Sparkling Adventures in Child Neglect - "Gayby" is Born!

[nelliebelle1197]

I do not think the posters who compare adoption and surrogacy to human trafficking really understand what they are saying and how what they are saying plays out in reality. Comparing surrogacy and adoption to human trafficking is laughable at best and dangerously ignorant at worst.

Adoption has been around since people have walked up right. Families have always taken in unwanted children - it is really a species survival instinct and as instinctual as protecting your genetic children. Comparing finding a home for a child in need to human trafficking is so closed eyed and first world that I can only just pity people who feel that way.

People have the right to do what they want to do with their own bodies. YOU have no right to tell them because they live in a Third World country they don't have the agency to make a choice. If people choose surrogacy and are prepared to handle the results, they chose it, just like someone who gets pregnant and makes a choice.

Mama Mia hit these arguments right at their weakest point. By saying an infant has no choice in the matter is no different than saying no one should have children because those children have no say in being born. A child would not choose to be born to an abuser or a drug addict or in poverty or to parents and families they do not like, but they are. It's not their choice. They have no rights in the circumstance or the parents who birth them. So one should have children because the adults that come later might not like their birth circumstance.

That is exactly what the two posters above are saying. They just don't realize it.

[heidi]

I guess I don't understand the problem. Admittedly, I am only looking at it from my friend's perspective as she is finally having the child she's wanted after struggling with infertility and multiple losses for 8 years. LadyBlue, is there a specific site you could point me to with discussions from the children's perspective?

adultadoptees.org/index.html/

declassifiedadoptee.com/

thenotsosecretlifeofanadoptee.com/

lifeadopted.com/

abolishadoption.blogspot.com/

adopteerestoration.com/

73adoptee.com/

Many of the adult adoptees that have chosen to blog about their experience do not tell the happy "forever family" story that is touted by fundie adoptive families and secular adoptive families alike. If you've never really thought about adoption, or have only thought of it in rosy positive terms, then this will be very illuminating reading.

ETA: https://twitter.com/hashtag/flipthescript November is National Adoption Awareness month. Adoptees are using the hastag #flipthescript to raise awareness for adoptees.

[BeaSnarky]

Yeah, ok then. How dare I (a person who is educated, has a good job, stable homelife, and the want and desire to be a parent) want to give a home to a child (note I never said I had to have a baby - we are looking into ALL adoption, and have looked into surogacy as well)? How dare I? Because, as you said, we all want things we can't have. Meanwhile, there are people out there who have kid after kid, abuse them, mistreat them, can't care for them (and sometimes just have them to exploit welfare - yes it happens). Because I can not have children, I should NEVER EVER BE ALLOWED TO BE A PARENT because my parts don't work.

I see you are full of compasion. FULL OF IT.

And yes, I'm posting in anger.

Mama Mia - thank you for your kind words and consideration. We are looking into sibling adoption, but we are still in the first few months of working through the whole process as it has taken my husband a while to come around to this.

And if you have NEVER been infertile, don't you DARE say a child won't fill the whole in my heart that has been left by wanting to be a mother. Don't you dare.

[August]

Anna, I moved heaven and earth to get pregnant, they filled a baby shaped hole in my life, my life revolves around my children (I cannot even leave the house without first making sure they are being supervised by an adult, for example, I spend hours every week obtaining and preparing food and clothes for them, plus of course spending time with them), and if they died I would most like kill myself. Like any parent on earth does.

I was right when I was so desperate for kids, kids are awesome.

Am I an unfit parent or just a normal parent? Or do I get a free pass because I have functional genitals?

I would say that I have deep conerns about someone who chooses to have a child when they don't want it with every fiber of their being, would you have misgivings about a friend getting married to a person they really really loved? Of course there are almost certainly people on this thread who dreaded or were ambivalent about becoming parents and are now phenomenal parents. So you're being doubly an ass, and I feel sorry for your 'friend'.

