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Author Topic: Having a child through surrogacy
Mucus
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quote:
Originally posted by sinflower:
I tend to think that "my own" community is the one I'm raised in, and my real parents are the ones who raised me, and so on ...

No. Remember the context is one of children that have yet to grow up, that have a choice as to which community and which ties to develop.

Now there was a time when international intercultural adoption *was* relatively colourblind. But in the light of how disastrous these kinds of policies were, priority is given to actual relatives, local adoptive parents, and adoptive parents from the same culture/region in this order.

For example:
quote:
As the CEO of one of the nation's most experienced international adoption agencies, I am committed to doing what's best for orphaned children. When children lose their parents, it's always better for them to remain in their country of birth, provided that someone — a relative or adoptive parent — is able to care for them. It's only when kids have no options or opportunities for a family in their native countries that international adoption should be considered.
...
It may sound counterintuitive, but I do hope for the day when all nations are able to adequately care for all of their children — even if that puts agencies like ours out of business.

Lillian Thogersen has adopted eight children internationally, and is the CEO of WACAP (World Association for Children and Parents), a nonprofit adoption agency based in Renton.

This issue comes up every once in a while after disasters too since demand is so high, for example in Haiti:
quote:
There is also a risk that children could be caught in irregular adoption processes - a risk increased by the interest of families abroad who would like to adopt Haitian children orphaned by the earthquake. Haitian institutions also have a lack of capacity to determine the status of children and ensure their rights are protected Separated and unaccompanied children might wrongly be considered orphans.

International adoption should be a last resort, used only after domestic alternatives have been exhausted. The Haitian authorities must ensure children are not taken out of the country without the completion of formal legal proceedings for international adoption.

Family tracing should be a priority for the international community, the Haitian authorities and international aid agencies.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/haitis-human-rights-challenge-20100129
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sinflower
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quote:
But in the light of how disastrous these kinds of policies were
How were they disastrous?
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Synesthesia
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There are places were domestic adoption is looked down upon.
Plus, many of those kids need homes right away. It's not really good for their psychological well being to be stuck in limbo for years due to folks on their high horses.
Though, it is important to make sure a child that has living relatives that want them and will truly give them care they need are not deprived of that, it's hard to have much of a culture languishing in an orphanage.

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theamazeeaz
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quote:
Originally posted by scholarette:
Th lack of DNA does slightly change things, but reading the article, they were upfront about the woman's past, she has been mentally stable for 9 months and has a psychiatrist certifying that she is fit to be a mother and has never missed an appt. And the woman did not return the money or repay medical costs. If she returns all the money for costs and any gifts they may have given, then I will stop thinking of her as a thief, but I still don't think what she did was morally correct. If her cocaine use in the distant past was not an issue when she signed the contract and cashed the check, it shouldn't be an issue once she has the babies.

Nine YEARS.
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Mucus
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sinflower: *shrug* It is pretty textbook stuff. As in here is a textbook
link

Particularly the section starting with:
quote:
Adoption professionals and parents gradually realized that recognition and celebration of the child's cultural heritage was healthier and more psychologically appropriate than the pretence that the child was "just like the parents" and that "adoption didn't matter." That these attitudes seem so odd today is a tribute to the shift in perspective over the past few decades.

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DDDaysh
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Does anyone else have a hard time understanding WHY someone would choose to hire a surrogate with donated eggs AND donated sperm to have a child, rather than adopting a child? I just don't get it. I can understand why parents would prefer to have their own genetic child as opposed to adopting one (even if I don't always agree), but I simply cannot understand why someone would want to grow a whole new unrelated child when so many other unrelated children already need parents. This, by itself, already makes these parents questionable in my opinion.

But back to the initial question of the legality and morality of surrogacy. I think alot of it depends on whether the surrogate is the genetic mother of the child or if she is using a donated embryo (which, hopefully, has at least some of the genetic material of the perspective parents). If the surrogate is the biological mother of the child, then I think paying her for the child is most definitely exploitation. Even if the only reason she conceived was to give the baby up, it's still buying her own child from her. On the other hand, if she is merely renting out her womb for a time, then I think doing think there's anything all that wrong with it, especially if she's had children before and knows what she's in for. In many ways this is no different from women being "wet nurses" in the past.

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scholarette
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DDDaysh- I would assume, and perhaps unfairly, that the parents screened potential egg and sperm donors. I once read an article that mentioned that an egg donor could make between $10,000-$20,000. This assumed proper hair color, high IQ, good BMI, etc. And then the sperm would come from one of those "genius" sperm banks. Though it is possible that she used a blood relatives so there was some genetic link.

Or she might have not wanted to go through all the hoops of adoption. My brother is trying to adopt right now and it is a lot of work. I also had a friend who was trying to adopt and had several parents back out on them, which was pretty hard on them. These parents might have heard horror stories about adopted babies being taken back by birth parents three or four years later and feared that as well.

