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Surrogacy

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    #62
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    Jequ0n wrote: »
    When will people understand that banning and prohibiting does not stop people from continuing practices. It just turns matters into a game because you need to use more skills or money.

    I am also convinced that a lot of people in this thread are perfectly incapable to think about anything baby or child related without getting absolutely and ridiculously emotional

    When one door is locked, another is opening. When Russia banned foreign adoptions, there was an increase in adoptions from Vietnam, China etc.


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    #63
    First Up
    Registered Users Posts: 14,822 ✭✭✭✭First Up


    isha wrote:
    This is a strange and completely unverifiable dichotomy you seem determined to establish : generally children are born into uncertainty and to parents who may likely fail due to the complicated nature of child rearing VERSUS the surrogate child who "at least" starts out as treasured. That kind of odd assertion coupled with your earlier praise of the monitoring by the agencies of the pregnant women's habits constitute an almost dystopian rationale of surrogacy being better or best parenting.


    I am not trying to establish anything. I just think it reasonable to expect that children born through surrogacy will have loving parents to care for them.

    The couple I know are using surrogacy as a last resort. They would have much preferred to have a child in the "normal" way. They can't.


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    #64
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    Jequ0n wrote: »
    When will people understand that banning and prohibiting does not stop people from continuing practices. It just turns matters into a game because you need to use more skills or money.

    I am also convinced that a lot of people in this thread are perfectly incapable to think about anything baby or child related without getting absolutely and ridiculously emotional

    Do you use this kind of logic when it comes to making FGM illegal? Or child abuse images? Or any damn thing, frankly..

    As for people being emotional about babies or children or indeed any species being emotional about their immature progeny you are going to have to ticket 100s of 1000s of years of beneficial evolution for that.


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    #65
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    Even a poor dumb cow will bellow for days after their calf is removed.


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    #66
    volchitsa
    Registered Users Posts: 7,028 ✭✭✭volchitsa


    jimmycrackcorm wrote: »
    I find it amusing that not long after voting to allow abortions that we're now arguing against allowing women to have surrogate babies.

    What happened to "My body, My choice"?

    Because there's a limit to how much "choice" the pregnat woman has when she's grindingly poor and the buyers are unimaginably rich in comparison (even middle class people in Europe are vastly wealthy in terms of choices as well as money compared to the women who act as foreign surrogates.

    And that's only those who actually do make that "choice" themselves. There are others who don't even have a choice:
    https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/world/2019/09/27/baby-farms-vietnam-sex-trafficking/
    https://www.theguardian.com/law/2011/jun/02/nigeria-baby-farm-raided-human-trafficking
    https://www.bluedragon.org/story/baby-farm-trafficking-ring-busted-9-victims-rescued/


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    #67
    bilbot79
    Registered Users Posts: 1,981 ✭✭✭bilbot79


    Being absent 2-3 years wages can have significant impacts on a would be surrogate too. Let's not forget that. They do this because they need to.

    Possibly the income from one surrogate will secure a better future for her and her existing children. It's too simple to say surrogacy is bad without weighing up the positives for the birthing mother.


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    #68
    volchitsa
    Registered Users Posts: 7,028 ✭✭✭volchitsa


    First Up wrote: »
    I am not trying to establish anything. I just think it reasonable to expect that children born through surrogacy will have loving parents to care for them.

    The couple I know are using surrogacy as a last resort. They would have much preferred to have a child in the "normal" way. They can't.

    That's sad, but it doesn't give them a right to assume that renting out a poor woman's body to have a child for them is ok.

    As for being loving parents, that couple may well be, but it doesn't follow. There was a Japanese guy who had acquired "fathered" through surrogacy, dozens of children in poor south east Asian countries, and was the sole "parent" of all these children he'd brought to Japan. You have to be concerned about what's really going on there.


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    #69
    appledrop
    Registered Users Posts: 5,818 ✭✭✭appledrop


    I think its disgraceful that surrogacy is allowed happen the way it does in Ukraine and then they can just bring the baby home to Ireland.

    Any transaction around the world that means people are paid for the use of their bodies whether it is for use of their womb or taking their organs(which happens in poor countries) is a breach of a person's human rights.

    Of course if they are poor they are going to say oh it's my choice but we as humans shouldn't allow people with money in richer countries to be taking advantage of them.

