16. Surrogacy: Bodies for Sale, with Helen Gibson - Surrogacy Concern

Handmaid’s Tale (central image) is a dystopian novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood in a near future New England (Gilead) wherein woman are assigned ‘handmaids’ in order to produce children for the ‘Commanders’ who are the ruling class of Gilead. Surrounded by photos of contemporary surrogacy photo shoots.

Today’s Pink Elephant podcast is in conversation with Helen Gibson founder of Surrogacy Concern. There are currently plans afoot to ‘liberalise’ UK Surrogacy laws. But what does this mean? On the one hand we have the familiar talk of ‘the rights’ of individual ‘to have a baby’ and on the other we have questions around ethics related to the exploitation of women, and harms to babies. We can see that the market for surrogacy is another growth industry predicted to be worth near 200 billion dollars by 2030. But at what cost?

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I am sure there were ‘good’ slave owners. It did not make the trade of humans any less morally abhorrent. I know people who have used surrogates. And women who have used IVF. And they are ‘nice’ people. And I don’t wish any harm to the children they commissioned or doubt they love their child. But it still has a host of medical, social and political conundrums. On many levels.

Ukraine has hit the news in the past 24 hours due to an ‘explosive’ meeting between Zelensky and Trump. In the stamash of politicking one might not realise that Ukraine has become the centre point for the surrogacy industry globally, despite the conflict. That women might be ‘persuaded’ to sell their bodies in a time when all other options are closed to them should cause alarm.

War has ravaged Ukraine, yet one industry has seen exponential growth: Surrogacy. Feeding the demand of foreign clients “Ukraine’s surrogacy trade, worth tens of millions of dollars, soldiers on. Amid bombing, water cuts and power shortages, BioTexCom, one of the world’s most popular agencies, simply adapted. According to the company’s own social media posts, babies have been protected in bunkers and armed soldiers escorted newborns to and from hospital”. This is not the only poor foreign outpost benefiting from big monies elsewhere - Mexico, Colombia, India, Laos, The Philippines and Georgia are others. Pictured: babies post-surrogate birth, separated en-masse from their mothers.

Global conflict aside, it must be noted that the process of egg retrieval and surrogacy itself are dangerous prospects for a woman… including death.

29 year old English mother and nurse Nicole Catalbiano was ‘commissioned’ by a couple in Northern Ireland to carry their baby. Just over an hour after giving birth Nicole suffered a ruptured aorta and died immediately. The healthy eleven pound baby boy she delivered was handed over the commissioning parents (52 & 48 years old) who already had 5 children between them. The couple then proceeded to deny any accountability related to her pregnancy. “They then allegedly refused to pay out the bulk of the agreed £8,850 expenses payment to Natasha’s family, stating her death had left them with significant legal costs.” Meanwhile Natasha’s two other young children were left motherless.

There are many harrowing stories such as this where women are treated merely as ‘ovens’ for the commissioning parents, discarded after the goods are delivered.

Sam Altman is what one might term a ‘tech bro’ and although he ‘doesn’t identify as a transhumanist’, he said on a Wall Street Journal podcast in early 2024 “…. But I do agree that extending health span and augmenting humans is a very good thing to do.” The process of dissociation of what he speaks allows him to validate the mechanistic process of separation of a baby from his mother.

IVF-Invitro Fertilisation

The danger to the woman begins long before the birth of the baby. One of American President Trump’s first executive orders was to expand access to IVF (in vitro fertilisation). In another move cloaked in the language of ‘choice’ and ‘rights’ insurance companies will be compelled to cover costs for infertile couples.

And to reiterate -egg retrieval is a very dangerous process. The film ‘Eggsploitation’ looks at this very troubling practice. I would recommend you watch the film, it is excellent if disturbing. There are a myriad of risks associated with egg retrieval not least…death.

And of course if national ones are not available……

Despite these risks, in Scotland the market for eggs from young healthy women has increased exponentially since Scotland passed laws ensuring ‘IVF Equality’. This means same-sex couples have the same access to IVF treatment as heterosexual couples. Perhaps this all seems fine and dandy until you realise this drives up the need for donor eggs from females for male couples. This week Surrogacy Concern posted posters that were hung up in a private gym in Edinburgh. Last year Scottish Government was criticised for ad campaigns targeting young women to donate their eggs.

That young naive women will be propagandised to ‘give up’ their eggs is a fact. There are many indications that, not unlike Ukraine, poor women are disproportionately impacted by this call out.

But the questionable ethics do not end there. Once an egg is extracted successfully and fertilised by a sperm an embryo is created. Couples will often create embryos surplus to need so that they have a ‘back up’. What has resulted, however, is a surplus of human embroyos frozen in time. Some call them ‘snowbabies’. In the United States, there are an estimated 600,000 frozen embryos in storage. In the UK, there are around 500,000 frozen embryos, and about 100,000 are frozen each year.

In 2017 a baby girl was born to a surrogate mother 25 years after her conception. There are so many questions around the ethics of these snow babies not least that each was created as a mixture between parental genetic material creating an emotional and ethical dilemma. What happens to these embroyos as their number increases? Will they be used for medical research? Will they be ‘discarded’?

But none of these issues seem to come to the fore in the language propagandised by our governments, health service, education and the for-profit industries that promote the practice. In a familiar tactic we see in Assisted Suicide, Self Id/Trans ‘Healthcare’ and even the language used in Comprehensive Sex Ed programs (CSE, RSHP in Scotland)- human experience is presented as something mechanistic. Birth, Life, Sexual experiences and Death are all things to be chosen, planned and managed. There is no ‘whole system’, no interconnectivity, and no mystery. And it is deeply ironic to, because in so much as we can parrot ‘climate crisis’, these practices are not needed and hugely wasteful of human resource. And it is deeply tragic as it will be the babies who lose in the end. And that is just not right.

I appreciate that many couples will long for a child and nature will not be kind. But perhaps the compromise itself in engaging with these dubious practices is doing a deal with the devil himself. Perhaps we need to change our thinking around what we have and what we offer in the world.

In the meantime please have a listen to this podcast. It is always good to keep oneself knowledgeable on what is to come so that we can make the best decisions for ourselves, our children and our society.

Me and my bean, 30 minutes old at home.

Thanks to Helen for taking the time, please do engage with her campaign.

For more info on Helen’s work:

Web: https://surrogacyconcern.uk/

You can write a letter to your MP: https://surrogacyconcern.uk/take-action-send-a-letter-to-your-mp-on-surrogacy-and-law-commission-proposals/

X (formerly twitter): @SurrogConcern

Jennifer Lahl film 'Eggsploitation': Eggsploitation: https://cbc-network.org/eggsploitation/

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