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Mucus
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Yep. Screening, albeit no genetic link.
quote:
Working mostly over the Internet, Ms. Kehoe handpicked the egg donor, a pre-med student at the University of Michigan. From the Web site of California Cryobank, she chose the anonymous sperm donor, an athletic man with a 4.0 high school grade-point average.

On another Web site, surromomsonline.com, Ms. Kehoe found a gestational carrier who would deliver her baby.

Finally, she hired the fertility clinic, IVF Michigan, which put together her creation last December.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/us/13surrogacy.html

Personally, I lost quite a lot of sympathy for the couple once I found out they weren't biologically related. Now it is just a fight between a surrogate mother and prospective adoptive parents. *shrug*

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The Rabbit
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quote:
Working mostly over the Internet, Ms. Kehoe handpicked the egg donor, a pre-med student at the University of Michigan. From the Web site of California Cryobank, she chose the anonymous sperm donor, an athletic man with a 4.0 high school grade-point average.
This is the thing that really raises questions. Why didn't they simply want to adopt? They had to go through the adoption process any way and I can't imagine that find egg and sperm donors and a surrogate mother made that less complicated rather than more.

Why didn't they want to use their own eggs and sperm. Chances that they were both sterile seem unlikely at the outset and since they had 2 previous miscarriage I think we can reject that possibility.

It really seems like they weren't just seeking a child, they were trying to engineer a superior child and that bugs me a lot.

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Mucus
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In related news, an article today:
quote:
There is no fool like the one who wants to be fooled.

Professor David Smolin wrote those words in 2005 referring to adoptive parents in the Western world. Eager to believe they are saving orphaned children from poverty, he wrote, they are easily fooled into accepting laundered children from the developing world.

He knows first-hand how such a thing could happen.

http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/758229--lost-children-why-they-should-stay-in-haiti
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Clive Candy
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quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:It really seems like they weren't just seeking a child, they were trying to engineer a superior child and that bugs me a lot. [/QB]
Why? Clearly that lady was interested in having an intelligent child -- and intelligence is a heritable trait. Why should her hope to have a child endowed with above average qualities bother you?

It's generally agreed upon by psychologists that intelligence is a heritable trait. Today, the cognitive elite overwhelmingly marries within itself, thereby producing more intelligent children that carry on the legacy. Women of all social strata have the option of increasing the chance of having an intelligent child by inseminating themselves with the sperm of an Ivy League grad or successful scientist. And unlike the previous centuries where a person of moderate intelligence could secure a decent life with a job in manufacturing, today our society is getting increasingly complex and a decent enough IQ is crucial to securing middle class status.
Therefore, women trying to become pregnant by artificial insemination would indeed be well advised to prefer the sperm of an Ivy League grad to that of Tony the bricklayer.

The only problem is that there's no way such a woman could tell how attractive the father of her child is, because all they give her is a baby photo of him. Can the future handsomeness of a man be determined merely from a baby photo?

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theamazeeaz
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Was an interesting read:

http://www.amazon.com/Genius-Factory-Curious-History-Nobel/dp/0812970527/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1264968694&sr=8-3-spell

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Clive Candy
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quote:
Originally posted by DDDaysh:
[QB] Does anyone else have a hard time understanding WHY someone would choose to hire a surrogate with donated eggs AND donated sperm to have a child, rather than adopting a child?

To produce a child with superior qualities.

Also, to pretend to go through the process of pregnancy and waiting. It's fun to wait.

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theresa51282
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I would guess given the Kehoe's background they might not be eligible to adopt. I would think the prior drunk driving arrest and the mental health history would lead a lot of adoption agencies to turn them down and a lot of perspective parents to chose someone else to take their baby. While there are a lot of kids who need to be adopted, there is a short supply of healthy caucasion babies waiting to be adopted which is presumably what they were after.
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The Rabbit
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quote:
I would guess given the Kehoe's background they might not be eligible to adopt.
Nonsense. This was an adoption, it had to be approved by the courts as an adoption so they were obviously eligible. They may not have been eligible by certain adoption agency standards, but there are many options for adoption. If they couldn't work through an agency, private adoptions aren't that difficult. I have friends who adopted 3 children through private adoptions in 3 years with almost no waiting time. These were all domestic adoptions, all newborns and 2 of the three were Caucasian. Cost is the primary barrier to private adoptions, which are more expensive than going through an agency, but still far far less expensive than surrogacy.
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Mucus
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In super-creepy related news:
quote:
At least 10 of the 33 Haitian children a group of American Baptists tried to take across the border into the Dominican Republic have parents, says the group taking care of them while the Haitian government investigates an alleged case of child trafficking.
...
On Friday evening, a truck was stopped at the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. It was carrying 33 Haitian children, some as young as two months old.

The Baptist group said the children were going to a newly established orphanage – New Life Children's Refuge – in the Dominican Republic, where eventually 100 Haitian children were to be housed.

