Right. You want a kid and don’t want to or cannot get pregnant? Adopt.

Next up, rich people buying the organs of poor people “he’s poor and got two kidneys, i’m rich and want one, what’s the big deal??””

This is stupid logic. What’s the difference when adopting? Someone still went through the pain, and probably does not have the 20,000 dollars, nor did she chose to do so. The surrogate mother in this case was not forced to do it. She was not starving. DId not have to. It was her choice. I do not see the problem with it. Making a problem out of it is insulting the “poor women”.

Since it’s surrogacy, it’s OUR kid. You are paying not for the child, but for the womb-space.

Gee, talk about dehumanizing.

I spoke with my co-worker, who’s had six children, and she responded that pregnancy, even if she couldn’t keep the child, is fun. She actually enjoys the physical experience of the child growing inside of her. Even though she suffers some negative physical effects, there are also positive ones such as having more energy.

She argues that pregnancy hasn’t been exposed as work as you suggest because the price is too low. It can cost more to adopt and a decent stripper or escort can make more money over a comparable period of time “selling their bodies.”

She actually suggested that she would charge as much as she thought she could get but would do it for a lot less than the market rate – only because it’s harder to have sex with her husband for a few months.

Not only is it not difficult to her but she actually enjoys the experience of pregnancy itself, even if the child was nonexistent after the birth. I followed up with two more women who’ve had children (all ranging in ages from 26-39) and one of the two said the same thing.

Someone should conduct a poll…

“A hypothetical question: women are free to choose to have an abortion. Is it ok for a man to offer a money payment to his partner in exchange for an abortion?”

An excellent question and one that I think I will pose the next time I’m in an abortion debate. I would say no, and that offering a financial “settlement” is a perfectly reasonable way to handle any disagreement.

I’m going out on a limb on this one as I’m too lazy to check my facts at the moment but for a women under 25, isn’t the risk pretty marginal? As for the labor… $10-$20 for nine months of part-time work… that’s not bad. If I was back in college, and a woman, I might very well consider that option.

Anyone think I’m out of my mind on both of those points?

To be perfectly honest, I don’t really have any idea as to how much of a burden pregnancy actually is. All of the women I know who’ve had children say it isn’t a big deal and all of the ones that haven’t are somewhat terrified at the prospect. If it isn’t a big deal then 20k seems pretty awesome but if it’s a terrible burden then…

“Since it’s surrogacy, it’s OUR kid. You are paying not for the child, but for the womb-space.”

I’m wondering about that. Are we entirely dismissing thousands of years of evolution that led the DNA of a particular child to match (roughly by half) that of its mother?

What connection between DNA mother and matching DNA child is being lost by outsourcing the “womb-space” as you so, uh, clinically, put it?

I do not doubt that you will love the child you derive from the surrogacy. My question is about how this fantastically artificial process might rob the mother/child bond of some of its natural strength. Doubtless, it’s much more important what happens after one is born, than while one is developing in the womb. But… it’s also easier to say that because we don’t really have extensive research on the long-term effects.

We know that being nursed by one’s own mother provides significant advantages to the child’s immune system. Will unmatching DNA between surrogate and fetus have an effect on the baby’s development and immunity?

What don’t we know here? Just because we “can” doesn’t mean we “should” – at least not without asking some questions.

This isn’t about rich people “buying their way out of hard work,” so much as buying their way out of work that they’re physically unable to do.

Is it morally right to engage a surrogate at exorbitant cost, when 1) so many women in the US do not even get adequate pre-natal care and 2) the gulf between rich and poor has been increasing for decades, and 3) there are so many parentless children who need homes.

I think these questions rest below the surface of much of the outrage. Privileged white women griping about their “choice” – it’s a bit of a joke when you’re talking about surrogacy in light of the current health care environment.

But that does not mean that I do not worry about the class implications of paying other women to do our dirty work – it’s hit a frightening extreme when it goes past the dry cleaning and mopping to the point of paying another women to bear your child.

Alex had “no choice” if she wanted a baby bearing her genetic material – as her husband is a wealthy man who already had several children from another marriage, there was no doubt a financial incentive for AK to bear him a child, as opposed to adopting. (Keeping in mind that there are other complex reasons families prefer not to adopt.) This brings to mind the history of wet nurses – and the possibility of losing the bonding between mother and child when you do not nurse your own baby. Interestingly, wet nurses were more in play when children were viewed more as collateral in maintaining marriage status. (Think pre-revolutionary China or Elizabethan England.)

But will surrogacy be limited to women who can’t bring their pregnancies to term?

As a cell/molec bio major, I am hardly an expert on pregnancy, but I do wonder what the longterm health of these children will be. To my meager mind, pregnancy is not just a shake and bake operation. There are undoubtedly complex mechanisms at play between the pregnant woman and the baby as it develops in the woman’s womb.

Why are we making everything so complicated? What are the consequences?