Says the top-rated comment on a letter to the NYT ethics adviser, in "Is It OK to Hire a Surrogate to Bear Twins? The magazine’s Ethicist columnist on the financial realities of family planning."
BOGOF = buy one get one free.
The advice seeker and his husband want 2 children, and the idea was to save money by contracting for twins.
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66 comments:
Tag: Humans are meat-eating predators
But us humanistic humans have proven time and time again that children are commodities and quite disposable...typically we have little or no sense of guilt. This involves using children as human shields, putting children in mines to fit into small cracks when adults are too large, putting children in factories to do small tasks suited for small hands, child sacrifices on religious altars, marketing generations of boy-band formula music and romance TV shows to impressionable teens, tricking high school graduates into extreme debt for a useless college degree, placing young army draftees on the front lines so the officers don't lose their skilled fighters, and much more.
Predators are going to be cruel. Acknowledge it and then manage it.
two children is NOT the same as twins.. Haven't these people Ever known any twins?
asking for twins is asking for TROUBLE
If it’s not ok to to contract for two, it’s not ok to contract for one.
As long as they are looking at the family planning options, maybe they should spring for the sports star gene package. It will be a bit more up front but will save money in the long run when it comes time for college.
Oh, so now they're children, not clumps of cells? Sounds like reproduction shaming.
“If it’s not ok to to contract for two, it’s not ok to contract for one.”
Bingo!
- Rafe
Are there other things you can order today? Red hair? Good curve ball? 1300 SAT?
"Honey, should we redo the kitchen or get some kids this year?"
You have thirty minutes for this, especially if all this is new to you. Fasten your seat belt, and remember this is two years ago. The world has moved considerably forward on this since then. This is how the masters of the universe will reproduce.
Visit Jamie Metzl/Eric Weinstein on The Future Of Human Genetic Engineering
Just doesn't sit right, "his husband," "her wife."
Is it ethical to hire a contractor to build a duplex? Same thing.
I didn't click through. Will each of the parents father one the twins? Or will they just throw a couple loads in a turkey baster, put a thumb over the end and shake it like a spray paint can then let the chips fall where they may?
the NYT ethics adviser
Isn't everybody who writes for the NYT an ethics advisor?
Having twins is great if you want to kids. They learn to play with each other at an early age and so you don't have to "entertain" them 13 hours a day. Also, they can have the same teacher in school and only one set of homework at a time. If they like the same extracurriculars, it cuts down on driving. Twins are an easier way to get to a bigger family. The first two years are brutal though.
Also, it is usually described as BOGO, not BOGOF. BOGO is used to describe either "free" or "a second at half price" and you say which it is.
Society has decided that two fellas can buy children from breeding sows. Are there any ethics left to discuss? Mayor Pete bought twins, so why can't these guys?
I fail to see the problem. If you accept surrogacy for a child, presumably you accept surrogacy for two children. Is there some fundamental shift going on if you want the two children at the same time? People are allowed to hope for a boy and they're allowed to hope for a girl, but they're not allowed to hope for twins?
Whether the parents know what they are getting into is a separate question, one all parents ask themselves at one time or another.
They are just accessorizing… what’s the problem?
/sarc
I already feel sorry for the kids.
If your position is that a child conceived in a bathroom stall by two drunks who just met is sacred, but a child conceived by a loving long-term couple with the help of a doctor or a surrogate is a commodity, then of course you'll be opposed.
More generally, I think some people are just creeped out by medical technology that they haven't personally had to use. When Ben Franklin wow his bifocals, there were probably complaints about treating eyesight as a commodity.
No outsourcing contract needed. They're married so why don't they just have their own kids? After all, the very best universities say at least one of them can menstruate and get pregnant.
Society has decided that two fellas can buy children from breeding sows. Are there any ethics left to discuss?
Harshly started with regard to the surrogate, but... there's one more, related to the surrogacy: the "reductions." Is that still part of IVF? Aborting all except the fetus or fetuses you want?
(They may still be embryos at that point. I can't remember. In any case, it's elective abortion. So there's that.)
I need to talk to some more gay guys. Among the ones I've known, none ever said they wanted kids, but I have known straight men who have wanted kids as much as I did, so certainly it wouldn't be out of the question; it's a deep drive, even if it affects people differently. It's just that the "accessory" comment has me wondering.
