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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It as also heartbreaking to read that the surrogate of the baby girl had complications and needed a hysterectomy after giving birth. The article mentioned an issue with the placenta which has DNA from the parents. Shouldn’t the biological parents health histories have to be disclosed to surrogates so they know the complete risk.[/quote]

If a potential GC wants to know the medical history of the IPs, she can require that as a condition of entering into a surrogacy contract.  IPs, of course, are free to decide that they'd rather go with a different GC.  It is no one's business what a GC and IPs agree to in their private surrogacy contract.  [/quote]

You're spending a lot of time defending Cindy Bi. I am guessing you used a surrogate, too. [/quote]

Is it supposed to be embarrassing or somehow shameful?  [/quote]

In this situation- as outlined in the article, at least- yes, incredibly so. She paid poorer women to carry what turned out to be very risky pregnancies for them (which the author implies were risky, in part, because of plancental reasons which were genetic).  Makes you wonder why she didn't carry her own pregnancies.  43 is not THAT old to carry a pregnancy.  Plenty of women do it every day.  If you're 43 and healthy, and have embryos, choosing to implant them into a poorer younger woman in exchange for money, in my opinion, should be illegal.  Just like giving up your kidney in return for money is illegal.  I honestly don't see the difference and don't understand why hiring young women to incubate babies for cash payment is fine, but farming kidneys from people who are ready and willing to give them up, for cash payment, is not fine. [/quote]

(DP).  I don't think anyone would disagree that hiring young women to incubate babies for cash payment is... gross.  But I don't see how to draw a line here.  For every Cindy Bi nightmare story, there is probably another story where it worked out so beautifully and wonderfully and the parents have the child they always dreamed of and the surrogate used the money to lift herself out of poverty / pay off student loans / get out of a bad relationship, etc.

I carried my own children and don't have a dog in this fight, but it really is interesting to ponder how far rich people should be allowed to go in terms of controlling another person for payment, how much autonomy "poor" young women should have on decisions about their body and how you can "contractualize" pregnancy.[/quote]

Literally all other highly educated countries have managed to draw the line just fine, and that line bans commercial surrogacy outright.

I think in the US the majority of surrogacy stories are closer to this one. We just never hear the stories of the surrogates. I do not believe there are a lot of beautiful stories.

It isn’t unlike the history of adoption in this country. For years it was celebrated as this beautiful golden story, but when you start digging, many of those golden stories turn out to be dark stories of oppression and exploitation. Someone up above referenced Gretchen Sisson’s book [i]Relinquished[/i], which was excellent. In a few years, someone else will write another book about surrogacy and it will be equally dark. [/quote]

I hear you but it's not quite an equal comparison.  In adoption, if the pregnant woman has no means to support a child, the situation certainly does lend itself to exploitation.  In surrogacy, the GC is making a choice to do this.  It's not like her creditors are calling her and threatening to take her home if she doesn't serve as a surrogate.  She's entering into a contract and can say "no" at any time.  [/quote]

Do you consider indentured servitude to be a choice? Child labor? Prostitution of teenagers? There are lots of types of labor ostensibly made “by choice” that the Ayn Randian types think should be perfectly legal but as a society we have decided are too exploitative, dangerous, and detrimental to allow. Just because it can be “contracted” doesn’t mean it is a societal good. [/quote]

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