    It makes me sick that a so called 'celebrity' admitted that she had never even meet the surrogate who gave her a baby

    Pregnancy takes a lot out of you and is not 100% safe and they didn't even have the decency to meet that person.

    The only time I've been OK with surrogacy is the type that happens in UK when it's often another family member of close friend who agrees to carry the baby for the couple. There is no money involved and they usually also stay involved aswell in child's life.


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    #70
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    First Up wrote: »
    I am not trying to establish anything. I just think it reasonable to expect that children born through surrogacy will have loving parents to care for them.

    The couple I know are using surrogacy as a last resort. They would have much preferred to have a child in the "normal" way. They can't.

    What about the woman selling her newborn? Perhaps she would like to avoid having to use this last resort but can't? Perhaps she would like to have a normal time of things.

    I do not know how you can repeatedly assert that it is reasonable to assume any level of exceptionalism among people using surrogates. In fact one could just as easily argue the opposite, and as groundlessly.
    What if I said people have children by surrogates because they want someone to look after them when old? I saw that written about parents in the childfree forum recently. If it could be said to apply to one type of parent, why not another (though I do not agree with it as a reason people commonly have children).
    Perhaps some people are motivated by genetic pride and desire to continue their lineage? Perhaps some people are possessive or vain? Perhaps some people want cheap servants? Perhaps some people want organ donors?
    I mean one could literally make any assertion.

    In the end though the motivation of those making the purchase cannot be what one regulates as it is impossible to divine or prove beyond emotive projection from the observer. The regulation must pertain to the body being rented and the sale of an infant - ie goods and services. And most countries have decided to make it illegal as it is far too exploitative as a trade.

    And yet media still purrs over stories of surrogacy. Odd, I think.


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    #71
    First Up
    Registered Users Posts: 14,822 ✭✭✭✭First Up


    LeakyLime wrote:
    It's not like they had an array of options to choose from. Commercial surrogacy is illegal in the vast vast majority of countries across all continents.

    Probably because it has been abused and exploited as much (if not more) by the local intermediaries as by the desperate and hopeful parents to be.
    LeakyLime wrote:
    Yes as I stated also regulation in Ukraine is for their government. You believe regulation is the answer to any potential issues with surrogacy. But no Irish parents to be or politicians have any power or influence regarding Ukraine.

    Anyone trying surrogacy is taking risks. A strong regulatory regime reduces the risks but there are no guarantees and a lot can go wrong. But if it is the only throw of the dice they have left.......
    LeakyLime wrote:
    Therefore, there is no way to ensure better regulation of this practice.

    There is no way to ensure anything. All people can do is inform themselves, weigh it all up, make their decision and cross their fingers.

    Anyone using surrogacy to try to have a family gets my sympathy.


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    #72
    osarusan
    Registered Users Posts: 16,571 ✭✭✭✭osarusan


    If it's impossible to stop it from happening anyway, then the only solution is to seek full and robust regulation.


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    #73
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    These are just some exerts from 2 articles by france24 the guardian article.
    Ukraine is becoming an international online baby store," the country's commissioner for children's rights Mykola Kuleba warned last month, condemning the "exploitation" of Ukrainian women and calling for a ban on the industry.
    One the poorest countries in Europe, the post-Soviet nation is also known for its attractive prices, with birth through a surrogate costing about $42,000. In the United States it can cost more than twice as much.
    The industry is poorly regulated and rife with abuse and corruption, says Sergiy Antonov, who runs a law firm specialising in reproductive issues.

    Women are sometimes not paid promised amounts or are housed in terrible conditions during the later stages of their pregnancies. In some cases parents have discovered they have no genetic link with children born to surrogates.

    Authorities suspect some clinics are also using surrogacy as a cover for illegal commercial adoptions.

    "It's total chaos," Antonov says.
    She agreed to carry a baby for an Italian couple, and within two months it turned out she had four living embryos in her womb. The biological family decided to keep only one and the rest were removed surgically. In May 2014 Shulzhynska gave birth to a baby girl, which she gave away to the parents. She received a fee of €9,000.
    At Hotel Venice, Albert Tochilovsky, the owner of BioTexCom, does not deny there were mix-ups with embryos during surrogacy procedures in 2011 that led to the human trafficking investigation.

