A child’s best interests, not the desires of adults, should be at the heart of surrogacy
Sonia Sodha
Because the sort of people who will get to define the child’s best interests are the sort of tossers who will deny the desires of adults. Just because they can. This is always and inevitably the result of giving tossers the power to “I know what is best for you”. And, of course, only tossers ever apply for the power as and if it exists.
’…in adopting a starting point that surrogacy is just another form of assisted conception…’
What else is it, then?
Surrogacy should be banned. Full stop.
It has far greater similarity to slavery than ‘Modern Slavery’ and, by definition, it is putting the consumerist interests of adults over the needs of the child.
How do you determine the best interests of a child that does not yet exist?!
Surrogacy seems like a good solution for a woman who discovers that she is (i) pregnant and (ii) unable to carry to term. In other cases, one is making *vast*, uncheckable in advance, assumptions about the future.
So I am not in a position to make judgements, just to query others who *think* that they can.
It’s people who can afford it buying a baby often the same people who don’t want to suffer the consequences of their lifestyle choices. There’s ‘celebrities’ doing it because they don’t want to deal with the hassle of being pregnant.
Funnily enough most of them probably accuse Trump and others of ushering in the handmaidens tale when they are the ones actually doing it.
There’s a gay rights group that claims having a child is a human right and surrogacy should be provided for same sex couples.
Circular. The desires of an adult sitting in a council office outweigh the desires of the adults participating in the surrogacy. Like the hen and the pig, one is involved and the other is committed.
@Recusant I don’t agree. I have a good friend whose older daughter could not have children. Her younger sister (who had her own children) agreed to bear an implanted foetus (ovum of older sister fertilised by older sister’s husband). Most heartwarming story I have heard ever. Two happy families.
Not just that. But moral issues are to be sorted out by the people involved in the morals.