Knittingowl, I agree that if financial issues are taken out of the equation and proper counselling takes place and everyone stays in touch, I don't see the problem with gamete donation and surrogacy and adoption. It's automatically problematic if the decision to relenquish a child is because of finances in a country like the US, where we have almost no economic support, or a third world country where the same is true. But in a place with welfare it's more ethical.

I think a baby born to a gestational surrogate suffers a transient loss because it's familiar with the sound of her voice and the taste of her. But a formula fed baby has a loss then, too, and is that really such a big deal ?(not anti-nursing, nursed my kids till preschool).

[Firiel]

adultadoptees.org/index.html/

declassifiedadoptee.com/

thenotsosecretlifeofanadoptee.com/

lifeadopted.com/

abolishadoption.blogspot.com/

adopteerestoration.com/

73adoptee.com/

Many of the adult adoptees that have chosen to blog about their experience do not tell the happy "forever family" story that is touted by fundie adoptive families and secular adoptive families alike. If you've never really thought about adoption, or have only thought of it in rosy positive terms, then this will be very illuminating reading.

ETA: https://twitter.com/hashtag/flipthescript November is National Adoption Awareness month. Adoptees are using the hastag #flipthescript to raise awareness for adoptees.

This might be pedantic, but I'm not sure the links you posted apply. Knitting Owl's friend will be having a baby that is genetically hers and her husbands. The surrogate is carrying the baby, but the egg belongs to Knitting Owl's friend. I'm not sure if surrogacy is equivalent to adoption in those cases.

[Idolatry]

I do not think the posters who compare adoption and surrogacy to human trafficking really understand what they are saying and how what they are saying plays out in reality. Comparing surrogacy and adoption to human trafficking is laughable at best and dangerously ignorant at worst.

LOL. If selling a human being isn't human trafficking, what is? I'd love to see your country's laws since I'm so dangerously ignorant.

[nelliebelle1197]

LOL. If selling a human being isn't human trafficking, what is? I'd love to see your country's laws since I'm so dangerously ignorant.

So adoption is selling a human being? So bearing a child for someone else is selling a human being? Yeah, you are dangerously ignorant and it has nothing to do with law. If you can't understand the nuance, then perhaps you will always miss the inherent wrongness of the correlation.

[August]

This might be pedantic, but I'm not sure the links you posted apply. Knitting Owl's friend will be having a baby that is genetically hers and her husbands. The surrogate is carrying the baby, but the egg belongs to Knitting Owl's friend. I'm not sure if surrogacy is equivalent to adoption in those cases.

Someone upthread explicitly said that they were equivalent.

I assume Bea is making the assumption her eggs would be able to be used. If they aren't, then most people would have donated egg and surrogate. No one ethical does TS these days.

[Firiel]

Someone upthread explicitly said that they were equivalent.

I assume Bea is making the assumption her eggs would be able to be used. If they aren't, then most people would have donated egg and surrogate. No one ethical does TS these days.

Does "someone upthread" have experience as both a traditionally adopted child and a child born from gestational surrogacy? Alternatively, is "someone upthread" a person who has studied the experiences of both groups of children extensively? If not, then I will take their opinion with a grain of salt.

Isn't surrogacy (where the mother's own eggs are able to be used) a relatively new phenomenon? Are there studies that examine the effects of surrogacy on adult children? Are the experiences of children born by gestational surrogacy mirror-images of the experiences of those children who were traditionally adopted?

If these questions have been answered/explored through research, I would love to see it. Until then, I'm not going to blindly take the word of "someone upthread," even if that person is a generally intelligent human being.

Note that this is about gestational surrogacy, not traditional surrogacy.

[BeaSnarky]

I have no eggs - totaly hysterectomy with removal of ovaries as well to save my life. I would require donor egg, and gestational host. For the record, we are leaning more towards adoption but still exploring all possibilities.

