Surrogate offered $10,000 to abort baby

[myswtghst]

I'm not sure about trigger warnings, but the article discusses abortion (with a dash of anti-choice rhetoric), reproductive coercion, disability & aborting due to birth defects, custody laws / adoption, and surrogacy / pregnancy. Please let me know if there is anything else I should include here (and Mods - let me know if you'd like this edited

Comments

[lorrybank]

Bodily autonomy trumps all, but I still think this surrogate is kind of a shitty human being.

[wuvvumsoc]

Really? I thought the parents were being pretty shitty. They were threatening to turn the baby into a ward of the state when the baby was already quite vulnerable.

[lorrybank]

No one comes out of this sparkling clean, in my opinion.

But also in my opinion, the parents wanted to make a humane choice for THEIR child. The surrogate seems confused about her beliefs based on how much money is at stake at any given moment. In this day and age, I can't even really blame her for that, but I'm still not impressed by the choices she made.

As I said, it's her body and her choices, as it should be, but it's very lucky that this child did find a home, since the surrogate apparently cared enough for the child to be born (and thus to suffer) but not enough to care for her.

[wuvvumsoc]

I thought the surrogate did care for her. She chose to move herself (which isn't too easy when you're strapped for cash) to a place where they couldn't force the child to be a ward, and around a hospital that could possibly provide her the best care. I think she really tried for someone who didn't anticipate having a pregnancy that complicated.

[myswtghst]

since the surrogate apparently cared enough for the child to be born (and thus to suffer) but not enough to care for her.

Honestly, this is not just a shitty thing to say, but also downright inaccurate if you read the article. The surrogate, after deciding to continue the pregnancy, reached out and found the adoptive parents for the baby. She considered keeping the baby, but determined, practically and financially, that it was not the best option for her or for the baby, which is entirely responsible IMO. It's realistic to look at the impact to herself, her children, and the baby, and to make the best of a bad situation.

[lorrybank]

She made decisions about the baby that were not hers to make. This was not her making the most of a bad situation, this was her forcing her decisions on people when she had no right.

I'm not referring to not getting an abortion - that WAS her decision to make - but she was NOT the baby's mother, no matter how she says she "became" it. The bio parents wanted the baby at the end of the pregnancy, but suddenly that wasn't enough for her?

Sorry, she comes off shitty here.

[wuvvumsoc]

There is nothing about this that makes sense at all. How was she forcing decisions on others by choosing not to abort? By the logic anyone who wanted to have a say in a pregnancy is having decisions forced on them :/

And they didn't want the baby at the end of the pregnancy. They wanted the pregnancy terminated, and threatened and coerced her by saying they would turn the baby into a ward of the state so it would be forced into foster care (when the child was extremely vulnerable). I don't see anywhere where she comes off as shitty.

I kind of feel like people are shrugging off how major her role as the birth mother. Even if she doesn't share the child's genes it must have felt like her own when the baby was growing inside was literally a part of her.

[lorrybank]

She forced decisions on the bio parents by refusing to accept their claims to the baby. She put herself on the birth certificate, not the father (or mother). I'm not talking about her not getting an abortion, I'm talking about how her relationship with the fetus/baby was very inappropriate for a surrogate. She did not act "entirely responsibl[y]" like myswtghst claimed

[wuvvumsoc]

Did you miss the part where they were trying to assert their rights on the baby so they could then surrender it to the state and make the baby an orphan/ward?

[lorrybank]

I literally went back and tried to edit this before I read your comment, but you had already replied.

I wanted to say that the bio parents wanted the child or at least a say as to what happened to the child. Which is their right, for their child.

The surrogate gave the baby up for adoption, how is that much different than what the bio parents said they would do? To be blunt but realistic: a newborn white baby is prime for adoption. Turning the child over to the state means it was likely the child would have been adopted (after all the necessary background checks, etc) ASAP. The main difference between what the surrogate did and want the bio parents said they wanted to do is the difference between an open adoption and a closed one.

How is one choice, made by the surrogate when she didn't have the right, admirable, and the other bad?

[mythrai]

do you know what Holoprosencephaly is? because it's unlikely a baby - even a white one - with it would prime for adoption

[lorrybank]

Sorry, you're right, that would make it more difficult. The baby's full list of disabilities actually slipped my mind (which is kind of embarrassing, since that's basically what the entire article/situation is about), but that would make it more difficult for the child to be adopted.

Nonetheless, the surrogate stepped way, way out of bounds by acting as if this child were her own and she was her mother.

[wuvvumsoc]

She kind of HAD to step out of bounds to begin with by refusing the abortion. From them on she realized that most of what the parents were trying to do was to get her to abort. I honestly can't say I'm concerned about the bio parent's rights because they wanted to give them up anyways (but make sure to do it in a way that would leave the baby with less help).

[lorrybank]

Well, that's stupid, to be blunt. Ignoring people's rights just because you don't agree with them is... not how rights work. And exactly what people are (rightfully) criticizing the birth parents of doing to the surrogate.

Keep in mind you're only getting Kelly's side of the story here. It's hard to know what the intentions of the bio parents were, and even if you disagree with them from this one-sided account, that doesn't terminate their rights to their child.

[wuvvumsoc]

Because the surrogate was making sure she would get adopted to parents who had the baby's best interest in mind, in a place where she could get the best medical care. The parents were looking to make the baby a ward to the state without any particular plan other than to intimidate the surrogate. It was a move to scare her into having an abortion.

[lorrybank]

I agree it was a move to scare her into abortion, which is shitty, but it was still the parent's decision to make. It was not the surrogate's, even if you personally think she made a better one.

I think you are giving the surrogate a lot of credit - it's not as though she moved to Michigan primarily so that she would be closer to a good hospital. She moved there, first and foremost, because the laws suited her wants and needs there. If we are going to give people the benefit of the doubt and look at the best side of their actions, I think there is an argument to be made that the bio parents suing for their parental rights does not necessarily mean they were actually planning on turning the child over to the state - as you pointed out, that was most likely just to try and intimidate her into having the abortion. We don't know what they were going to do with their child because the surrogate took away their right to have a say.