And it's not as if I haven't known straight couples who have seemed to be accessorizing with their kids.
If you define human beings as "non-persons"
they will become property
that's how dehumanizing works.
We fought a Civil War to put the equal protection clause in our Constitution.
People who worship money
say that a corporation is a person
and a baby is not one
wrap your mind around that one
The idea of having twins in a surrogacy seems like a win-win situation for the host and the parents.
There is likely to be more discomfort from carrying twins than a single pregnancy, but surely there's more trouble from having two normal pregnancies than one twin pregnancy. Presumably, the host will ask for more compensation to carry two, though would be willing to settle for something less than 2x the price, which makes this a good deal for the parents and a good deal for the host.
Dystopian novels are often prescient, but get the details wrong. It’s not a religious theocracy exploiting women as breeders, it’s secular rich white women and gay men. In this case, the men will go through binders of women (most likely Ivy League or similar) looking for that perfect egg “donor”, who will be given drugs to hyper ovulate and have eggs harvested. Will they use the same donor with each of their individual sperm so they each get a kid? Will they test to know who is whose? Will they write into the contract that the “gestational carrier” (do not use the term surrogate mother) must reduce if there 3 viable embryos after implantation? What will they do if only one embryo is viable? Surrogate pregnancies are considered high risk from the get go. Add twins to that equation, and you elevate the health risk. But that isn’t important, is it? We want a baby. By any means necessary. It’s a disgusting industry. And it is an industry. Don’t be fooled because the “product” is a child. That doesn’t make it less heinous.
The need a curb stomping in the most brutal possible manner.
"No, it’s not ethical. It’s actually kinda repulsive. You’re treating kids like a commodity and the mom like a vending machine."
For a moment I thought I was reading about abortion.
"You don’t even know what it’s like to raise one kid, and you’re already optimizing the process to save money."
Same people marching the next day in the alphabet parade carrying a placard that says "Men can have babies".
...the NYT ethics advisor
Doesn't consider the ethics of condemning one child, let alone a set of twins, to life without either an authentic mother or even an adoptive one. And for that reason, the NYT ethics advisor is an elaborate practice joke.
Why doesn't the couple just have children the natural way, between them alone without bringing strangers into it?
Free delivery if you get them on Prime.
Yes, the 'His Husband' word combo jumped out at me, too. Can you imagine the reaction of somebody 50 years ago, reading a future newspaper and seeing this?
I'm all for traditional families. Non-traditional families can work in a pinch, sometimes very well, but in my draconian mind, only as the resort that arises from a challenging situation that must be recovered from. Buying your designer babies because neither of you are 'birthing persons' ain't one of 'em.
If, as a society, we don't encourage traditional values, including raising lots of normal children in healthy, supportive environments, then we'll end up being a nation of squalling adult infants, with malformed emotions and untethered behviors looking desperately for self-expression. We already have an unhealthy degree of this in our society today. Ugh. How's it working out?
Surrogacy is always wrong, regardless of the number of children in question. But we as a society can't make and stick to ethical rules w/r/t right and wrong because those rules always hurt someone's feelings, or prevent someone from getting their heart's desire, so here we are.
I remember when BOGO meant Buy One, Get One -- where "for free" was implied. Of course nowadays, after Buying One you might get the second one for 1/2 off, or 1/3 off, as if that's a true deal.
I'm sure BOGOF will soon mean "Buy One, Get One For less than full price"
You pick you sons, pick your daughters too, from the bottom of a long glass tube.
Kylos:
If it’s not OK to to contract for two, it’s not OK to contract for one.
Logical conclusion, yes, but I reject the "not OK" viewpoint. As for the whole surrogacy thing, it's usually a sterility or death situation and many people have hypocritical or contradictory views.
This might be a bit long.
I've written here before that my daughter has done two surrogacies.
The first was for a couple who couldn't conceive. They had been attempting adoption for almost seven years, eventually falling for one those overseas adoptions. Everything was arranged - Russia - and they had flown there and shown up at the door, only to be turned away. Surrogacy was easy for her husband but the wife had to have eggs harvested, which isn't. They wound up with a baby boy.
The second was a couple who had a boy and then a daughter with birth complications. The wife became sterile and the daughter died at one. It was obviously an immediate and intense grief for the woman. Top that off with the problems being genetically related and they decided they couldn't chance giving that to a child, so it was a donor egg. After all that tragedy good luck came in a set of twins, girls. By the way, most contracts pay extra for multiple births but it's a random occurrence that it happens.