[Idolatry]

So adoption is selling a human being? So bearing a child for someone else is selling a human being? Yeah, you are dangerously ignorant and it has nothing to do with law. If you can't understand the nuance, then perhaps you will always miss the inherent wrongness of the correlation.

In my country, surrogacy and adoption are fiercely regulated. That means black market adoption/surrogacy, also known as selling babies, is human trafficking and it's ILLEGAL. I guess it isn't in yours and you can just buy whatever baby/womb you want. Cool story.

[Eponine]

In my country, surrogacy and adoption are fiercely regulated. That means black market adoption/surrogacy, also known as selling babies, is human trafficking and it's ILLEGAL. I guess it isn't in yours and you can just buy whatever baby/womb you want. Cool story.

Do you not realize that sometimes people carry a child for another couple/person not for money but because they're a close friend/relative who genuinely wants to help the future parent? Money is not ALWAYS exchanged in surrogacy situations (and sometimes if it is it's just to cover pregnancy-related expenses, which is the arrangement the person I know had) - when it is not, would you still consider it human trafficking?

I agree that black market surrogacy and surrogacy done entirely for monetary gain is a pretty terrible situation and that surrogacy in general should be highly regulated. But I don't understand how you can say ALL surrogacy is equal to human trafficking.

[Idolatry]

Do you not realize that sometimes people carry a child for another couple/person not for money but because they're a close friend/relative who genuinely wants to help the future parent? Money is not ALWAYS exchanged in surrogacy situations (and sometimes if it is it's just to cover pregnancy-related expenses, which is the arrangement the person I know had) - when it is not, would you still consider it human trafficking?

I agree that black market surrogacy and surrogacy done entirely for monetary gain is a pretty terrible situation and that surrogacy in general should be highly regulated. But I don't understand how you can say ALL surrogacy is equal to human trafficking.

That isn't what I said. In fact, that isn't what anyone said. Maybe you should read the thread first.

Or, since you think this is so awesome, you could go drag your four kids across the world for months to do a super-fun sparkling surrogacy out of the kindness of your heart, in a country where surrogacy is illegal. Don't see how that could go wrong.

[Georgiana]

I agree that any time a human being is exchanged for money it is a very serious situation and could possibly be human trafficking. However, not ALL adoptions and surrogacies fall into this category.

First, and this is an important point, it is not always an option for the children to remain with their bio families. In many Third World countries, children are given up for adoption BECAUSE of this. Maybe their parents have died and they have no relatives to care for them. Maybe the family is poor and cannot feed another mouth. Maybe their primary wage earner is ill and the other parent cannot care for them and the wage earner at the same time. Selling a child is one thing. However, giving a child up for adoption because you need to feed other members of the family is a real choice that many families have to make. In the developed world, children may need to be adopted because their home lives are not safe. Drugs/alcohol/untreated mental illness can cause very dangerous situations for children, and if the parent(s) will not get help, then the children will need to be placed somewhere safe.

Yes, it is GREAT if they can stay with their bio-families, but let's not pretend this is always an option.

Second, there is the question of a profit. No organization should make a profit over the transfer of human beings. That being said, adoption does have real costs. You need someone to organize, do to background checks, to care for the child while the adoption is processing, etc. That all costs money, and there is nothing wrong with adoptive parents reimbursing organizations for the costs associated with the care of the child/facilitating the adoption. This allows orphanages etc. to continue to operate and provide services to children in need.

So it's good to scrutinize the system. If organizations are making a profit off human placement, that needs to be looked at. If children are being seized to be sold for adoption or families are being pressured into giving up children as opposed to looking at other resources (which does happen), then that needs to stop.

But that is not all cases. There are millions of adoptions/surrogacies each year, and to say that ALL are human trafficking based on the experience of a few is painting with a very, very broad brush.

[Mama Mia]

In my country, surrogacy and adoption are fiercely regulated. That means black market adoption/surrogacy, also known as selling babies, is human trafficking and it's ILLEGAL. I guess it isn't in yours and you can just buy whatever baby/womb you want. Cool story.

