Post: #1

Was watching this past weekends episode of Vice. First half was about how drugs were exploding in Europe and how some of the money has been used for terrorism.

The second part was about commercial surrogacy is pretty huge in India. Basically, very poor women are used to carry someone else's kid to birth. Something like 10,000 foreigners a year. It can go as low 10 to 12k to bring a baby into this world.

At some point in the documentary, the reporter is having a meal with a couple of people and they just offer her the baby right then and there.

I just find it funny that the push by women to do whatever they want, whenever they want to has resulted in a booming business turning very poor woman into baby machines. With only a small percent of the births due to a woman of normal baby bearing age who just can't, most (just speculating here) just waited too long (but were smart enough to freeze eggs) or didn't want to damage (i.e. get fat) their bodies giving birth.

I know some of what I am throwing out there is my speculation. But this commercial surrogacy is only expected to rise. I understand there have been surrogates for a while, but when I saw it on this scale, I found it disturbing.

Here is an article. Though the VICE doc didn't mention gays using this service, seems like gays are using this service a great deal as well.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree...-pregnancy

Quote:Since the disgraceful Baby Gammy case last year, in which an Australian couple left a twin boy with his birth mother when it was discovered he had Down’s syndrome, Thailand has banned foreigners and same-sex couples from accessing surrogacy services. Now only married heterosexuals are allowed to use surrogates, with at least one of the couple required to be Thai. No one is allowed to gain financially from the transaction.

But will this shift in legislation put an end to the inherent abuse in what can be described as womb trafficking? I doubt it. In order to put a stop to this increasingly normalised practice, we need to understand the reality of what surrogacy entails.

Commercial surrogacy breeds exploitation, abuse and misery. Although the poster girl of surrogates is typically a white, blonde, smiling women who is carrying a baby in order to make a childless couple happy, the truth is far less palatable.

Women in the global south are often pimped by husbands and criminal gangs into renting their wombs to rich western couples. For women in India for example, this is a particular problem. I have interviewed rich, white British gay couples who told me they chose India for surrogacy services because it was considerably cheaper than the US (where the surrogacy business is booming), with one couple admitting it was reassuring that the women are required to live in a clinic for the duration of the pregnancy so they can be monitored by the “brokers” throughout.

Gestational surrogates are required to take Lupron, oestrogen and progesterone medication to help achieve the pregnancy, all of which treatments can have serious side effects.

The social acceptance of this practice will perpetuate the notion that the wombs of poor women can be used as a service. Class and racial divisions between surrogates, egg donors and the intended parents are often stark. Surrogates tend to be working class and to have already had their own children, whereas the egg donor will likely be a college graduate from an upper-class background who is considered bright and attractive. They generally earn significantly more than the surrogates.

While the gestational surrogates tend to be poor women disadvantaged in many ways, egg donors are often chosen (from catalogues) for their “strong genes” and lack of mental and physical ill health in their lineage. The process is not that far removed from eugenics.

Many agree that it is unethical to buy and sell pregnancy but support what is known as altruistic surrogacy. This is where a friend, relative or kind stranger bears a child for an infertile woman or couple simply out of the goodness of her heart.

The argument goes that if we do not accept altruistic surrogacy and put measures in place to regulate it, we will drive commercial surrogacy underground. But the opposite is true. The legal sanctioning and social acceptance of this practice, even where no money changes hands, will further perpetuate the notion that the wombs of poor women can be used as a service.

As in Thailand, the law has been changed in India, another popular spot for British couples seeking commercial surrogacy. Now it is required that prospective parents looking to engage a surrogate must be a “man and woman [who] are duly married and the marriage should be sustained at least two years”.

Alongside many feminist and human rights campaigners, I wish to see an end to commercial surrogacy and a serious, honest discussion about the ethics of all forms of outsourcing pregnancy, particularly in a world awash with unwanted and neglected babies and children.

We also need to pose a challenge to the increasing numbers of gay men who think it perfectly acceptable to use the womb of a desperate woman in order to reproduce. Indeed, this method of making babies is fast becoming the number-one option for gay men, which means the practice will become more normalised, and be seen even as a “right” for those who cannot conceive in the traditional manner.

