We need to talk about #surrogacy again - many get why the commercialized version is utterly harmful & exploitative. But the medical risks commonly associated with surrogacy don't disappear when it's altruistic. Aside from the fact that commercial likes masquerading as altruistic.
A regular pregnancy can be risky in a myriad of ways. But an artificially induced one involving fertility treatments and likely the use of both foreign sperm and egg in #surrogacy are extra dangerous (also to the woman who donates the egg btw): survivaltricks.wordpress.com/2020/09/07/med…
"A study in the USA compared outcomes of spontaneously conceived pregnancies with #surrogacy pregnancies. It found the surrogate births had significantly higher obstetrical complications, including gestational diabetes, hypertension, placenta praevia and Caesarean section."
"Risk of death is two and half times higher [for surrogate mothers compared to non-surrogate mothers]." You hear about "loving families and friends" doing #surrogacy for one another, but really we have socialized women to the point of risking their lives when others could adopt!
"But women should be able to do with their bodies what they like!" Exactly. #Surrogacy even when altruistic runs counter to that. It remains a big monetary investment with high expectations of "results". The genetic parents may well demand a say in her reproductive decisions.
Imagine trying to figure out whether you want to undergo another round of fertility treatments, prenatal diagnosis, unplanned multiple pregnancies or you might want to abort. Your family members or friends will view it as you making decisions over "their" baby. How free is that!?
Now, this doesn't go for all surrogate mothers (or just mothers in general, yes motherhood IS complicated) but a significant number do bond with the child as it grows in their womb. But that child will never see you as "mom". You may have to give it away as soon as it's born.
There have been literal custody battles between family and friends, as genetic mothers grew jealous of gestational mothers (imo if the child came out of your womb, it's yours, but for clarity's sake using those terms now) or gestational mothers wanted to keep the baby...
#Surrogacy is always a huge massive deal. Medically and emotionally. Many women find it hard enough making reproductive decisions when their partners want something different, but just imagine someone else thinks they're the real parent - the potential for painful conflict!?
As always the book to read on #surrogacy is Kajsa Ekis Ekman's "Being and Being Bought" amazon.de/Being-Bought-P… which contains an amazing amount of information for such a short book. See also amazon.de/Surrogacy-Righ… and follow the work of @JenniferLahl.
A good summary of why #commercialsurrogacy and #eggdonation is not harmless and the laws around it completely erase women's/mother's/donor's rights in favour of "a right to children" for rich (!) couples (most of them straight, this is not gay liberation):
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