But the problem with your train of thought is that you seem to be equating the experiences of an infants birth with the freedom of an already born human being. --- I can't believe I'm the one arguing this point, since I'm sure I'm the most anti-abortion poster here -- but an already born human being is not the same as a fetus.

No fetus, not one single one of them, anywhere, at anytime, throughout the course of history, has any free agency or choice regarding the circumstances of its conception or what happens throughout the pregnancy.

I understand the concerns about human trafficking, really. I think there is a whole lot of gray area on the entire issue of surrogacy and adoption. But I don't think you can use adult definitions regarding freedom of movement and choice that generally apply to human trafficking and slavery and apply them to newborns. If you applied a general definition of the word slavery -- wouldn't children in general fall under that definition, to a fairly large extent? On a daily basis the average parent will make numerous decisions regarding their individual child that the child has no control over. From things like not having soda and hot Cheetos for breakfast, to having to bathe to having to be in a car seat to where they live --- children have very little free agency. That doesn't mean that there isn't a huge problem with human trafficking and slavery and children. I'm not minimizing that, at all. I just think it's very problematic to try to apply those terms more broadly.

[Idolatry]

But the problem with your train of thought is that you seem to be equating the experiences of an infants birth with the freedom of an already born human being. --- I can't believe I'm the one arguing this point, since I'm sure I'm the most anti-abortion poster here -- but an already born human being is not the same as a fetus.

No fetus, not one single one of them, anywhere, at anytime, throughout the course of history, has any free agency or choice regarding the circumstances of its conception or what happens throughout the pregnancy.

I understand the concerns about human trafficking, really. I think there is a whole lot of gray area on the entire issue of surrogacy and adoption. But I don't think you can use adult definitions regarding freedom of movement and choice that generally apply to human trafficking and slavery and apply them to newborns. If you applied a general definition of the word slavery -- wouldn't children in general fall under that definition, to a fairly large extent? On a daily basis the average parent will make numerous decisions regarding their individual child that the child has no control over. From things like not having soda and hot Cheetos for breakfast, to having to bathe to having to be in a car seat to where they live --- children have very little free agency. That doesn't mean that there isn't a huge problem with human trafficking and slavery and children. I'm not minimizing that, at all. I just think it's very problematic to try to apply those terms more broadly.

That's not what I said. Most countries have laws against selling babies and renting wombs. When it is allowed, it's heavily regulated and monitored. The black market baby trade is literally called human trafficking because they are literally selling humans. If those are the "adult definitions" you mean, so be it. I just call them laws. :think:

Maybe your country doesn't have laws like this, good for you. I hear surrogacy is lovely, super-sparkly and fun, a love affair really, and you'll always have a place to stay.

[Mama Mia]

adultadoptees.org/index.html/

declassifiedadoptee.com/

thenotsosecretlifeofanadoptee.com/

lifeadopted.com/

abolishadoption.blogspot.com/

adopteerestoration.com/

73adoptee.com/

Many of the adult adoptees that have chosen to blog about their experience do not tell the happy "forever family" story that is touted by fundie adoptive families and secular adoptive families alike. If you've never really thought about adoption, or have only thought of it in rosy positive terms, then this will be very illuminating reading.

ETA: https://twitter.com/hashtag/flipthescript November is National Adoption Awareness month. Adoptees are using the hastag #flipthescript to raise awareness for adoptees.

I do absolutely agree that family preservation should be the first option, whenever possible. Both at the individual family level - and at the larger societal level that access to food and housing and clothing and health care should never, ever be an issue that determines if a mother ( and/or father) keeps her child. As human beings everyone is entitled to a decent standard of living, it's really unfortunate that making sure people have their basic needs met isn't the priority.

