i slipped fertility drugs into your breakfast squishee

[bossymarmalade]

[ 14 Valentines - Day Three: Reproductive Rights ]

I am completely uninterested in bearing children. I always have been, despite constant assurances (from any and every person who feels it's their business to correct me about what I want for my own body and life) that "this will change" and "what about your future husband's opinion" and "oh, every woman eventually wants a baby". Yep, that's the way to convince me, all right -- heteronormative, sexist cliche!

At any rate, at least I can still buy birth control if I want, and I am educated and priviliged enough to make my own reproductive choices, because I live in the West.

If I were impoverished in India, I might be carrying rich people's children for money.

Every article you read on this subject is chock-full of weeping and grateful parents talking about the miracle of their new babies and Indian surrogates and their husbands talking about how grateful they are for the money and the chance to give happiness. Most of them are just reprints of the same AP article about a quiet town known for producing milk.

Apart from the truthout article (which, let's be honest, takes a disappointing turn for the wimpy at the end there), I found exactly two articles that were unwaveringly critical of the practice: one from The Christian Post noting that it's not the wonderful gift of life motivating surrogates, but their crushing poverty; and one from Qatar's English paper The Gulf Times detailing the emotional and social hardship inflicted on the surrogate mothers.

I am amazed that people can read these news reports with quotes like this from surrogate proponent Dr. Nayana Patel:

"Patel says she will not allow women to use their own eggs, in case they became too emotionally attached to the babies."

-- and think there's nothing wrong here.

This is our privilege at work. This is us *renting* poor, dark-skinned women to carry our babies, because heaven forbid we be denied biological children by either deity or nature should we desire them. This is us ignoring the fact that these women are doing it for the money, are forced to wear masks and live in secrecy, and are from a culture that still suffers the economic and emotional scars of colonialism and constantly faces pressures to be more Westernized.

Our reproductive rights are important, yes. But they are not so sacrosanct that we visit this sort of abuse on other women who don't have the choices, the money, or the power that we do.

Comments

[indirajames.livejournal.com]

This is disgusting. Thank you for the critical links, because like you, I'd only read lukewarm wishy-washy reports.

The drive to reproduce is strong (I gather), sure but when it leads to this gigantic disconnect that allows you to think it's okay to treat human beings like this... Jesus.

[ms-nerd.livejournal.com]

Do the surrogates get killed if they don't have a boy? [eta] I typed this in haste and distaste because people are treating women like fucking BREEDING MACHINES. HOW THE FUCK IS THIS LEGAL???

What I really mean to say is what if something goes wrong like the kid inherits something from the birth mother that the parents didn't want? Is it the surrogates fault? She's a poor woman doing this out of desperation for money to support her family. She's obviously not worth anything than being a fucking INCUBATOR. What's to say that people who are pissed off at the results won't seek revenge?

I'm just. Ugh. Enraged is too light of a word.

[shinysayyadina.livejournal.com]

This is so sad and scary.
I hate the entitlement. I hate the twisting and trying to justify who can have children and who *should*--there's an awful economic thing here because I guess now it's somehow deemed acceptable for poor women to be pregnant as long as it is for someone else (and I guess, as long as you can't see them).

Thank you for sharing--it's important.

[deepsix.livejournal.com]

This shit is horrifying. Horrifying that people would go to such lengths to reproduce, horrifying that they would think this is an acceptable way of doing so, horrifying that the women acting as surrogates have (or feel that they have) no other options for advancement than to do this. Just, ugh.

[strandia.livejournal.com]

Holy crap -- I am stunned by those articles. Thanks for writing this.

[ldragoon.livejournal.com]

*wild stomping cheers*

I thought the Truthout article flagged toward the end, too, and I'm glad you were able to keep everything ratched nice and tight. Great post!

[jewelianna.livejournal.com]

I hadn't heard anything about this before. Thanks for shedding some light.

[zarahemla.livejournal.com]

Once again ... I am struck speechless, utterly.

[safti]

. . . I have NEVER heard of this. Thank you for the information.


Also, on the note of international views of reproductive rights, something I'd like to look into more is Women on Waves. I don't know if you're familiar with them, but I thought I'd throw up the link.

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

...
DOT DOT DOT

*hits the reset button on the world*

[lambourngb.livejournal.com]

This is a common practice in the horse industry for some breeds. If you own a valuable and competitive mare, depending on the breed restrictions, you can have her ovulate, have eggs harvested, artificially inseminated, and then transfered to a "grade" mare (horse of indistinguishable or modest breeding) for gestation. The idea behind it is you can keep your mare in competition to win more prize money and not lose any time in the breeding shed, or carry any of the risks of pregnancy to the more highly valued horse. Instead of one offspring per year, a single mare can now have up to four or five offspring through various surrogates (most people only want one or two, if you increase the numbers of offspring on the ground, you decrease your profit.)

I'm beyond horrified to realize this practice is carried on in humans. It's sickening. The human race has so much further to go...

[chalcopyrite.livejournal.com]

I am not following the links right now, because I know my likely reaction, and screaming in the library will probably get me asked to leave forthwith. But I will be. Thank you for bringing this to my attention, because I had not heard.

(I have been known to say that I could see having a kid, if I didn't have to grow the critter myself, but what I meant by that was I could entertain the possibility of adopting, some fuzzy someday. This treatment of women as replicator units horrifies me. What the hell is wrong with some people?)

[hex-16.livejournal.com]

This exploitative in the extreme. I'm all for using science to improve people's lives, but this makes a mockery of that, as the only people who truly benefit are the people "offshoring" their reproduction.

Lost in the transaction are the human dignity of the surrogate parents, and of the baby itself. It's the new form of human trafficing. Poor surrogates are being used like cattle, and offspring become a commodity rather than a person. Also, in the blind quest for offspring that share their own DNA, they're ignoring the needs of children who need foster or adoptive parents. It's awfully self-centered. There's not really a winner that comes out of this.

[silvrsolace.livejournal.com]

I remember when glock told me about this in September while we were visiting Sarah...I was completely speechless and angry. It's totally an example of western privledge and exploiting third world countries...but of course it falls on the women... the MOST exploitable minority group...it's beyond sickening...

won't let them sell they're eggs if they get too emotionally attached...I get the image from BSG in my head, when starbuck finds all the women hooked up to baby machines...I remember being horrified, and at least they had the excuse of being cylons. Here, we're doing it to ourselves!

[emeraldsword.livejournal.com]

I'd heard nothing about this. These 14 days are certainly an education.

[egyptdying.livejournal.com]

I'd heard a little bit about this before, but I didn't *really* know what was going on. Thank you for the links.