Surrogacy

[poliphilo]

A childless friend of mine is considering surrogacy. I know what I feel- which is "yeuch"; I'm less sure what I think.  To help me make up my mind my friend sent me this article from The New York Times.  The author has had two kids with two different surrogates, is awfully pleased with the supremely ethical choices she has made- and seems to believe- as rich people so often do- that the people she is paying are smiling at her because they love her. She also descends, towards the end, into nauseating babytalk. The article hasn't changed my feelings. If anything it has hardened them- but I don't like finding myself on the same side as the Pope.  Are my objections atavistic and patriarchal or am I right to trust my gut? 

Comments

[silveredmane.livejournal.com]

Here's a surrogacy situation from a different perspective.

The (23 year old) daughter of a friend of mine very recently loaned her womb, so to speak, and bore a child that will be raised by two gay men. They're a stable couple, reasonably affluent, well-educated people and loving parents. Because they are a same-sex couple, they are simply not eligible to adopt a child in the US - so surrogacy was their only way of being able to have and raise a child of their own. They subsidized the mother while she was pregnant, but it wasn't primarily a financial arrangement. They are her friends, and she did it out of love.

Is that easier to countenance?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That seems to me to be a best case scenario. No-one is being exploited.