And beyond just basic needs, it's even, in some ways, even more of an issue one family is considered " better" than another because they have a nicer house/car/vacations/electronics/clothing. The idea that a lower income woman gives up her baby so that the child can have a stereotypical upper-middle class lifestyle - because that's a. " better life, and more than she could provide" is really abhorrent.

[chaotic life]

Both adoption and surrogacy exist in forms that are ethical and non-exploitive. Altruistic surrogacy, the only kind that is legal in Australia is usually done as a gift of love by someone who has a connection to the parents. I see no ethical issues with this, especially when that information is given to the child as part of their story and not hidden.

Likewise, there will always be situations where mothers will choose adoption for their children, or where true orphans and children with health issues cannot remain in birth homes or birth countries. Ethical adoption is possible, but it is not a scenario where potential adoptive couples play any role in a pregnant woman's life or decision process.

If I were infertile, I would educate myself on the ethics involved and pursue ethical options, which do exist.

[chaotic life]

Also, no WAY Lauren had PPD for one month after Elijah. Her while running away stunt in NZ was clearly PPD fueled illogical insanity. She can spin it anyway she wants on her blog, but David was kind enough to show the other side of the story quite clearly in his videos.

[jaelh]

Because I can not have children, I should NEVER EVER BE ALLOWED TO BE A PARENT because my parts don't work.

...

And if you have NEVER been infertile, don't you DARE say a child won't fill the whole in my heart that has been left by wanting to be a mother. Don't you dare.

Bea, I say this as one infertile lady to another.

They're not saying w can't be parents; rather that it'd be very hard for us ever to ethically be the parents of a new born. That's a very different statement and I don't think it's that problematic.

And the hole in the heart? Yeah. That was outright wrong, upthread. But wanting something, wanting it with every fibre of our being, doesn't make getting it whatever way we can OK.

Lastly... Woman, I hear you. It #&$^ sucks. I hope you make your peace with however your situation turns out. The Eating Up Inside is awful.

[Eponine]

That's not what I said. Most countries have laws against selling babies and renting wombs. When it is allowed, it's heavily regulated and monitored. The black market baby trade is literally called human trafficking because they are literally selling humans. If those are the "adult definitions" you mean, so be it. I just call them laws. :think:

Maybe your country doesn't have laws like this, good for you. I hear surrogacy is lovely, super-sparkly and fun, a love affair really, and you'll always have a place to stay.

I think everyone knows that as you say, "selling babies" is illegal and wrong. And that for-profit surrogacy is, and should be, heavily regulated. The issue here is that you keep referring to just "surrogacy," as if every surrogacy situation is the same. I haven't really seen anyone arguing that surrogacy should be a for-profit free for all; it's a nuanced issue and just saying "selling babies is wrong" isn't really helpful.

Blanket statements like this are what is causing the head-scratching:

Surrogacy and it's opposite side of the coin, infant adoption, are human trafficking. There's just no way to get around it.

It just doesn't leave room for any kind of nuance. How is altruistic surrogacy human trafficking?

[jaelh]

In many Third World countries, children are given up for adoption BECAUSE of this. Maybe their parents have died and they have no relatives to care for them. Maybe the family is poor and cannot feed another mouth. Maybe their primary wage earner is ill and the other parent cannot care for them and the wage earner at the same time. Selling a child is one thing. However, giving a child up for adoption because you need to feed other members of the family is a real choice that many families have to make.

This is true. The flip side is that when there are wealthy foreigners coming into a country paying large sums of money to orphanage directors etc. to adopt, there is a huge incentive to find more healthy younger children to be sent abroad.

That is - adopting children creates a market for adoptable children.

I say this as someone who used to oversee DNA collection for inter-country adoptions being processed a US Consulate in a country with very high rates of trafficking. There were cases of children being adopted who had been withheld from parents who couldn't pay bills; where a MIL gave away the mothers child after the husband died; where police officers took kids etc.. And that's the overt stuff - the gentle, invasive, unceasing pressure placed on borderline, marginal families to give up children (by both authorities and other family and community members with $ interests) was awful. [we see variations of this in the west, the pressure placed on young mothers potentially giving up their children].

