Thread by @EllyArrow

I don't recall where I read this, but the #surrogacy story of a famous rich single man managing to exploit three different women just came back to me vividly: First the egg donor, then the "surrogate" mother and finally the nanny, because he's not doing the childcare...

Egg donors tend to be chosen for genetics, so they're catalogued to genetic father by looks, intelligence, family health history. They're usually poor university students who need money to keep studying. Egg donation carries significant medical risks incl. infertility and death.

Women who do modern surrogacy (where the baby is not genetically related to them, back in the day surrogacy also meant prostitution to/rape by the genetic father) also strongly tend to be marginalized. The industry likes to outsource this "job" to women in impoverished countries.

So the genetic father is risking 2 women's lives: First the egg donor, then the surrogate, who has to sign a contract with him where he gets a say in her reproductive decisions for the next year or so, possibly also dictating things like diet or whether she may have sex.

Once the "surrogate" mother bears the child it's taken from her. Sometimes without even letting her old it once. Yes, not all mothers and babies have a magical bond, motherhood can be more complex, but many do absolutely experience this as a traumatic separation.

Lastly the "nanny": The rich man hires another disadvantaged woman so that he can keep on with his brilliant career, unimpeded by the physical and emotional needs of an infant, a toddler, a high schooler. She, too, is likely poor, possibly forgoing time with her own kids for his.

Now, this scenario may be the most potent in showing how #surrogacy is about men controlling women's bodies (not women controlling their own as we're being deceptively told), fragmenting motherhood (not claiming its holy, abusive moms exist), but still, patriarchy rejoices...

...when it can commodify everything women's bodies can do and the more fragmented and detached, the less claim each woman has to motherhood - although that child really does have three moms, in my mind, and no father... just someone who wanted to pass on his genes.

Stories like these are so utterly dystopian, so obviously painful symptoms of class, sex and race oppression, that I do not understand how any leftist can possibly support the #surrogacy industry. Yes, this is actual #HandmaidsTale. No exaggerations. Wake the fuck up.