Whose body? Whose choice?

William Haskins said:

enjoy...

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Aye yi yi ....

Well at the very least, it doesn't seem like the surrogate should have the right to be able to force the couple to raise the child.

That's a tricky one.

I think, for me, it comes down to the connection between choice and responsibility. Absolutely the surrogate should be able to make the choice about whether to abort the fetus or not. It's her body, and just because she's chosen to use her body to perform a service for somebody else, it doesn't mean that she has surrendered her right to decide what medical procedures she undergoes.

That said, if she makes that choice, I think she needs to take responsibility for the consequences, and in this case, there will be significant financial and emotional repercussions. If it's her decisions to have the child, I think it should be her responsibility to care for the child, for as long as is needed.

In my opinion it should come down to this, if the biological couple decide they don't want the baby that's in a surrogate, they then lose all control over the pregnancy and the surrogate has to make that choice themselves with the biological couple taking care of expenses up to birth since they started it.

Kate_Sherwood said:

That's a tricky one.

I think, for me, it comes down to the connection between choice and responsibility. Absolutely the surrogate should be able to make the choice about whether to abort the fetus or not. It's her body, and just because she's chosen to use her body to perform a service for somebody else, it doesn't mean that she has surrendered her right to decide what medical procedures she undergoes.

That said, if she makes that choice, I think she needs to take responsibility for the consequences, and in this case, there will be significant financial and emotional repercussions. If it's her decisions to have the child, I think it should be her responsibility to care for the child, for as long as is needed.

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I agree with all of this, you took the words out of my keyboard.

This is a VERY sad situation for everyone involved. It said the woman ended up going through with the abortion, after she at first said she didn't want to. Was it because the couple continued to pressure her?

I don't care what the couple did. If she becomes a bio-baby-manufacturing machine instead of a human being, she's gonna suffer. I have no sympathy for people who would do this kinda shit for money, and really no sympathy for the kind of people who would hire a poor woman to do this kind of thing. And to think that prostitution is illegal but this ISN'T??

I don't understand the anger, Bird of Prey - there's something about surrogacy in general that you don't like? Can you explain?

Bird of Prey said:

I don't care what the couple did. If she becomes a bio-baby-manufacturing machine instead of a human being, she's gonna suffer. I have no sympathy for people who would do this kinda shit for money, and really no sympathy for the kind of people who would hire a poor woman to do this kind of thing. And to think that prostitution is illegal but this ISN'T??

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I don't think this is entirely fair. There many reasons to use a surrogate, and many reasons to be paid for it. You give up a lot of your physical abilities and often ability to work with a pregnancy. I have a good friend who can't have kids b/c she had breast cancer. She's only 28 and she wants children. She's discussed having a surrogate (me in fact) and I'd do it in a heartbeat for her and her husband. I certainly wouldn't describe any of us a bio-baby-manufacturers. It's something that she wants out of life and it's something I can help her get. I'm happy, she's happy, everybody wins.

Kate_Sherwood said:

I don't understand the anger, Bird of Prey - there's something about surrogacy in general that you don't like? Can you explain?

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It's the commodification of reproduction. Babies as products.

leahzero said:

It's the commodification of reproduction. Babies as products.

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Isn't that traditionally the job of marriage?

Bird of Prey said:

I don't care what the couple did. If she becomes a bio-baby-manufacturing machine instead of a human being, she's gonna suffer. I have no sympathy for people who would do this kinda shit for money, and really no sympathy for the kind of people who would hire a poor woman to do this kind of thing. And to think that prostitution is illegal but this ISN'T??

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It does seem a bit ridiculous to me that it's illegal to pay a woman to produce an orgasm, but legal to pay a woman to produce and turn over to someone else a living human being.

leahzero said:

It's the commodification of reproduction. Babies as products.

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I'd like to shoot this idea in the head. Now.

It does not matter WHERE a baby comes from, whether it's from your womb, someone else's, a tube, or even inside of a computer. All babies deserve to be raised by loving parents.

If a baby is a product, the problem is with the people raising them. NOT with how the baby came into the world.

leahzero said:

It's the commodification of reproduction. Babies as products.

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So do all expensive procedures that lead to reproduction merit this level of anger and scorn?

If a couple struggling with infertility pay for surgery, or for in-vitro fertilization, or whatever else - that's also commodification, right? I mean, the couple can't have a baby, they spend some money, they have a baby - damn, that's disgusting and ugly. We should all hate people who would do such things!

