Much of the surrogacy talk appears to be camouflage for criticizing gay male parenting.

I think surrogacy is immoral but when I picture your typical couple using a surrogate I think of a wealthy straight couple with no shame, within which the woman doesn’t want to go through the physical ordeals of pregnancy so pays a poor woman to do that for her.

Yup. They think that straight people and childbirth are mAaAaGic.

They also think that people are supposed to act like a mother of father vs. acting like a parent.

They’re primitive, OP.

Some of the comments in here, too (on the longer thread about it) have come hard and mean for gay parents who became parents via surrogacy. Being one, I had to speak up.

R1, that scenario is an exceedingly tiny percentage of the people who seek the help of a surrogate and their reasons why. In nearly all instances it is/was because the intended parents cannot carry and birth a child themselves.

Do gays still want children?

If someone can't naturally produce and/or carry their own children, I'm against renting wombs to do so. For fertility issues, I'm an evolutionist. I believe that nature knows whose DNA should survive and whose shouldn't. If for whatever reason your sperm isn't viable, or your eggs aren't releasing, or your uterus can't carry to term, that's nature's way of telling you to keep your genes to yourself.

It's possible that the advancements in reproductive medicine are to blame for the increase in kids being born with autism.

For the rich couples where there is a perfectly functioning and available uterus among them but they just don't want to carry their own offspring because "they just don't want to be pregnant" and instead prefer to, quite literally, dump that load onto some other poor woman, fuck them. Get a puppy.

R6, I feel the same about homosexuality. It is intended as nature's birth control. I fully support adoption by LGBTQ.

R7

They are people who are against gays adopting too. So gays really can’t win with these people.

[quote] In nearly all instances it is/was because the intended parents cannot carry and birth a child themselves.

Any stats on that R4? Also, while that may be a common thread in couples or people that use surrogates, it’s not the main thing they have in common, which is wealth.

There is no god or sentient “force” behind anything. Evolution merely means change over time. Magical thinking / mentally ill nonsense

r7 I believe we're meant to adopt as well. I have my own theory that homosexuality developed to help ensure the survival of the species by helping to raise the offspring of straights who didn't have the means to care for them. It just makes sense.

[quote]There is no god or sentient “force” behind anything.

We do not know that.

I'm puzzled and kinda shocked by the discourse around this news I've seen on Reddit. The system works just fine in the US, but is somehow too morally objectionable to (us) Europeans? It's just bizarre.

[quote] The system works just fine in the US

It doesn’t.

The American attitude to surrogacy and adoption is very...American

[quote] There is no god or sentient “force” behind anything. Evolution merely means change over time. Magical thinking / mentally ill nonsense

Disagree. Your understanding is reductive.

They just need to be reminded to mind their own fucking business.

Indeed r15. Americans don't seem to understand that American surrogacy laws are the global outliers. The most similar case to the US is Russia.

OP, the issue with men (could be a single heterosexual man too) taking the surrogacy route without a female partner is that not only do men have to rent a womb, they have to buy a woman's eggs as well and have them extracted, which makes the whole thing a little icky for some people. Heterosexual couples may also have to do this too, and it's also icky when they do it. Add in the commercial aspect and it's really pushing the ethical envelope for many people.

Then add in the fact that only wealthier men can afford to do this, while the women "donating" their eggs and wombs are very likely to be extremely poor and doing it out of desperation, and the whole thing becomes quite icky for many.

R11

Hot take, I don’t like adoption. I wouldn’t want to adopt other peoples children. Besides, I don’t want to be accuse of recruiting people into the gay lifestyle.

Have you guys read the Twitter comments? Most of it was homophobic in nature. It was about how gays are just groomers. My thread wasn’t about surrogacy but how surrogacy is used to be homophobic.

This is an example

[quote] My thread wasn’t about surrogacy but how surrogacy is used to be homophobic.

Almost any topic is used to be homophobic on twitter. It says more about the venue rather than any sort of epiphany you’re having about a connection between society, homophobia, and surrogacy. Any conversation involving gay couples and any item that’s related to the “traditional family” will inspire homophobia. Did this need to be a thread?

To add to my posts at r19 and r20, when only men are involved as customers of a surrogacy, not only do a woman's eggs have to be harvested for commercial purposes, but a woman has to get pregnant too, for commercial purposes. It's almost like paying a woman to get pregnant so you can buy a child from her. She might even be getting pregnant with another woman's eggs implanted in her, all for commercial purposes.

