I feel conflicted about surrogacy, but I don't believe we can or should end it. While no one has the right to a baby, infertility is devastating and life-ruining. I think it's too easy for fertile people to say "Sorry, you just need to accept it" when their own kids bring them so much joy and meaning. I suspect a lot of the people who judge surrogacy (and adoption) would feel differently if they weren't able to conceive.
But I believe anyone who brings a child into the world has an obligation to put the baby's needs first. The best way to do this in third-party reproduction is to respect biological bonds.
For example, I feel differently about the following scenarios: A) A woman carries her sister's baby, is present after the birth, and stays involved as a loving aunt. They are open with the child about where he came from. B) A paid surrogate hands over the baby and then everyone pretends she doesn't exist.
I'm a lesbian with a sperm donor baby. I believe it was ethical to have him (he's a happy, loved child) but I also believe it's important to acknowledge that not being raised by his biological father is a loss. When he was about 3, he told me he wished he had a dad. I didn't say "You don't need a dad. Two moms is just as good." I validated his feelings. We also have an open arrangement where he has met his sperm donor (a family friend), and they are free to build their own relationship as he grows up. (Right now he's a preschooler so I facilitate everything, but one day it will be his choice).
With surrogacy, I hope to see more arrangements that are more than a transaction. I cringe when I see gay men announce "they" had a baby, but I feel differently when the mother stays in the child's life as a third parent. (I know someone who did this. My gay friend inseminated his straight female friend who wanted kids but never found the right man. Now they happily co-parent.)
If these kids have secure, happy homes, I can't say it's bad that they were born. But we owe it to the kids to acknowledge their biological bonds, and to respect that they matter, and to give them access to their bio and birth parents when it's possible.
Thanks for your thoughtful notes. You are wise parent and your child is lucky to have you.
I would add--extremely controversially, I know--that mother loss and father loss are not equivalent to the life of a very young child. Not a very "sayable" thing, and for good reason (and I will qualify that I think the impact of the loss shifts as a child gets older).
And obviously, the feelings of the surrogate towards the child, and the feelings towards the sperm donor towards his child usually vary. Evidently in some countries, the surrogate can choose to keep the child she bears if she really wishes (!)
I absolutely agree with you that mother and father loss are not the same (and it would be weird if it were the same, considering that babies spend 9 months in their mother's body and then breastfeed, while the bio father's presence or absence has nothing to do with the baby's survival).
Children only realize they don't have a father when they get older, and among donor conceived people, feelings seem to range from indifference to an intense desire to connect with their biological origins. But while I take those feelings seriously, it's not the same as traumatizing a newborn by separating him from his birth mother's body.
Also, surrogacy and sperm donation are obviously completely different in terms of risk. Surrogates can, and have, died from complications. It feels unfair to say it's ethical for lesbians to reproduce, but not gay men. But it's just biological reality that it's a very different situation when you don't have a womb.
There are so many variables in a surrogate situation. I think it can be beautiful or exploitive, depending on the circumstance. I have had more babies than most – four! Each pregnancy was as different as each child, but I always felt a profound bond beginning around the four month mark that felt like sharing my body/mind/feelings with another human. It's hard to explain without sounding weird.
When I was in my twenties I probably would have been a surrogate for my sister or someone very close to me, but I couldn’t have done it for money. It would have messed me up emotionally for a long time. Maybe forever.
I know someone who used an egg donor to have her last child with her husband.
Although their girl is not related to her, she says she feels no different than she did with her "biological" child, and is going through the same hormonally-driven madness of early-motherhood. Her body bore that child, it doesn't understand that the child isn't "all" hers!
This helped me change my perspective on surrogacy.
I think adoption trauma has been studied as the experience of the baby losing its birth mother, so wouldn’t surrogacy have the same impact? Even if the child is biologically from the parents’ egg and sperm the carrier surrogate and the baby will bond intensely prior to the birth. I can see how that might significantly impact both of them.
Dec 9, 2022·edited Dec 10, 2022Liked by Sarah Haider
"Our biological limitations do not constrain us, they are us."
Yes. The idea that everyone should be equal rests on a sort of bizarre abstraction of what a "person" is, in which your physical nature is considered somehow extraneous to your identity. It's mind-body dualism taken to extremes, combined with (at least in the Western world) Christian ideas of spiritual equality.
