If you want to go on a crusade against the 0.1% of women who pursue surrogacy for convenience, assuming it's not actually 0%, be my guest. But leave everyone else out of it who comes to surrogacy as a last resort when other ways to start a family aren't possible.
Agreed actually.
Where is the evidence that rich women or that Emma herself is "renting a womb" for convenience sake? All this pearl clutching about surrogacy, but is what you fear actually even happening?
Let's think about the richest powerful celebrity women out there.
Jennifer Aniston, Taylor Swift, Oprah, Ellen Degeneres
Aren't mothers.
And for celebrities who used surrogates I know of:
Kim Kardashian, Ellen Pompeo and Gabrielle Union and all three spoke openly about going through serious medical complications or long infertility journeys which was why they resorted to surrogacy.
It really makes you think. If you really believe Emma chose this for convenience sake, why didn't freaking Beyonce do the same so she could continue her career? Why did Kim have two children of her own and dealt with the media calling her fat, when she could have just rented a womb? Why did Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka, and countless athlete mothers not choose surrogates?
Could it be that this is actually not an ideal option for majority of women? Could it be that women WANT to be pregnant most of the time? It makes me really think something was going on behind the scenes.
Until I see droves of our richest women doing this for convenience, I will not question it. But I haven't seen it yet.
Again, many countries outlaw it and they do that for a reason. France, Spain and Italy are hardly "anti-woman," or non-progressive countries. They outlaw it because there is a high risk of human trafficking, indentured servitude and baby selling, not to mention the emotional and legal ramifications of a surrogacy contract.
I have no idea what circumstances motivated EC to use a surrogate, I am merely commenting on the practice of surrogacy and whether it should even be legal. I don't think it should be and many countries seem to take the same stance.
Go research "Baby M," I'm guessing you are not old enough to remember the case, however I believe there is a movie about it you could reference.
We shouldn’t forget that surrogacy relies on the morally fraught technique of in vitro fertilization (IVF).
In the IVF technique, eggs are harvested from a woman’s body. These eggs will be combined with sperm (from her partner or a donor) to create a human embryos—that is to say human beings, persons. Multiple human embryos will be created in the process. They will be screened and the best ones will be selected for implantation into the woman herself or into a surrogate. The other human embryos will be discarded, or stored indefinitely in a freezer—existential limbo, siblings who will never be met.
Pregnancy and childbirth are difficult and complicated even for the healthiest women. It changes your body, and in some cases can cause serious and permanent health issues.
Yes, this is why surrogacy should be and is rightfully outlawed in some places. Economically disadvantaged woman cannot meaningfully consent to the medical risks of pregnancy and childbirth (which include death) in exchange for money.
If you want to go on a crusade against the 0.1% of women who pursue surrogacy for convenience, assuming it's not actually 0%, be my guest. But leave everyone else out of it who comes to surrogacy as a last resort when other ways to start a family aren't possible.
Agreed actually.
Where is the evidence that rich women or that Emma herself is "renting a womb" for convenience sake? All this pearl clutching about surrogacy, but is what you fear actually even happening?
Let's think about the richest powerful celebrity women out there.
Jennifer Aniston, Taylor Swift, Oprah, Ellen Degeneres
Aren't mothers.
And for celebrities who used surrogates I know of:
Kim Kardashian, Ellen Pompeo and Gabrielle Union and all three spoke openly about going through serious medical complications or long infertility journeys which was why they resorted to surrogacy.
It really makes you think. If you really believe Emma chose this for convenience sake, why didn't freaking Beyonce do the same so she could continue her career? Why did Kim have two children of her own and dealt with the media calling her fat, when she could have just rented a womb? Why did Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka, and countless athlete mothers not choose surrogates?
Could it be that this is actually not an ideal option for majority of women? Could it be that women WANT to be pregnant most of the time? It makes me really think something was going on behind the scenes.
Until I see droves of our richest women doing this for convenience, I will not question it. But I haven't seen it yet.
All of these celebrity women are individuals, so it really doesn't make sense to compare Beyonce to people who used a surrogate. Even if most women want to carry their own pregnancy, it doesn't preclude the existence of some women wanting to avoid pregnancy through surrogacy. Likewise, the pain of infertility does not necessarily justify the legalization of surrogacy, despite whatever sympathy we may have for families facing these issues.
I'm not saying surrogacy should definitely be illegal, but it's naive to think it never does or never could involve exploitation or harm. Atwood's fictious, The Handmaid's Tail, is basically a story about forced surrogacy. People seem to miss this point when they focus exclusively on the religious theme. There are many avenues through which the female capacity to bare children can be exploited; there is nothing magical about the free market or individual choice that precludes these harms. Earlier in the thread, I mentioned the German cannibal incident, in which a man consented to being killed and eaten by another man for sexual pleasure. Everybody consented in that incident, but it's still illegal and should be.
On this note, some of the people opposed to medical gender transition are worried that postmodern ideas about sex, combined with medical technologies, will create the conditions of The Handmaid's Tale. I won't detail the argument here, but it's interesting and compelling.
