrogacy - one would hope parents would voluntarily care for and compensate their carrier for the time, risk and dedication it takes to carry and deliver a baby. But is it fair to expect women to do something so significant without any expectation of reciprocity? I guess once again it's only as good as the people involved.
“Kids, to me, come with marriage,” Briskin said. “I didn’t think there could be a situation where you’re insured in the United States, in a country in which gay marriage is fully legal, that we would have to fight for this additional right that every other married, or unmarried couple enjoys.”
I’m sorry but having kids is not a right and children are not a commodity to be bought and sold. This is really messed up thinking. I could say more but won’t.
Paris Hilton is even worse than I thought. Having children is not for the faint of heart. The idea that the hardest thing about them is giving birth is stupid beyond belief. Demanding abortion control and particular characteristics of the surrogate is profoundly disgusting. Children are not defective Prada bags!! They are human beings with souls and deserve our utmost care, even if that means losing your stick figure, becoming permanently exhausted, or sacrificing your own wants to their needs for the next 20 years or so. We have become far too focused on adult wants, to the point of buying and selling body parts. Next up: buying children outright.
Pay someone to make a baby for you. Pay someone to kill the baby you made while it's still in your womb. Isn't modern civilization wonderful?
This trend has made me think a lot about how sympathetic situations lead to an eraser of social norms. then are Commodified. We lean on the sympathetic examples to avoid the tricky questions of “ what does this mean?” “Is this leading someplace very very bad”
Yes I am sympathetic to couples who can’t birth children
Yes I am sympathetic to people who can’t live with the sexed bodies of their birth
But......
And yet.....
Tara Heanly’s lean out substack has a good interview on this about; feminism against progress
No. Just no, on any and all of this _playing God for money_. That is what it is.
I have tremendous compassion for couples who cannot have their own biological babies through their own bodies, but there are so many babies that need to be adopted. Do that instead!
The other distasteful thing in this whole idea is, as so many before me said, you don't find the rich doing this for the poor. For that matter, how many rich to you know who are helping the poor who haven't been able to properly feed or clothe the children they've got, or prevent themselves having children they don't want or can't afford? So, in my humble view, for the rich this is pure selfishness.
There actually aren’t so many babies that need to be adopted - at least, not domestically. People wait on lists for years without ever getting a baby. Because the foster care system tries to reunite families, babies in foster care typically aren’t babies by the time they’re available for adoption (if they ever are).
Most young women with unplanned pregnancies aren’t interested in adoption.
Thanks for the additional information.
Disturbing. We are turning children into status symbols and objects, and mothers into machines.
This is amazing story, as far as it goes. It doesn't meantion the "negatives" surrounding surrogacy today, including. I have long wondered why we have not seen more stories about surrogacy, especially as it is utilized by the gay community. That's not the focus here, but it is very interesting and illuminating. It's at least a good start.