[quote]I wouldn’t want to adopt other peoples children.

r21 Those other people didn't want their children, though. That's why they're up for adoption. They're unwanted. It's quite sad, actually. As for the accusations of "recruiting" we get accused of doing that by merely existing. So, to leave unwanted children without a loving family and home because of societal ignorance is, to me, myopic.

In the case of men, though, there is always an "adoption" aspect of sorts because the baby is being taken away from its mother. That can be traumatizing and cause other issues. There is a reason Mother's Day is more elaborate than Father's Day. There is also a reason why the death of one's mother, in most cases, hurts more than the death of one's father. There is an entire attachment theory dedicated to the maternal relationship that affects most of us well into our adulthood whether we like it or not. That bond is just...different.

A man or men using surrogacy to birth their babies involves using a woman's body to produce his offspring and then taking the baby from its mother during a time when most babies absolutely need their mothers. As an evolutionist, I realize this is backwards. In the case of a man or men, at the very least some sort of co-parenting arrangement with the mother should be established for the child's sake.

See the following YouTube video of an experiment.

[quote]Secure, Insecure, Avoidant Ambivalent Attachment in Mothers Babies

Wow. A couple of the comments from that video I just posted:

[quote]arielleeisenberg9878 2 years ago That’s my sister in the first clip!! She’s 25 now and all my siblings have a great relationship with both parents

[quote]She’s actually finishing up her masters in social work!

Whelp!

[quote]She’s actually finishing up her masters in social work!

As a mask for sociopathic tendencies!

Whatever happened with the science I read about ten years ago where they were experimenting with creating either sperm or eggs from one’s stem cells? This would mean that gay couples could have biological children. Of course gay men would still have to rent a womb, but it would be one less hurdle.

Here is a recent article on the science.

Can you imagine at some point in the future some single woman creating her own sperm and fertilizing her own egg and giving birth to herself?

I live in one of the most gay friendly countries in the world. We got gay marriage here almost 20 years ago, yet surrogacy is illegal here. I don't consider ban on surrogacy homophobic.

People just want to control women and infantalize them.

[quote] Then add in the fact that only wealthier men can afford to do this, while the women "donating" their eggs and wombs are very likely to be extremely poor and doing it out of desperation, and the whole thing becomes quite icky for many.

That’s a myth. Women can do what they want with their own bodies. Stop treating them like little girls who need to be rescued.

A lot more work being a fag…

“ Then add in the fact that only wealthier men can afford to do this, while the women "donating" their eggs and wombs are very likely to be extremely poor and doing it out of desperation, and the whole thing becomes quite icky for many.”

R20, that disturbing portrayal of desperation and exploitation does not match actual gestational surrogacy here in the US.

Here is a study of several hundred US surrogates and why they chose to be surrogates. (See link)

Our surrogate and her husband definitely benefited from the money but they were also primarily interested in helping a two-dad family like ours… and they were not financially in poverty or desperate. They had other ways of making the money she earned from carrying a child for us. We are still in touch years later, and I send her fun kid photos every so often. Our surrogate is a mom herself and she loves seeing the updates.

I’ll never understand religious zealots, who expend such energy caring about what strangers do in their private lives.

Religious zealots can go to hell. Fed up.

[quote] if for whatever reason your sperm isn't viable, or your eggs aren't releasing, or your uterus can't carry to term, that's nature's way of telling you to keep your genes to yourself.

Just like childhood cancer. Nature obviously doesn’t want those kids to grow up and reproduce, so if we get all soft and save their lives, we should sterilize them to honor nature

If we trusted nature, R36, they wouldn't make it to growing up. Problem solved.

Sweet Jesus, where’s the end to this line of thinking. Nature “wants” visually challenged people to walk into things and repeatedly get injured and eventually unlucky enough to die, but nature loses because these people wear contact lenses?

[quote] that disturbing portrayal of desperation and exploitation does not match actual gestational surrogacy here in the US.

You can’t disagree that people using surrogates are vastly more wealthy than the women that work as surrogates though R34? That this is yet another transaction that has a clear economic bias. How much did you pay? Should only wealthy parents be able to conceive this way in your opinion?

totally, it's troll talk

As a gay man, I once felt uneasy about surrogacy, but after some reflection, I realized that my hesitation stemmed more from personal insecurities than any deep moral conviction. Growing up, the idea of gay men becoming parents simply wasn’t part of the conversation, so it never seemed like a possibility for me. Now, even though it’s more accepted—at least in the progressive area where I live—I’m still uncertain if parenthood is something I truly want. It’s a major life decision that I never anticipated having to confront.