    He blames the error on a lack of experience when the clinic was only a year old, and says: “I don’t think it was only us who used to make mistakes here. If someone starts checking DNA, there will be a lot of scandals.”

    He claims that in at least three cases parents rejected surrogate babies after they were born with health problems. The best-known of them is the case of Bridget, the daughter of an American couple, who was born in 2016 and now lives in an orphanage in Zaporizhia, in eastern Ukraine. “It was a tragedy for us,” Tochilovsky says./quote]


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    #74
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    osarusan wrote: »
    If it's impossible to stop it from happening anyway, then the only solution is to seek full and robust regulation.

    Again...would you say the same re fgm? Child marriage? Production of abusive porn? Etc. Etc

    You say it so definitively, as if objectively true, and yet one scratch on the surface refutes the rationale.


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    #75
    First Up
    Registered Users Posts: 14,822 ✭✭✭✭First Up


    volchitsa wrote:
    That's sad, but it doesn't give them a right to assume that renting out a poor woman's body to have a child for them is ok.

    I can only speak for the couple I know who have thought about it and looked at it from every angle, including the welfare of the surrogate mother. They didn't make the decision lightly.


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    #76
    volchitsa
    Registered Users Posts: 7,028 ✭✭✭volchitsa


    First Up wrote: »

    Anyone using surrogacy to try to have a family gets my sympathy.

    Really? Anyone? The couples who abandon the baby because it turns out to be less than perfect, leaving it to a life of poverty with the surrogate whom they often don't fully pay either, since she hasn't completed the contract by handing them a perfect baby, or else in an orphanage which may be even worse. Those are the people you have sympathy for, rather than the baby or the mother?

    Or this man? Does he deserve your sympathy? Japanese baby-factory man gains custody of 13 surrogate children


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    #77
    appledrop
    Registered Users Posts: 5,818 ✭✭✭appledrop


    First Up wrote: »
    Every child in human history has been born into uncertainty. Nobody chooses their parents. The ability to procreate is just physical; rearing a child is a lot more complicated.

    At least a child born through surrogacy is starting with parents who treasure them.

    I'm sorry but I don't buy this line that anyone who adopts or has a child through surrogacy, treasures them or loves them so much more.

    I still remember the horrific case of Tristan Dowes, where they basicially just dropped him back to orphanage after a few years and said no thanks we don't want him.

    We have also heard countless stories over the years of Irish children who were 'given' up for adoption but really bought often by Anerican couples and a lot of those children didn't have good experiences with their adoptive families.


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    #78
    osarusan
    Registered Users Posts: 16,571 ✭✭✭✭osarusan


    Deleted User wrote: »
    Again...would you say the same re fgm? Child marriage? Production of abusive porn? Etc. Etc
    I think those are poor comparisons, FGM and child marriage especially.

    But then, I think it's possible to come up with a system in which surrogacy is not inevitably exploitative, which is what makes those comparisons flawed.

    If you think that there is an element of exploitation that is inherent to surrogacy and cannot be removed, then that's a fundamental difference between us that we won't resolve.


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    #79
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    Deleted User wrote: »
    Again...would you say the same re fgm? Child marriage? Production of abusive porn? Etc. Etc

    You say it so definitively, as if objectively true, and yet one scratch on the surface refutes the rationale.

    You’re diluting a very valid argument by bringing other aspects of welfare into the discussion.

    Vulnerable people will be abused by greedy manipulative ones. Regarding surrogacy, is the solution the banning of foreign surrogacy?


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    #80
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    First Up wrote: »
    I can only speak for the couple I know who have thought about it and looked at it from every angle, including the welfare of the surrogate mother. They didn't make the decision lightly.

    Are they living with the surrogate mother throughout the pregnancy?

    Don’t get me wrong, I feel for their plight but just because someone a thousand miles away via video call says that they are being treated like a vip through the pregnancy does not make it so. Their payment for services rendered relies on selling the product as the best in the business- regardless of whether it’s true or not.


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    #81
    First Up
    Registered Users Posts: 14,822 ✭✭✭✭First Up


    volchitsa wrote:
    Really? Anyone?

    I said anyone trying to have a family.