In any case, surrogacy introduces complicated legal and ethical questions. We ought to be able to grapple with these questions, and doing so is not misogyny. However, some instances of harsh judgements against women who have used surrogates on this thread do strike me as misogynist.
If you want to go on a crusade against the 0.1% of women who pursue surrogacy for convenience, assuming it's not actually 0%, be my guest. But leave everyone else out of it who comes to surrogacy as a last resort when other ways to start a family aren't possible.
Agreed actually.
Where is the evidence that rich women or that Emma herself is "renting a womb" for convenience sake? All this pearl clutching about surrogacy, but is what you fear actually even happening?
Let's think about the richest powerful celebrity women out there.
Jennifer Aniston, Taylor Swift, Oprah, Ellen Degeneres
Aren't mothers.
And for celebrities who used surrogates I know of:
Kim Kardashian, Ellen Pompeo and Gabrielle Union and all three spoke openly about going through serious medical complications or long infertility journeys which was why they resorted to surrogacy.
It really makes you think. If you really believe Emma chose this for convenience sake, why didn't freaking Beyonce do the same so she could continue her career? Why did Kim have two children of her own and dealt with the media calling her fat, when she could have just rented a womb? Why did Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka, and countless athlete mothers not choose surrogates?
Could it be that this is actually not an ideal option for majority of women? Could it be that women WANT to be pregnant most of the time? It makes me really think something was going on behind the scenes.
Until I see droves of our richest women doing this for convenience, I will not question it. But I haven't seen it yet.
I already replied to your post, but it seems worth pointing out that there is a booming surrogacy market. This is just one article about commerical surrogacy in India:
Here's a quote from the abstract: "India had a commercial surrogacy boom until exploitative factors led to the passage of the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill in 2019, which banned the practice."
If you want to go on a crusade against the 0.1% of women who pursue surrogacy for convenience, assuming it's not actually 0%, be my guest. But leave everyone else out of it who comes to surrogacy as a last resort when other ways to start a family aren't possible.
I guarantee it's more than 0.1%, especially among the rich. There was a Hollywood trend of designer babies where rich women specific selected the "mothers" and "fathers" that they wanted genetically for the babies they would eventually purchase. You know the Beverly Hills type that could never possibly be inconvenienced by a pregnancy. I say purchase because they would find a woman, down on her luck and in need of cash and they would house her in the guest house for the pregnancy, covering all of her bills and send her off after the delivery with a modest check for her trouble. Whether they used their own egg for fertilization or not, that is obscene and it happens more than you think.
As for your comment: "But leave everyone else out of it who comes to surrogacy as a last resort when other ways to start a family aren't possible." There are a few hundred thousand children in the foster care system in the US who would love to have a family. The idea that surrogacy is the last resort is ridiculous. It's the last resort for people that have specific requirements for "their" child, not just the desire to have one.
You can't guarantee anything, you're just falling back in a caricature in your mind of a rich person buying a baby. It doesn't match reality for the vast, vast numbers of people who use surrogacy as a legitimate path when natural pregnancy isn't an option. It sounds like you'd eliminate this as an option for everyone rather than simply put safeguards in place to prevent exploitation (which, by the way, already exist if you use a reputable agency).
And it's nice of you to decide for other people whether foster care is an equally desirable option to surrogacy. Props to couples who go that route, but it's pretty disingenuous to act as though it should be on equal footing in the minds of a couple who wants to start a family. Why not tell every couple to forgo natural childbirth in order to raise foster kids instead?
Where is the evidence that rich women or that Emma herself is "renting a womb" for convenience sake? All this pearl clutching about surrogacy, but is what you fear actually even happening?
Let's think about the richest powerful celebrity women out there.
Jennifer Aniston, Taylor Swift, Oprah, Ellen Degeneres
Aren't mothers.
And for celebrities who used surrogates I know of:
Kim Kardashian, Ellen Pompeo and Gabrielle Union and all three spoke openly about going through serious medical complications or long infertility journeys which was why they resorted to surrogacy.
It really makes you think. If you really believe Emma chose this for convenience sake, why didn't freaking Beyonce do the same so she could continue her career? Why did Kim have two children of her own and dealt with the media calling her fat, when she could have just rented a womb? Why did Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka, and countless athlete mothers not choose surrogates?
Could it be that this is actually not an ideal option for majority of women? Could it be that women WANT to be pregnant most of the time? It makes me really think something was going on behind the scenes.
Until I see droves of our richest women doing this for convenience, I will not question it. But I haven't seen it yet.
I already replied to your post, but it seems worth pointing out that there is a booming surrogacy market. This is just one article about commerical surrogacy in India:
Here's a quote from the abstract: "India had a commercial surrogacy boom until exploitative factors led to the passage of the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill in 2019, which banned the practice."
What happened to all the women involved, did they suddenly become rich the next day and have no need to sell their wombs?
This is the problem with banning practices like surrogacy or sex work. Ok so there's a lot of potential exploitation for sure, but how about we ensure that women aren't in these economic situations to begin with.
I already replied to your post, but it seems worth pointing out that there is a booming surrogacy market. This is just one article about commerical surrogacy in India:
Here's a quote from the abstract: "India had a commercial surrogacy boom until exploitative factors led to the passage of the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill in 2019, which banned the practice."