On the other hand, the idea that we "are" our biological limitations could be seen as an argument against transgenderism (i.e. you were born female, so you're a woman, end of story), but I would resist taking things quite so literally without more careful examination. Gender dysphoria is a real thing (though very likely over-diagnosed these days), and pending a better scientific understanding of its nature and origins, I think we should keep an open mind on the question of whether someone who is physically one sex can "really" (in some sense) be of the other sex, or whether surgical transformation is in at least some cases the best way to deal with it.
I think this all basically boils down to, yes, we and our biology are the same thing, but let's be careful about what inferences we draw from that.
I don’t think gender dysphoria is a real thing. I think there is a range of phenotypical expression (both physical and social/personality) among both men and women, and that this sometimes does not seem congruent with the fact that we are a sexually dimorphic species. In addition, reproductive success (although achieved now without the need for actual reproduction) is a central measure of human status. Feeling like a loser in this important contest can cause mental distress in people who do not feel that they are in the “normal” range of phenotypic expression for their biological sex. Along comes capitalism and more recently transhumanism, and for every uncomfortable feeling in life, there is a proffered solution from which someone else can make money. Feeling sad? Take a pill. Don’t want to look older? Have some Botox and filler. Uncomfortable with your changing body during the teen years? We’ll cut some bits off and make you a medical patient for life with hormones. And that’s even without getting into AGP, which seems to be a whole other kettle of fish (although the fact that there is an incel-to-trans pipeline implies that perhaps feeling insufficiently successful as a man in the sexual realm can play a role for some).
As your comment reflects, these issues are all of a piece. I include the issues I raise above as well (pharmaceuticals to control our feelings and cosmetic procedures to ameliorate the physical evidence of our humanness). This is something that humans will have to grapple with going forward. In trying to transcend limitations, are we inadvertently imposing equally onerous ones? And are we nullifying our humanity in the process?
We do! It’s pretty lonely because it seems mean, if not Nazi adjacent, to most people. Even those who are oriented toward questioning on other issues are reluctant to think this one all the way through because it is considered impolite. Because I’m a contrarian by nature in a lot of ways, I don’t care about being impolite. Posie Parker is my heroine. The dots are all there for anyone who cares to connect them. I’m fortunate to have a real life friend who agrees with me on this, and I have made major inroads on my partner’s views, which were more reflexively “this is part of gay rights” before he met me. But it’s not something I talk about in real life with anyone else. I live in fear of being asked to put pronouns on something at work and having to refuse. I won’t declare fealty to an ideology I not only don’t believe in, but actively oppose.
As the commenter I responded to brought out, surrogacy and gender ideology are absolutely related to each other. It’s all quite disturbing.
I think that «gender dysphoria» can be nothing but a version of Body Integrity Dysphoria. which is undoubtedly real. This illness implies that some body part or body function is experienced as alien and disturbing. Some crave amputation of a disturbing limb, others want to be blind etc. It is not reasonable that this skewed alienation of parts and functions never could be about genitals, and as the genitals more than most things signal sex, it would stand to reason that people who want to get rid of their penis might draw the wrong conclusion and think that this is an urge to change sex.
Gender dysphoria as a positive, ie «feeling like» or «being» the opposite sex is of course utter nonsense: Dysphoria is always negative, what you don’t want to be or have, never what you think you want. If gender dysphoria was about what you want, all bimbos wanting a boob job are dysphoric.
Wow. What a great piece. This is a very delicate subject, and I am happy to not be on twitter to see the hate going on on this. I had a very long comment but erased it, because it did not bring anything good. However, the chances of blowback are as high as your level of rightfulness.
I don’t have the biological or medical knowledge with which I could add intelligent comment, but I think two things should be mentioned. First, it’s important that medical and biological research continue without constraints based on fear or ideology; no one can assume there is a final word about anything in the physical universe, including mammalian reproduction. Second, it’s important that we all keep talking in good faith about this and other subjects that can be difficult ones. Shutting down communication regarding any subject decreases available knowledge about that subject and, thus, decreases the ability to make better decisions about how to live our lives. Obvious? Goes without saying? Not these days.
"This is the world’s first artificial womb facility – and you can choose your baby’s characteristics from a menu. EctoLife, which can raise 30,000 babies a year, is said to be based on over fifty years of groundbreaking scientific research."
It is a "concept"--aka, not real. But many people certainly want it to be!
I'm extremely wary of this, and hope it doesn't become a reality any time soon. Reproductive trades are already in extremely ethically murky waters. Imagine if this is possible... eccentric billionaires raising an army of kids...more darkly, human trafficking starting very early.