The financial aspect is also daunting. Surrogacy is incredibly expensive, and I may never be in a position to afford it. And then there’s the pressure from family. A friend of mine is facing it from his own mother, who’s been urging him and his husband to start a family and has even offered to cover the cost of a surrogate.

I find myself thinking about the pressures women have historically faced when it comes to motherhood—deciding whether to have children and the difficulty of discerning your own desires when there’s societal and familial pressure pushing you in different directions. Now, I’m experiencing a similar kind of weight, navigating the question of whether I truly want to become a parent or if I’m simply responding to the expectations of others.

Intellectually, I understand choice is a positive thing, and I have no desire to restrict others’ choices about how to live their lives. But there was also a strange personal comfort to not having to think about this at all.

I think the bigger question is who wants to bring a child into this fucking world right now anyway? I mean I know people do it everyday. But damn, I’m old enough to remember when direct exposure to the sun during the summer didn’t feel like my skin was about to blister.

r36 False equivalency. There is a difference in using modern medicine to improve the health and quality of one's own life as opposed to using it to create an entirely separate human being for your own selfish desire to breed.

I have mixed feelings about it. There are so many starving children around the world why not adopt. Females usually use surrogates because they can’t or the womb can’t hold a child. But back to my first point, on the same token sometimes people raise these adopted kids with no biological link and the kids grow up to act like terrors toward the parents. Fuck that shit lol. And I know that’s not politically correct.

Surrogacy has always been and not necessarily public. Surrogacy as a paid vocation is what we need to focus on.

[quote] Surrogacy as a paid vocation is what we need to focus on.

Under his eye!

You just described factory-standard eugenics, r6. Congratulations on having as much creativity and empathy as a Nazi who died 80 years ago.

I think we should stop manufacturing inhalers so all the asthmatics die off and stop spreading their worthless DNA. I'm an Evolutionist. That means I can say disgusting and ass-backwards things without feeling embarrassed :)

Mao I think you are mistaken. There is more of a link between the age of the father and autism than the latter and fertility treatment. I don’t think there is any link between fertility treatment and autism actually. Overall there is a link between older parents and autism and older parents are more likely to need or have utilized fertility treatments.

[Quote] False equivalency. There is a difference in using modern medicine to improve the health and quality of one's own life as opposed to using it to create an entirely separate human being for your own selfish desire to breed. Mao at R43

Wanting to have children, a family, be a parent is selfish? You’re the one spouting nonsense here. Not sure if you’re a troll or just stupid but either way, find your way to the nearest grease fire and jump in.

Of course it's selfish. It's not purely selfish, because you have to sacrifice for your child, but you're usually doing it for yourself; to carry on your genes. You're certainly not doing it for the environment, which could do without more humans.

[quote]A friend of mine is facing it from his own mother, who’s been urging him and his husband to start a family and has even offered to cover the cost of a surrogate.

Yeah, this is fucked up. Begging "GIVE ME GRANDCHILDREN," whether your kids are gay or straight -- it's not your call anymore. Step back and let your kids live their own lives.

From everything I hear, parenthood is hard. It's not a decision one should make just to shut up one's mother.

r47 See my reply at r43.

[quote]There is more of a link between the age of the father and autism than the latter and fertility treatment.

Well yes, this is true. Fertility treatment isn't just because the woman has issues. In many cases, it's the father's sperm that's the problem (in approximately 40-50% of cases, the male's sperm is the problem). Usually with motility (i.e. weak swimmers) and reaching the egg. In my evolutionist beliefs, poor sperm motility is, again, nature's way of telling that man not to reproduce his genes.

Advancements in medicine have made it possible for sperm that would never reach an egg naturally to achieve fertilization (intrauterine insemination). So, again, it's highly possible that fertility treatments have contributed to the increase in children being born with autism. That's all I was saying. If the sperm isn't motile enough to reach an egg on its own, that obviously means something is wrong with it at the genetic level.

r51 Agreed with all of this. Just last week, I made a comment to my aunt and mother that I wanted to get a hysterectomy to stop my periods (I'm sick to death of them) and you would've thought someone told my mother I died. She asked me "Why? You won't be able to have children." My response, "And??? Bother your son about that." Her quest for grandchildren is tiresome. She also has this weird belief system about "children being a blessing."