What happened to all the women involved, did they suddenly become rich the next day and have no need to sell their wombs?
This is the problem with banning practices like surrogacy or sex work. Ok so there's a lot of potential exploitation for sure, but how about we ensure that women aren't in these economic situations to begin with.
Read the article. It tells you that most of the women remained desperately poor, and some had health problems related to pregnancy.
This thread is gross and should be taken down. I don't understand why people need to go after Emma for something that has nothing to do with running. Posting a picture of your new baby is not an invitation for the insults.
This thread is gross and should be taken down. I don't understand why people need to go after Emma for something that has nothing to do with running. Posting a picture of your new baby is not an invitation for the insults.
There is actually a productive conversation happening here about the ethics of surrogacy. I'd say the discussion has moved beyond Emma Coburn, though I agree that people should not insult her because they do not know her circumstances.
One thing I'll point out is that there is a distinction between surrogacy and commercial surrogacy. We have no idea what happened in Emma's situation. And, my guess is that opinions on the legality of surrogacy may be different depending on the circumstances involved.
But there's some contradictions at play in this conversation, but it's pretty clear that the very people who are calling this conversation misogynistic are also willing to overlook evidence that commercial surrogacy is linked to the exploitation of women in developing countries. In some of these places, women don't get to enter contracts on equal footing. It's more like "pimp my womb."
Some of the current social justice stuff is so insular and upper middle class, that its proponents are unable to see beyond the interests of their in-group. Identity politics has obliterated discussions about social class and poverty.
This thread is gross and should be taken down. I don't understand why people need to go after Emma for something that has nothing to do with running. Posting a picture of your new baby is not an invitation for the insults.
Yes, if only it were somehow preventable... oh, perhaps by not living life on Instagram.
While she looks as fertile as the Tennessee Valley, her doctor explained to her husband that her womb was a rocky place, where his seed could find no purchase.
Either that or speculating about a woman's menstrual health, uterine issues, fallopian tube integrity, organ blood flow, or any number of reasons why she chose not to give birth herself is trying to involve yourself in her personal business. Having severe endometriosis, fibroid issues, poor ovarian output, or a partner whose sperm count is low are just any of a number of issues that conspire to make having a biological child a serious issue, and my mother-in-law was one of those people with those issues and whose inability to conceive led her to adopt my wife 50+ years ago. Surrogacy is basically just a way for someone to exert more control over the variables leading to a successful birth, so even if it is out of reach for the average person, I wouldn't begrudge anyone choosing to go that route rather than enriching the industry that thrives on putting women through horrendous physical challenges by trying to conceive when their body doesn't allow them to naturally. My friend's body still hasn't recovered from all those fertility drugs a decade later.
What happened to all the women involved, did they suddenly become rich the next day and have no need to sell their wombs?
This is the problem with banning practices like surrogacy or sex work. Ok so there's a lot of potential exploitation for sure, but how about we ensure that women aren't in these economic situations to begin with.
Read the article. It tells you that most of the women remained desperately poor, and some had health problems related to pregnancy.
aha so what was the whole point in banning it? If the point is to stop exploitation of women but yet they still remained desperately poor after it was banned.
Where is the evidence that rich women or that Emma herself is "renting a womb" for convenience sake? All this pearl clutching about surrogacy, but is what you fear actually even happening?
Let's think about the richest powerful celebrity women out there.
Jennifer Aniston, Taylor Swift, Oprah, Ellen Degeneres
Aren't mothers.
And for celebrities who used surrogates I know of:
Kim Kardashian, Ellen Pompeo and Gabrielle Union and all three spoke openly about going through serious medical complications or long infertility journeys which was why they resorted to surrogacy.
It really makes you think. If you really believe Emma chose this for convenience sake, why didn't freaking Beyonce do the same so she could continue her career? Why did Kim have two children of her own and dealt with the media calling her fat, when she could have just rented a womb? Why did Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka, and countless athlete mothers not choose surrogates?
Could it be that this is actually not an ideal option for majority of women? Could it be that women WANT to be pregnant most of the time? It makes me really think something was going on behind the scenes.
Until I see droves of our richest women doing this for convenience, I will not question it. But I haven't seen it yet.
Again, many countries outlaw it and they do that for a reason. France, Spain and Italy are hardly "anti-woman," or non-progressive countries. They outlaw it because there is a high risk of human trafficking, indentured servitude and baby selling, not to mention the emotional and legal ramifications of a surrogacy contract.
I have no idea what circumstances motivated EC to use a surrogate, I am merely commenting on the practice of surrogacy and whether it should even be legal. I don't think it should be and many countries seem to take the same stance.
Go research "Baby M," I'm guessing you are not old enough to remember the case, however I believe there is a movie about it you could reference.
Some people are way better at carrying and having babies than others. We should let them share their talents with those that are not as good. Surrogates in the US are paid and treated well and have legal protections. Just because other countries have a nonfunctional justice system, ingrained immorality, or other systemic issues doesn’t mean the US should fall to their level. There is no a priori reason that surrogacy is wrong, hand wringing about possible issues in other countries is being.
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