Or, wait - is it okay as long as the money goes to a large, impersonal medical corporation, but problematic as soon as the money goes to an individual woman?

leahzero said:

It's the commodification of reproduction. Babies as products.

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That and using human beings as livestock which is really disgusting. If we as a society want to acknowledge that human beings can legally be deemed nothing more than glorified incubators for the fucking better off, then we have truly slipped into the abyss. . . .

Bird of Prey said:

That and using human beings as livestock which is really disgusting. If we as a society want to acknowledge that human beings can legally be deemed nothing more than glorified incubators for the fucking better off, then we have truly slipped into the abyss. . . .

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Where is the "nothing more" coming from? Surrogates get pregnant - they don't surrender the rest of their lives. When women get pregnant, they're still human beings - just because it's a surrogate pregnancy doesn't mean this changes.

You're heavy on the drama, but a bit light on the logic.

I have a much bigger problem with the notion that a fetus with Down's Syndrome is automatically disposable than with any other facet of this story. No, none of my own offspring have that diagnosis, but I work with young adults who do, among many other significant impairments, and apart from needing more time to grasp complex concepts, they're mostly just folks, with all the typical strengths and flaws found in everyone else. Most of them are delightful, albeit challenging. But so might a child without Down's be. And what about the myriad other disorders that won't show up in a pre-natal test? In twenty years, when the schizophrenia shows up, will the parents retroactively abort?

I'm all for a mother's choice, but this choice really does bother me.

I always think of the many many many children that are already out there, in foster care, waiting for a family. Why do all these "desperate to be parents" ignore them?

That's my take on surrogacy, in vitro, whatever else people come up with to be 'real' parents.

MOD NOTE --

Ya' know, the 'Cooler is a fascinating subset of our society, encompassing a WIDE variety of opinions and feelings. Both mine and yours are guaranteed not to match everybody else's. Let's proceed with some more caution and less emotion, please.\

my thanks,
Williebee

Kate_Sherwood said:

Where is the "nothing more" coming from? Surrogates get pregnant - they don't surrender the rest of their lives. When women get pregnant, they're still human beings - just because it's a surrogate pregnancy doesn't mean this changes.

You're heavy on the drama, but a bit light on the logic.

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I hate to say it, Kate, but "surrogates" - that wonderful, dehumanizing term that is easily leaned on when we don't want to put a name to the women, their faces, their labor, their bodies, their bonds - is an ugly dodge for what exactly is going on. It's prostitution with huge ramifications. These women are going to go through a lot of suffering, and it's not ethical, not right, not moral, not sane and not reasonable for a society to acknowledge it as a monetary transaction. . . .

I don't bring the liver-plucking angst of the last several posts to this question, but it does seem to some medical ethicists (and to me) that the outsourcing of pregnancy is potentially exploitative to poor and less educated women. That Don immediately made the comparison to buying an orgasm is telling.

I empathize with people affected by infertility, but just wonder if any and all interventions are okay if they result in the Holy Grail of a baby.

Even if they have a contract, if this woman does not want to abort it should be her choice, despite the fact that the sperm and egg are from this couple. This is the type of situation where it may sound fine at the time but something else entirely when it actually arises and I can't see how anyone can legally force her to do so.

It also seems to me that without a contract for this type of scenario, if she chose to carry the pregnancy to term - even against the donor's wishes - this couple should also have some financial obligation to the raising of this child. If this was a "normal" situation was where a woman gets pregnant and the man does not want to be a father, he still has to pay child support. I don't see how is it any different in this case besides the fact it's a couple and not a single father.

Surrogacy isn't always a monetary transaction. Many people that do it for friends and family don't profit. Yes healthcare is taken care of, and income will be replaced, but that's not profit.

I mean, I don't think that surrogacy is that great of an idea either. There are millions of children who need good homes, and I'd rather they have it first than potential children that could be born from surrogates.

But be careful that your anger at the practice does not transition to the BABY in question.

That's not good.

Who's being exploited if the woman who agrees to be the surrogate is making an informed decision of her own free-will?

EDIT: another point I meant to make. The reason so many children are sitting in foster care? They're not cute babies. That's why we have so many children waiting to be adopted. I don't think enough would-be parents give enough consideration to adopting an older child, they're so focused on having a baby that having an older child doesn't seem as appealing. Which is sad because there are many parents out there who have adopted older children and wouldn't change that for the world.