My daughter and her best friend - let's call her Brooke - were at odds. Brooke was a "there's so many children you could adopt" kind and was a surrogacy shouldn't be legal type. They're no longer friends because Brooke couldn't keep her mouth shut about it.
Twist:
Before their friendship disintegrated I went to KC to take some friends to Renfest and we stopped at Brook's to visit. First five minutes "What do you think of XXX's surrogacy?" My friends chuckled 'cause I'd told them about the back and forth but I just explained my views to Brooke.
Later, at diner, her husband - Chris - was describing his latest work adventure. He was(is?) a call-in child psychiatrist who dealt with suicidal kids. That day called in on a Russian adoptee who had gone pretty violent then threatened suicide. He made a comment about those parents would need to sleep with one eye open. I turned to Brooke, put my hand on her shoulder and said "And there you have your rationale for surrogacy."
Even in a close circle of friends (then) you can have a wide range of views and actions.
***
As for the gay couple, I'd have to agree with Iman. Rational people would simply go for a surrogacy, not put in an order. In fact, I'm pretty sure that other than the donors, it's a "you get what comes out" proposition.
It sounds like the comments are screaming "Karens of the world Unite!"
Why doesn't the couple just have children the natural way, between them alone without bringing strangers into it?
No bonus hole. They gotta rent.
Happy Halloween back atcha, Derve. I'm flattered you're thinking about me, but maybe you shouldn't think about me out loud.
Womb banks, sperm donors, and abortion are... necessary to social progress and political congruence ("="). #Religion
The industry arose due to the government placing (appropriate) restrictions on individual doctors doing it without oversee. Much of it state by state but it's all for centralizing the bureaucratic paperwork dealing with gov. For instance, in FL, surrogates must go through psych testing, which looks for male-thinking traits (for one) to avoid women who would become attached to the baby. Health of all and other things as well, like home inspections.
My daughter and I discussed this a lot and she said she felt bad for women who couldn't have their own kids or at least her husband's DNA. Another reason was that she actually enjoys pregnancy and her deliveries, surrogacy and her own kids, have all been easy.
I will repeat:
Ethics are just codified subjective opinions, they bear no resemblance to the objectivity of the laws of physics.
Two men and a woman... womb bank. #SocialProgress one step forward, two steps backward.
Ethics is a relativistic religion (e.g. Pro-Choice).
"...treating kids like a commodity..." So where do we stand on the "pruning" or "culling" of "extra" fetuses because the parents don't want that many?
Saint Croix @ 8:23: "...People who worship money/say that a corporation is a person/and a baby is not one/wrap your mind around that one..."
That's a fair challenge, my friend! As an erstwhile corporate lawyer --charged with the care and feeding of these notional beasts--I can offer only my own perception. Which is: the corporate fiction has been damned useful *within a certain moral and legal range* to enable individuals to work in concert, commit resources over space and time beyond the basic tribal level, pursue objectives beyond the personal and the closed precinct.
I've never confused that corporate fiction with the claims of human morality, on babies or adults.
Is your assertion false? Nah. I guess it works for you; or at least, for you, well enough to make a reductive/provocative assertion like this.
So, civil unions... or incorporation for all consenting adults... persons? #NoJudgment #NoLabels
No bonus hole. They gotta rent.
Yeah, a male couplet is not complementary. For that matter, neither is a female couplet. They are however, politically congruent ("="), and transgender is trendy.
@Oligonicella, long before technologically-aided surrogacy was a thing, it has been practiced the old fashioned way, often with a slave girl. There is nothing new about the moral issues involved. Yet I hold that just because something is commonly practiced, and often understandably so, that does not make it right. Far better for those who are unable to bear their own children to accept the fact and find other ways to contribute to posterity. It does not make you a lesser person to have desired and tried to have children and failed.
I value the humanity of all people regardless of the circumstances of their conception, but it undeniably takes something from the child to be separated from those that conceived or bore them. The emotional needs of the parents of the parents should never trump that of the child’s.
Also, is your guiding ethos truly simply “the objectivity of the laws of physics”? Perhaps much of ethics is just subjective opinion, or at least a best guess at the right thing, but relying only on the objectivity of the laws of physics for direction in right and wrong strikes me as a little unserious.