I feel conflicted about surrogacy, but I don't believe we can or should end it. While no one has the right to a baby, infertility is devastating and life-ruining. I think it's too easy for fertile people to say "Sorry, you just need to accept it" when their own kids bring them so much joy and meaning. I suspect a lot of the people who judge surrogacy (and adoption) would feel differently if they weren't able to conceive.
But I believe anyone who brings a child into the world has an obligation to put the baby's needs first. The best way to do this in third-party reproduction is to respect biological bonds.
For example, I feel differently about the following scenarios: A) A woman carries her sister's baby, is present after the birth, and stays involved as a loving aunt. They are open with the child about where he came from. B) A paid surrogate hands over the baby and then everyone pretends she doesn't exist.
I'm a lesbian with a sperm donor baby. I believe it was ethical to have him (he's a happy, loved child) but I also believe it's important to acknowledge that not being raised by his biological father is a loss. When he was about 3, he told me he wished he had a dad. I didn't say "You don't need a dad. Two moms is just as good." I validated his feelings. We also have an open arrangement where he has met his sperm donor (a family friend), and they are free to build their own relationship as he grows up. (Right now he's a preschooler so I facilitate everything, but one day it will be his choice).
With surrogacy, I hope to see more arrangements that are more than a transaction. I cringe when I see gay men announce "they" had a baby, but I feel differently when the mother stays in the child's life as a third parent. (I know someone who did this. My gay friend inseminated his straight female friend who wanted kids but never found the right man. Now they happily co-parent.)
If these kids have secure, happy homes, I can't say it's bad that they were born. But we owe it to the kids to acknowledge their biological bonds, and to respect that they matter, and to give them access to their bio and birth parents when it's possible.
Thanks for your thoughtful notes. You are wise parent and your child is lucky to have you.
I would add--extremely controversially, I know--that mother loss and father loss are not equivalent to the life of a very young child. Not a very "sayable" thing, and for good reason (and I will qualify that I think the impact of the loss shifts as a child gets older).
And obviously, the feelings of the surrogate towards the child, and the feelings towards the sperm donor towards his child usually vary. Evidently in some countries, the surrogate can choose to keep the child she bears if she really wishes (!)
I absolutely agree with you that mother and father loss are not the same (and it would be weird if it were the same, considering that babies spend 9 months in their mother's body and then breastfeed, while the bio father's presence or absence has nothing to do with the baby's survival).
Children only realize they don't have a father when they get older, and among donor conceived people, feelings seem to range from indifference to an intense desire to connect with their biological origins. But while I take those feelings seriously, it's not the same as traumatizing a newborn by separating him from his birth mother's body.
Also, surrogacy and sperm donation are obviously completely different in terms of risk. Surrogates can, and have, died from complications. It feels unfair to say it's ethical for lesbians to reproduce, but not gay men. But it's just biological reality that it's a very different situation when you don't have a womb.
There are so many variables in a surrogate situation. I think it can be beautiful or exploitive, depending on the circumstance. I have had more babies than most – four! Each pregnancy was as different as each child, but I always felt a profound bond beginning around the four month mark that felt like sharing my body/mind/feelings with another human. It's hard to explain without sounding weird.
When I was in my twenties I probably would have been a surrogate for my sister or someone very close to me, but I couldn’t have done it for money. It would have messed me up emotionally for a long time. Maybe forever.
I know someone who used an egg donor to have her last child with her husband.
Although their girl is not related to her, she says she feels no different than she did with her "biological" child, and is going through the same hormonally-driven madness of early-motherhood. Her body bore that child, it doesn't understand that the child isn't "all" hers!
This helped me change my perspective on surrogacy.
Such a good point.
I think adoption trauma has been studied as the experience of the baby losing its birth mother, so wouldn’t surrogacy have the same impact? Even if the child is biologically from the parents’ egg and sperm the carrier surrogate and the baby will bond intensely prior to the birth. I can see how that might significantly impact both of them.
"Our biological limitations do not constrain us, they are us."
Yes. The idea that everyone should be equal rests on a sort of bizarre abstraction of what a "person" is, in which your physical nature is considered somehow extraneous to your identity. It's mind-body dualism taken to extremes, combined with (at least in the Western world) Christian ideas of spiritual equality.
On the other hand, the idea that we "are" our biological limitations could be seen as an argument against transgenderism (i.e. you were born female, so you're a woman, end of story), but I would resist taking things quite so literally without more careful examination. Gender dysphoria is a real thing (though very likely over-diagnosed these days), and pending a better scientific understanding of its nature and origins, I think we should keep an open mind on the question of whether someone who is physically one sex can "really" (in some sense) be of the other sex, or whether surgical transformation is in at least some cases the best way to deal with it.