The Haitian government says the group had no approval and no documentation that would allow them to take the children out of the country.

globeandmail link

Any connection with Westboro Baptist?

quote:
"They are very, very precious kids that have lost their homes and their families and are so deeply in need of, most of all, God's love and his compassion and just a very nurturing setting."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/01/2806972.htm?section=justin

Oy.

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Stephan
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No relation to Westboro Baptist. Please don't confuse those nutcases with other Baptists.
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Samprimary
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westboro baptist is remarkably less equivalent to regular baptist than FLDS is equivalent to LDS
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Mucus
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That comparison would probably be more informative if I was LDS or FLDS (not saying that you're wrong).

Stephen: Well, I'm more confusing those 'nutcases' with these 'nutcases' [Wink]

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Dobbie
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quote:
Originally posted by Mucus:
That comparison would probably be more informative if I was LDS or FLDS (not saying that you're wrong).

Stephen: Well, I'm more confusing those 'nutcases' with these 'nutcases' [Wink]

The YFZ ranch is FLDS.
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Mucus
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Updates!
quote:
The Dominican consul general Wednesday rejected the claim from an American church leader that she thought her paperwork was in order when she attempted to take 33 Haitian children out of the country, saying he had told her it was not.

"I warned her, I said as soon as you get there without the proper documents, you are going to get into trouble, because they are going to accuse you, because you have the intent to pass the border without the proper papers and they are going to accuse you with kids trafficking," Carlos Castillo said he told the group's leader, Laura Silsby, during a meeting Friday.

Four hours later, Silsby and nine other Americans were turned back from the border. They were arrested and taken to a jail in Port-au-Prince.

"This woman knew what she was trying to do was not legal," Castillo said.

A CNN reporter attempted to get reaction to Castillo's comment from the jailed Americans, but they would not discuss the matter, responding to questions by singing "Amazing Grace" and praying.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/02/04/haiti.border.arrests/

quote:
But even before Laura L. Silsby and seven other Idahoans ended up in a Haitian jail accused of trafficking in children, Silsby had a history of failing to pay debts, failing to pay her employees and failing even to follow Idaho laws.

Silsby has been the subject of eight civil lawsuits and 14 unpaid wage claims. The $358,000 Meridian house at which she founded her nonprofit New Life Children's Refuge in November was foreclosed upon in December. A check of Silsby's driving record revealed at least nine traffic citations since 1997, including four for failing to provide insurance or register annually.

http://www.idahostatesman.com/localnews/story/1067267.html

Looks like the leader at least had strong motivation to make some money quickly. Maybe not so 'nutcase' after all.

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dkw
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It also shows she has a habit of ignoring pesky little details like proper paperwork. Which I find much more likely than the suggestion she was in this for money.
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Mucus
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Ok, forgetting your register your vehicle for maybe a year or two is forgetfulness. Maybe forgetting to pay your employees once or twice is forgetfulness.

But the sheer length of claims, suits, and infractions seems to be to be somewhat more intentional. Plus, her foreclosure was just in December, a jury trial on February, and what seem to be two separate civil suits next week and next month.

Plus she was warned only four hours before attempting to cross the border that what she was doing was illegal. It is not unreasonable to wonder if she felt she had to take risks and cut corners in order to get back her house and pay off the lawsuits, possibly in order to save her business.

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TomDavidson
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There's no reason to exclude the likely possibility that she is both an attempted child trafficker and a nutcase.
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Itsame
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I just want to comment that I think people in this thread are being a bit harsh regarding Clive. It is not the case that he is being irrational, as he certainly seems to be consistent in his reasoning, and does provide some form of justification for everything he says. It is merely the case that he is bring rational within a different epistemic framework than that under which most of us normally operate. So this is not to say that he is "stupid" or even wrong. He is simply acting from different starting assumptions.
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Stephan
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My friends are in India now, their baby is born.

If you are curious about the process, check out their blog:

http://ouradventuretofatherhood.blogspot.com/

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Samprimary
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quote:
Originally posted by JonHecht:
It is merely the case that he is bring rational within a different epistemic framework than that under which most of us normally operate. So this is not to say that he is "stupid" or even wrong. He is simply acting from different starting assumptions.

No, we had ample evidence that his starting assumptions were profoundly irrational, even in some parts completely delusional. And there's serious doubt he was even an honest personality (it's very likely more than one person posted under the name).

Then he got banned for trollin' so it's irrelevant anyway.

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contents under pressure
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quote:
Originally posted by Stephan:
Good friends of mine are doing it right now. And it does end up costing more than that. They have to fly to India to make the donation (they chose the father with the higher sperm count). They then have to fly back well before the due date, and stay for a couple of weeks after at a hotel.

The woman however is living very well. They Skype with her on a regular basis. She is married and has three children of her own. It sounds to me like my friends are being exploited more than she is. Adopting a baby in the States takes forever. Finding a woman to volunteer to take your baby privately here risks her coming back later and wanting the baby. Using a donated egg and a surrogate here costs so much more. India knows this and takes full advantage of the situation.

Interesting. Did your friends use an Indian egg donor?
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