However, the Thai and Indian ban on same-sex couples from accessing surrogacy is nothing short of discrimination and anti-gay bigotry. An end to this harmful practice in all but private, one-to-one circumstances would be what true equality looks like.

Post: #2

Post: #3

Pretty good price- my uncle lives in a state where surrogacy is illegal so he has a woman in Portland doing it for him and his wife who couldn't get pregnant. He said the whole ordeal with initial fertility treatments for his wife and then the surrogate company/doctors cost him over 200K, not to mention the 45 grand he is paying the woman in Oregon to carry the kid.

Should have outsourced to India!

Post: #4

For 10k I would be all about it. I'm interested in children but haven't met a woman that seemed anywhere sane enough to have a baby with. Even if I did, I couldn't be sure that the baby would end up with me as most of the countries award the children to the mother, not the father.

Having a kid would be great if I had a house and passive income. If I was in the States I could even apply for all the government assistance and ghetto mom it out with freebies. Have my parents help me raise the kid. Also, chicks are into guys with kids. Plus with a kid I would get snipped immediately and never worry about that again.

Perhaps something like this is possible in China? I will look into it, though I don't think Chinese women are poor enough to do this. Also, there is a lot of social shame for things like this, children are so special. Plus all the birth limits.

Post: #5

Yeah - some MGTOWs are now considering it going it alone in terms of child production.

I would not want it, because it's better to have both parents.

But at least that way if you buy the egg from some hottie, you would have unquestionable parental rights.

It's only one step away from artificial wombs.

Post: #6

Here's the truth: feminism is just privileged women consolidating their power.

They don't even have to carry babies, a poor woman will. They don't have to care for the children, a poor woman will.

Post: #7

(03-30-2015 04:03 PM)Surreyman Wrote:  Here's the truth: feminism is just privileged women consolidating their power.

They don't even have to carry babies, a poor woman will. They don't have to care for the children, a poor woman will.

They don't even have to fuck her husband or suck his dick - a poorer women will (albeit sometimes it's a richer woman, but if he spent 200k on IVF, then it's likely a poorer woman).

So what are really the wifely duties of an upper-middle class woman who:

- does not cook
- does not clean
- does not give birth
- does not take care of children
- is under no moral and legal obligation to fuck you or suck your dick

What the fuck does she do? Some kind of strange female flatmate who can suck you dry financially and can take away your children?

Marriage - don't make me laugh:

Post: #8

(03-29-2015 11:33 PM)ball dont lie Wrote:  Having a kid would be great if I had a house and passive income. If I was in the States I could even apply for all the government assistance and ghetto mom it out with freebies. Have my parents help me raise the kid. Also, chicks are into guys with kids. Plus with a kid I would get snipped immediately and never worry about that again.

The public benefits available to single parents in the United States are thinner than thin. I represent the poor and very poor in court, and even they are cautiously judicious about using TANF (temporary aide to needy families)--i.e., public assistance--because in many cases they (or a family member) are required to pay at least a portion of it back. What's more, there's a strict lifetime cap on the amount you can receive, so even poor people really do only turn to it as a last resort.

Maybe other countries are different, but the idea of a generous social safety net in the USA is pure mythology.

Post: #9

I'm not really sure what to think with respect to reproductive technology like this. On one hand it seems great but on the other hand you have to admit that with gays especially you are denying that child access to a bioparent. One of the things that is especially worrisome is sperm donation. Not only is it eugenic in practice, there are sperm donors with hundreds of kids. Imagine finding out that you have 70 or more half brothers and sisters all within the same state of you.

Post: #10

This unregulated baby farm system is highly immoral. The episode details how these clinics inseminate women multiple times in order to ensure that a baby comes out. This leads to excess babies being born, with only one of them going to the contracting family. That's how the woman at the restaurant can offer the Vice couple a baby for on the spot, or within three months, from other parents obviously.

I'm not sure what the life of an 'extra' surrogate baby in India is like, but it can't be pretty.

Post: #11

I had a gay mate who did this in India & ended up with twins. From the Facebook posts you would think his "life is complete". I hope it is for his sake & he was a very respectable gay, but I found the whole situation to be too contrived to feel any real joy for him or his twin boys. Also, he was single when he went for it.

Unfollow.