I think this all basically boils down to, yes, we and our biology are the same thing, but let's be careful about what inferences we draw from that.
I don’t think gender dysphoria is a real thing. I think there is a range of phenotypical expression (both physical and social/personality) among both men and women, and that this sometimes does not seem congruent with the fact that we are a sexually dimorphic species. In addition, reproductive success (although achieved now without the need for actual reproduction) is a central measure of human status. Feeling like a loser in this important contest can cause mental distress in people who do not feel that they are in the “normal” range of phenotypic expression for their biological sex. Along comes capitalism and more recently transhumanism, and for every uncomfortable feeling in life, there is a proffered solution from which someone else can make money. Feeling sad? Take a pill. Don’t want to look older? Have some Botox and filler. Uncomfortable with your changing body during the teen years? We’ll cut some bits off and make you a medical patient for life with hormones. And that’s even without getting into AGP, which seems to be a whole other kettle of fish (although the fact that there is an incel-to-trans pipeline implies that perhaps feeling insufficiently successful as a man in the sexual realm can play a role for some).
As your comment reflects, these issues are all of a piece. I include the issues I raise above as well (pharmaceuticals to control our feelings and cosmetic procedures to ameliorate the physical evidence of our humanness). This is something that humans will have to grapple with going forward. In trying to transcend limitations, are we inadvertently imposing equally onerous ones? And are we nullifying our humanity in the process?
I think you may be the only person, Nicole, whose views on dysphoria align with mine. I think "gender atheists" need a support group.
We do! It’s pretty lonely because it seems mean, if not Nazi adjacent, to most people. Even those who are oriented toward questioning on other issues are reluctant to think this one all the way through because it is considered impolite. Because I’m a contrarian by nature in a lot of ways, I don’t care about being impolite. Posie Parker is my heroine. The dots are all there for anyone who cares to connect them. I’m fortunate to have a real life friend who agrees with me on this, and I have made major inroads on my partner’s views, which were more reflexively “this is part of gay rights” before he met me. But it’s not something I talk about in real life with anyone else. I live in fear of being asked to put pronouns on something at work and having to refuse. I won’t declare fealty to an ideology I not only don’t believe in, but actively oppose.
As the commenter I responded to brought out, surrogacy and gender ideology are absolutely related to each other. It’s all quite disturbing.
I think that «gender dysphoria» can be nothing but a version of Body Integrity Dysphoria. which is undoubtedly real. This illness implies that some body part or body function is experienced as alien and disturbing. Some crave amputation of a disturbing limb, others want to be blind etc. It is not reasonable that this skewed alienation of parts and functions never could be about genitals, and as the genitals more than most things signal sex, it would stand to reason that people who want to get rid of their penis might draw the wrong conclusion and think that this is an urge to change sex.
Gender dysphoria as a positive, ie «feeling like» or «being» the opposite sex is of course utter nonsense: Dysphoria is always negative, what you don’t want to be or have, never what you think you want. If gender dysphoria was about what you want, all bimbos wanting a boob job are dysphoric.
Wow. What a great piece. This is a very delicate subject, and I am happy to not be on twitter to see the hate going on on this. I had a very long comment but erased it, because it did not bring anything good. However, the chances of blowback are as high as your level of rightfulness.
I don’t have the biological or medical knowledge with which I could add intelligent comment, but I think two things should be mentioned. First, it’s important that medical and biological research continue without constraints based on fear or ideology; no one can assume there is a final word about anything in the physical universe, including mammalian reproduction. Second, it’s important that we all keep talking in good faith about this and other subjects that can be difficult ones. Shutting down communication regarding any subject decreases available knowledge about that subject and, thus, decreases the ability to make better decisions about how to live our lives. Obvious? Goes without saying? Not these days.
"This is the world’s first artificial womb facility – and you can choose your baby’s characteristics from a menu. EctoLife, which can raise 30,000 babies a year, is said to be based on over fifty years of groundbreaking scientific research."
https://canadatoday.news/ca/in-the-worlds-first-artificial-womb-facility-you-can-choose-the-babys-characteristics-from-the-menu-184546/
Is this even real?
It is a "concept"--aka, not real. But many people certainly want it to be!
I'm extremely wary of this, and hope it doesn't become a reality any time soon. Reproductive trades are already in extremely ethically murky waters. Imagine if this is possible... eccentric billionaires raising an army of kids...more darkly, human trafficking starting very early.
It's kind of terrifying to think this might become real.