Differentiating *each individual adoption* from the broader system that it creates is so very important. I have met many, many children who had been left in awful care homes, whose physical and mental health have been enormously improved simply by the provision of love (and dude... some of the children's home... dog, so awful, even when they were ok, they were horrendous).

But those loving, necessary interventions (where the child still suffers non-ameliorable loss that needs to be acknowledged) drive a a pool of adoptable children, and interested adoptive parents who, to at least some degree, understand their actions in terms of 'necessity'. It's just that their (collective) actions are drive the damn need in the first place.

It's an awful, tricky situation. But every time money enters a situation, it changes it. Adoption, make no bones about it, is big, big money. Whatever needs did and do exist, that western parents are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars for perfect, healthy newborns and young children - here and in the west - is a very significant distorting factor.

TL;DR: "buying and selling" children is far more nuanced than any given parent paying or not paying for a child.

[lulumama]

I have two adopted children, I am infertile. Let me just say there are a lot of hurtful comments on this thread about adoption. I choose to not take them personally.

I will give you the circumstances of our adoptions. We adopted a little girl in 1969 and a little boy in 1972, they were 3 and 6 weeks of age. They are both native Alaskan and they were adopted from the state. I realize this would never happen today, but this is how it was back then. I encouraged my kids, to make contact with their biological relatives, their adopted father has since passed away. My daughter has met her mother, father, and all her siblings, as have I. My son has just had contact via email, his parents have passed away and his siblings are far away. We all feel that his is great, now we have a really big family!

What I am trying to say is every adoption is different. Many children and adults are very happy they were adopted. References to baby selling via infant adoption is not helpful to this discussion.

Thanks for listening

[August]

Bea, I say this as one infertile lady to another.

They're not saying w can't be parents; rather that it'd be very hard for us ever to ethically be the parents of a new born. That's a very different statement and I don't think it's that problematic.

And the hole in the heart? Yeah. That was outright wrong, upthread. But wanting something, wanting it with every fibre of our being, doesn't make getting it whatever way we can OK.

Lastly... Woman, I hear you. It #&$^ sucks. I hope you make your peace with however your situation turns out. The Eating Up Inside is awful.

Jaelh, there are posts in this thread saying exactly that, that any form of adoption or surrogacy is human trafficking. Without a uterus, Bea is going to be dependent at the very least on GS to become a mother. Bea also said she was looking to learn and figure out how to do this ethically, she never gave any indication that she was going to do anything she could get away with to get a baby.

[jaelh]

Jaelh, there are posts in this thread saying exactly that, that any form of adoption or surrogacy is human trafficking. Without a uterus, Bea is going to be dependent at the very least on GS to become a mother. Bea also said she was looking to learn and figure out how to do this ethically, she never gave any indication that she was going to do anything she could get away with to get a baby.

I've been reading those same threads, and that's not what I read (at least, maybe my brain has been doing my the favour of blanking out or skipping those posts). I've also read about this very, very extensively (see my own circumstances) and overwhelmingly, the critique is infant adoption, not older child/foster care adoption.

But seriously - No. Neither Bea nor I require a uterus (ours or someone else) to become a mother. There are children in the world who need parents. A child doesn't need to be "ours" or "born of our eggs" or of our partner, to be "ours". There are many, many older children who need families.

I have less problem with known gestational surrogacy than with adoption - but the idea that's it's necessary? No, it's not.

Like Chaotic Life said - there are ethical ways of doing these things. But it's hard. Really hard. The driving factors should never be anyones "right" to be a parent or have a child etc... The driving factor should *always* be the child, be they born/conceived yet or not.

Also - I've read what Bea has posted, with a great deal of empathy for her position. I didn't mean to suggest Bea was considering "anything"; the paragraph was intended more generally than I know see it reads. My apologies, Bea.