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    #82
    LeakyLime
    Closed Accounts Posts: 83 ✭✭LeakyLime


    Deleted User wrote: »
    Vulnerable people will be abused by greedy manipulative ones. Regarding surrogacy, is the solution the banning of foreign surrogacy?

    Should we legalise in Ireland so we can ensure proper regulation here?


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    #83
    volchitsa
    Registered Users Posts: 7,028 ✭✭✭volchitsa


    First Up wrote: »
    I said anyone trying to have a family.

    The Australian couple were trying to have a family. But it was a commercial contract, and I think that's fundamentally incompatible with respect for the pregnant woman or the baby: they're buying a child. So what if they think they'll love the child: IMO there's something fundamentally wrong with a commerical contract to create and obtain a child.


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    #84
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    Deleted User wrote: »
    You’re diluting a very valid argument by bringing other aspects of welfare into the discussion.

    Vulnerable people will be abused by greedy manipulative ones. Regarding surrogacy, is the solution the banning of foreign surrogacy?

    The argument is not about extending to consideration to other welfare aspects. the argument is to counter the absolutist claim that some or any things simply cannot be regulated. Everything that is inherently potentially abusive can be regulated.


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    #85
    First Up
    Registered Users Posts: 14,822 ✭✭✭✭First Up


    Strawberry Milkshake wrote:
    Don’t get me wrong, I feel for their plight but just because someone a thousand miles away via video call says that they are being treated like a vip through the pregnancy does not make it so. Their payment for services rendered relies on selling the product as the best in the business- regardless of whether it’s true or not.

    Yes, there are always risks. They took the best part of a year to research it, including talking with previous users of the same services. They met one family (in the UK) who have two children through the same surrogate mother, who is carrying their third.

    If it's a scam, it's a bloody good one.


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    #86
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    osarusan wrote: »
    I think it's possible to come up with a system in which surrogacy is not inevitably exploitative.

    If you think that there is an element of exploitation that is inherent to surrogacy and cannot be removed, then that's a fundamental difference between us that we won't resolve.

    What does your system look like?


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    #87
    LeakyLime
    Closed Accounts Posts: 83 ✭✭LeakyLime


    osarusan wrote: »
    But then, I think it's possible to come up with a system in which surrogacy is not inevitably exploitative, which is what makes those comparisons flawed.

    If you think that there is an element of exploitation that is inherent to surrogacy and cannot be removed, then that's a fundamental difference between us that we won't resolve.

    How can the Irish state ensure the Ukranian government proper regulates the practice (which is illegal in Ireland) to remove risks of exploitation?

    Why is commercial surrogacy illegal in EU states, but EU citizens can pay a surrogate in a poor non-EU country to carry their child (Again most countries no matter how impoverished do not allow as they recognise it is open and subject to exploitation)


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    #88
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    First Up wrote: »
    Yes, there are always risks. They took the best part of a year to research it, including talking with previous users of the same services. They met one family (in the UK) who have two children through the same surrogate mother, who is carrying their third.

    If it's a scam, it's a bloody good one.

    No one said it is a scam.

    Are they going to allow the birth mother to participate in the child's life? Are they going to honour her place as birth mother? Will the child know their birth mother? Will their be connection? You present them as utterly scrupulous, spending time, spending fortunes, treasuring etc - but surely if a woman is giving birth to your child one's scruples must extend first and foremost to a fundamental relationship with that other very relevant and important human being?


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    #89
    osarusan
    Registered Users Posts: 16,571 ✭✭✭✭osarusan


    Deleted User wrote: »
    What does your system look like?
    I don't have a system. I said I believe it's possible to come up with one.


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    #90
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    First Up wrote: »
    Yes, there are always risks. They took the best part of a year to research it, including talking with previous users of the same services. They met one family (in the UK) who have two children through the same surrogate mother, who is carrying their third.

    If it's a scam, it's a bloody good one.

    She’s carrying a third child for them???

    As much as I can feel complete sympathy for parents who cannot have a child, having one child then fulfills that loss. But to keep using the service for more and more children has me questioning whether if it’s a lifestyle choice “oh we want 3 kids to be the perfect family unit”.


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    #91
    LeakyLime
    Closed Accounts Posts: 83 ✭✭LeakyLime


    osarusan wrote: »
    I don't have a system. I said I believe it's possible to come up with one.

    It's possible to come up with one in Ireland or in impoverished countries, or both?


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