I talked to my boss when I first got hired about being pregnant and doing my job. It was a very physical job with long hours and could be quite dirty, but many women did it pregnant. He agreed with me that pregnancy was no hindurance to the job. For over a year I talked about becoming pregnant and he assured me it was okay. On the day I was supposed to fly out to meet the parents, he informed me that he would let me go if I went. I had my shift covered, everything was in line. I was dumb founded when he said that if I thought he was going to let me work there pregnant I was wrong. All that time he had been fine with it. So I prodded, trying to find out what changed his mind. His wife even did the same job while she was pregnant with their son! His response was "but she didn't sell the baby." He wouldn't let me explain, talk to him, or show him why he was wrong. He just told me to leave. I loved working there until that day and no amount of money could have brought me back after that. Selling my baby?? So far from the truth!
Based leftist boss fighting against human trafficking?? :so-true:
I mean, I gotta admit, like if someone's boss found out they were involved in selling children off to Little St. James and fired them, and I doubt anyone would fault them for it. And based on the thread we had the other day, it seems like a lot of this site believes that surrogacy is "literally buying babies" or equivalent to Murray Rothbard's "free market for infants" - or at least, a bunch of you think that's a reasonable position to have. So I'm curious if any of the 50 or so people who upbeared that thread see any problem with that boss's decision to fire his pregant worker for, as you would agree, "selling her baby." I'm curious to know if you'd make the same decision in his shoes, and if you see any problem with that situation - other than of course, that he couldn't hand her over to the cops as well.
I guess I'm just trying to better understand your positions. Like, is this something that you actually believe, or is it a superficial, exaggerated rhetorical flourish that you know is bullshit but use anyway because it provides a pretext for infringing on women's rights? You know, like "abortion is murder?"
I also wouldn't mind hearing from some centrists and moderates on the issue. Those who think both sides have a point, between, "Surrogate mothers are engaging in human trafficking by returning a child to their biological parent," and, "Surrogate mothers have a right to bodily autonomy." Is there one side that you think is more reasonable, or are you a true centrist, right in the middle of those two, equally extreme positions?
While I'm at it, I'd also like to open up the discussion more broadly. Is there anything else women's bodies do that you think is immoral, or maybe just plain gross? Anything else you think ought to be illegal? I'm really looking to hear from some men here, because I feel like we never get their perspective on that.
Anti-surrogacy is just anti-choice for anti-natalists.
Rich people having "their own children" via surrogacy is a pretty fucked relationship when you consider patriarchal and capitalist context.
Being in a situation where you're commoditizing your body in such an intimate way is usually going to be pretty fraught when it's a transactional relationship.
People have been carrying kids for other people one way or another for millennia, that seems fine as an equitable social practice.
Therefore it seems like a good synthesis would be significant protections for the person acting as the carrier.
To me, the question is whether there’s actual evidence that surrogate mothers need or want more legal protections. If those are the people that we’re trying to protect, then doesn’t it behoove us to listen to what they’re actually saying? Isn’t it reasonable to assume that people who have actually gone through the process know more about it that people who haven’t?
(copied from another comment)
We're all terminally online internet socialists, most of us are not trying to do anything related to this. Now it seems in your post that you really don't like people equating surrogacy with selling a child or some other such nonsense. I don't agree with that notion either, it's just not that that's happening.
But in terms of what people that are surrogate mothers think about it in general, is there somewhere in your post where you...have that? I mean, it would make sense to have protections that are based on the needs and experiences of surrogates but that doesn't mean the need is something that we should see as debatable. I think most posters here are sex worker positive but know that under capitalism it's terribly rife for abuse and harm. I see this as analogous. For example, shouldn't the mother in your example have legal protections for being able to work while pregnant? Shouldn't she have further protections that bind the people using her labor to being responsible in some way for what happens?
I think I'm kind of bothered by the notion of the question. Does someone really have to be capable of imagining and articulating their deserved rights to have or deserve them?
Well, I linked to an AMA. In the other thread, I posted this study. It was the only link to any kind of actual data about surrogate mothers in the entire thread, and it was met with mockery and derision. I have been trying my best to read about and find information from people with direct experience, while not a single person on here who is anti-surrogacy has posted a single shred of evidence that anyone who has been involved in it wants it banned or more heavily regulated. It's purely their own assumptions, speculation, and vibes.
I'm kind of bothered by the notion that a bunch of online leftists with zero exposure to the actual practice and zero interest in learning about it think they know better and want to just barge in telling people, "No, you're oppressing yourself, you're too dumb to realize that you shouldn't be doing this, I know better than you what you actually need." It's an incredibly chauvinistic attitude.