It depends...does the person being hired have a bonus hole?
Perhaps that's a way to get the second child without too much bother...
Toxic... taxing homosexuality.
Commodities... women, too. Barefoot, pregnant, and taxable.
I don't see the problem. What is interesting to me is that the top commenter is surely someone who would fully support the aborting of the twins at 8 months.
If it is ethical to pay a woman to bear your child, it is surely ethical to pay a woman to bear two at a time- it isn't like she is being forced into the contract.
wait : surrogate gets paid same for single v twin?
where is congress with stimulus bill for single surrogacy only.
in this case does not surrogacy involve both renting uterus and renting product of ovulation?
The advice seeker and his husband should bloody well sod off. Fucking perverted freaks want to buy a pair of slaves. Scum.
The NYT top commenter is absolutely right. That people here don't get it, don't see the problem, is not surprising, but appalling nonetheless.
Daddies want eggs of their own. Disney has this covered, for ages 2 to 5.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNElvOXHopE
Obviously there is no "right to contract" in the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court invented that right in Lochner v. New York. And they over-ruled themselves.
Even if you want to say a woman has a right to abort her own baby.
She has no right to contract with a doctor or a nurse or anyone else.
State and federal governments have the authority to regulate commerce and contracts and industries like the healthcare industry.
The abortion industry is a billion dollar industry.
It's a very controversial industry -- as the slave trade was controversial -- because of the atrocities and deaths that result from defining human beings as non-people.
a.k.a. "the big lie"
"The advice seeker and his husband should bloody well sod off. Fucking perverted freaks want to buy a pair of slaves. Scum."
Tell us what you really think.
Don't hold back : )
The commoditization of human life can be traced to slavery, diversity, outsourcing (e.g. rent-a-womb), and human rites (e.g. abortion).
thanks Owen
I would add that our magnificent first amendment
strips Congress of authority to censor anybody
even obvious non-persons like corporations
the New York Times is a corporation with a stock ticker
but they still have free speech rights, and free press rights
Kylos:
@Oligonicella, long before technologically-aided surrogacy was a thing, it has been practiced the old fashioned way, often with a slave girl.
Other than the captivity, rape and lack of any consideration for the surrogate, you mean. I also think you're twisting the meaning of surrogacy.
Far better for those who are unable to bear their own children to accept the fact and find other ways to contribute to posterity.
"Far better". How generous of your on-high morality.
... but it undeniably takes something from the child to be separated from those that conceived or bore them.
Name it and back it up.
Also, is your guiding ethos truly simply “the objectivity of the laws of physics”?
You might want to stay in the frame of my statement which you avoid by eliding a very salient portion - that ethics are subjective, as you so admirably demonstrate.
Saint Croix:
Obviously there is no "right to contract" in the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court invented that right in Lochner v. New York. And they over-ruled themselves.
freedom of contract
: a power or right to contract and freely determine the provisions of contracts without arbitrary or unreasonable legal restrictions especially as guaranteed under the contract clause of Article I, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution
called also freedom to contract, liberty of contract
source
Narayanan:
wait : surrogate gets paid same for single v twin?
No, not as a blanket statement. As I stated earlier, multiple babies begets bonus payments depending on contract.
In the US, no one can be legally is forced to undergo surrogacy. That kills any equating to slavery.
Surrogacy is as safe as IVF. Are those against surrogacy also against IVF?
If you're even thinking of contracting for twins, why not more? And with surrogates and IVF, the multiple children don't even need to be in the same womb. Why not half a dozen at a time?
Kylos:
Also, is your guiding ethos truly simply “the objectivity of the laws of physics”? Perhaps much of ethics is just subjective opinion, or at least a best guess at the right thing, but relying only on the objectivity of the laws of physics for direction in right and wrong strikes me as a little unserious.
Then you missed the point. Objectivity as with the laws of physics. Ethics is and has always been malleable, yet some people (on this thread even) act as if it were some sort of law instead of a "best guess", using that as an excuse to condemn others that don't agree with their guess.
But yes, dead serious that I would prefer "the right thing" be objectively correct, not reliant on someone's feelz.
gilbar said...
"two children is NOT the same as twins.. Haven't these people Ever known any twins?
asking for twins is asking for TROUBLE"
You got no idea. My mom and her sister were twins. Their drunken escapades are legendary.
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