Meanwhile, she never shut-up about how much she couldn't "stand these kids" and just wanted to "up and leave" because we were stressing her out. She's the main reason I don't want to be a mom. 1) She made motherhood look absolutely miserable (single mom), 2) Due to large age gaps between my brother and I, I had to do a lot of rearing of him when I was in middle school and it completely put me off of motherhood. She also had a very difficult pregnancy and looked very uncomfortable 24/7 while pregnant with him and afterwards. She looked like the Michelin man she was so damn swollen. Fuck that.

R53 Mao are you black or Filipino or something?

r54 I'm Black.

R55 Cool. How old are you. I know I know but this is anonymous dear ;). Did you grow up in Detroit or DC. You mention you were station there at one time or something.

The human body has the structure and the intelligence and thus the capability to inseminate without direct contact and penetration. Similar to octopus and other species. Our hands unlike other mammals can reach our genitalia and release the fluid from its inside without rubbing or contact with a vagina. If a male want to release semen and distribute it among as many different females as possible to inseminate it is still perfectly natural because there is no artificial or mechanical way to release the reproductive fluid from the internal reproductive organ.

It is religion and philosophers that want you to believe otherwise.

r56 I was born and raised in Detroit but don't live in the city anymore. I never lived in DC nor was I in the military. I enlisted in the USMC and went through the entire process with MEPS but didn't show up for basic/bootcamp.

R32, I am a woman, so I understood exactly what would need to be done to a woman's body for her to be an egg "donor", and I can assure you that no woman would do it unless she were desperate.

Stop assuaging yourself that this is something a woman would freely go into because she thinks it's a nice idea.

There is no opinion less interesting or warranted to me than what you think someone else should be doing with their own reproductive organs. Your opinion begins and ends with your OWN fertility choices. Period.

Again, there you go with the fake "choice" and "whatever anyone wants to do with their own bodies" rhetoric, r60, which is taken from other political debates and misapplied to this one. It's interesting to note that the people using this argument about choice are never the egg donors or surrogates themselves but the people who want to pay them to use their body and the products of their body.

You don't have to give a shit about what I think, but I - and most people - will never believe that women are doing this out of some enlightened choice and not out of desperation. It just makes you feel better when you want to buy a baby to order to think the women you are paying are doing it because they've freely chosen to do so, rather than because they are poor and desperate.

r61 A lot of men have a bad habit of only giving a shit about women's bodily autonomy as long as our bodies are being used to benefit them in some way.

For the straight male equivalent of this, see the sex industry. No better way to get men to support women's freedom of choice as long as it offers a way for them to get what they want from women. From bearing their offspring to getting their dicks women, a woman's "choice" only matters insofar as it benefits men. They're beyond transparent.

^*getting their dicks wet

No comment. "I don't know nuthin' bout birthing babies."

I'm anti surrogacy. If you really want a kid then adopt. Surrogacy is for the self obsessed.

R20 "Then add in the fact that only wealthier men can afford to do this, while the women "donating" their eggs and wombs are very likely to be extremely poor and doing it out of desperation, and the whole thing becomes quite icky for many."

In my experience (although I don't know what the statistics are) is that the young women selling their eggs, like the young men selling their sperm, are commonly university students.

As a gay male - I genuinely don't care about this issue. I have no interest in children - like most gay people.

If people (straight or gay) want children and need to use a surrogate and it's mutually agreed with all parties then fine with me. If they don't want to use a surrogate for whatever reason - also fine with me.

My guess is that some people would prefer a child that's "theirs" (their own DNA) rather than adopt a child who is not "theirs". Who knows or cares!

[quote][R61] A lot of men have a bad habit of only giving a shit about women's bodily autonomy as long as our bodies are being used to benefit them in some way.

Yeah, a lot of men who consider themselves progressive think women should be allowed to sell their bodies for sex, although they're more hazy on whether employment protections and regulations should be imposed, like compulsory condoms, HIV testing, limits of sexual partners per day and minimum pricing.

On surrogacy Ukraine has a law that says women must have had at least one baby before becoming a surrogate, and must be aged between 25-35.

Proof that straight men actually hate women.

r61Well there isn't commercial surrogacy practised in the UK , so no financial desperation motive yet there are British women in the UK who act as surrogates. So I think you are oversimplfying.

r20 That is surely an argument for either regulating properly commercial surrogacy or banning it rather than banning non commercial surrogacy.The ban in the UK is on commercial surrogacy only and plenty of people become surrogates without poverty being a motive.