Historically, socialists have had all sorts of ideas about how society ought to operate. But the successful projects have been successful because they actually listened to the needs and wants of the people. Look at how Mao won over the farmers. Look at how Lenin promised "Peace, land, and bread" - none of which were novel concepts the Russian peasants had to be told to want. Look at how the EZLN pursued a more diplomatic path because it was what the people they're representing wanted them to do. Look at how the Black Panthers operated a free breakfast program.
Step one of any leftist project should be to find out the actual material needs of the community in the present situation, and work from that. Not to just assume that you know better about what they need because you're better educated or whatever.
Is that what you think I'm arguing though? You linked a study about their psychological well-being, but I at least am not really arguing about that. I'm not even arguing that surrogacy shouldn't exist. I'm arguing that capitalism is a fuck and it seems like you don't want to really engage with the material contradictions of surrogacy under capitalism on the grounds that "surrogates are actually fine with this particular form of inequality." Like...ok, maybe many are? I'm personally not trying to engage on the terms of a metanarrative of what other hexbear.net users are thinking about surrogacy. There are positives and negatives to a mass line as the only form of guidance on social progress. On the one hand, obviously Mao won over the farmers by hearing their issues and helping the farmers synthesize them. But on the other, that also requires the vanguardists to politically educate the farmers, which did happen. And still, we see social contradictions in these societies that are patriarchal in nature, like the lack of explicit rights and protections for LGBTQ+ people in China. So I don't think you can look at some imagined notion of a mass line when looking at something as relatively complex to our society as surrogacy. In other words, it's not really chauvinistic to identify the dynamics that lead to surrogacy being accomplished problematically, inherently, under capitalism, while recognizing that in general, it's very human as a practice. To reiterate, no one here is barging in anywhere, we're arguing online on a niche communist internet forum.
I'm perfectly willing to engage with it. Give me the facts. Show me the stats. Show me evidence that the actual material conditions line up with your thus far entirely hypothetical and theoretical ideas about what might possibly be happening on the ground. Otherwise, no, I'm not willing to engage with "the material contradictions of surrogacy under capitalism" on the grounds that you haven't presented the material contradictions, only the hypothetical contradictions which may or may not have anything whatsoever to do with the actual, material reality.
And if you don't have sources for the material reality you believe exists - why not? Is it perhaps because you haven't looked into it, because you haven't thought too much about it before? Perfectly understandable! But if that's the case, then maybe start by reserving judgement, not jumping to any conclusions about how it must function, and instead try collecting data and learning about the situation, and only then thinking about how it might be improved. And hey, you know where you could learn about how it works? Maybe from the people actually involved in it.
I reiterate that placing your own preconceived, purely theoretical notions about what other people's lives are like above their own testimony regarding the same is incredibly chauvinistic, and if you don't agree with that then no, I will not discuss this any further because I disagree you with you on a very fundamental level.
do you not understand that rich people renting poorer peoples bodies is inherently an unequal thing under capitalism? all i really have to say on the issue is my original comment, which is just this one point ultimately. i'm not involved with surrogacy, i'm not antisurrogacy. i'm not really trying to have a debate about why you're the final authority on surrogacy. is this personal for you or something? do you have personal experience with the process of surrogacy in america? because from my perspective, and i'm otherwise disengaging on your post because i really just wanted to offer the most obvious reason people here would be concerned about the manner in which surrogacy would be practiced in america, you are unwilling to understand this singular and obvious point. are you telling me you need hard data to understand that workers need protections from the people employing me? that you need a study to tell you that black kids in areas the panthers operated needed food, that the peasants in china needed to overthrow their landlords? you can't argue from this position of data on the one hand and an appeal to a notion of a mass line on the other if you're not going to back up that example with like, idk, some study that proves that the kids that the black panthers were feeding were hungry or some shit. i don't need a study to tell me that. your notion that people here are actually meaningfully against surrogacy is just much more theoretical than the notion that rich people that don't want to adopt and are willing to pay for surrogacy could take advantage of the surrogate. because it's an inherently unequal social relationship. because of the patriarchy and chauvinism that is inherent to our society.
Removed by mod
thanks for the bad faith discussion i guess, you're as equally unwilling to listen to an argument about why it would make sense to have protections for surrogates as whoever you're mad at from the other thread as they are to your arguments.
Crunching numbers doesn't prove workers are exploited. You literally have to have a theoretical framework with which to understand the problem, and that's more important than a study at this stage.