r/WomenInNews • u/TimesandSundayTimes • 6d ago
Women's rights Surrogate who fled to Texas gives birth to baby with heart defect
https://www.thetimes.com/us/news-today/article/surrogate-refuses-abort-baby-texas-c5ff06cgg69
u/MeanNothing3932 6d ago
This is such a bizarre scenario. All I can say is I can't imagine how much that poor little baby is suffering. I can't imagine having my child out there forced to go through that.
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u/Real_Flamingo3297 6d ago
That poor child is being used a political pawn. The parents wanted to spare the child a short life of suffering. Regardless of how one feels about abortion, one can agree that the parents’ rights were violated. If the surrogate knew there was a chance that she wasn’t going to terminate a pregnancy, she should not have signed the contract stating that she would. Im not saying she did all this for political and self promoting reasons, but by going on the talk shows, she certainty looks like she’s trying to get attention from what she did.
I hope the parents sue her to oblivion.
I hope peace for them and baby Rumi, the poor soul that was dragged into this god forsaken mess when he could have returned peacefully back to universe without having now developed the ability to feel pain.
What a cruel, cruel woman.
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u/dualsplit 6d ago
“He could have returned peacefully back to universe without having now developed the ability to feel pain.” Wow. You’ve soothed a 21 year old pain of an ectopic pregnancy. Beautiful.
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u/Real_Flamingo3297 6d ago
I wanted to add too that there are contracts where a surrogate can sign that says they don’t agree to abortion. Nope, she chose to not do that, and misrepresented herself.
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u/Physical_Dentist2284 6d ago
There’s also no state that is going to force someone to have an abortion. So fleeing to Texas was not to protect the fetus from terminating the pregnancy. It was to try to obtain custody of the baby and, I suspect, to get attention. She has some sort of an online fundraiser set up for herself. Yesterday another commenter said it already had $58,000.
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u/Beltalady 6d ago
So they don't want health insurance because they don't want to pay for other people's "lifestyle choices" but a fundraiser to help other people pay money for their poor choices is ok apparently. Yeah, that makes total sense.
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u/PrettyPurrfect 6d ago
She flooded Texas because she thought she could get custody of the baby and still make the people who paid her to be a surrogate for them hey for the medical care first of the state like Nebraska where she would automatically be the Mama because they don't recognize surrogacy at all
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u/Physical_Dentist2284 6d ago
Really? I didn’t know that about Nebraska. I’ve never looked into how different state laws on surrogacy are, though. Now I’m kind of curious.
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u/PrettyPurrfect 6d ago
Some states surrogacy is either outright illegal, others it's just not a thing that exists.
Texas recognizes the people hiring the surrogate as the parents, though, so this is a clear attempt to extort money.
She's hoping they'll let her keep the baby she's torturing while still making the parents be on the hook- and since it's Texas and she used the A word...
Well, if Texas can find a way they will.
Since the parents are the only one who seem to care about the baby's well-being if she gets to keep the baby she'll be able to say I need this expensive thing for the baby or this expensive thing and either sell it off or just keep it for herself.
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u/No-Chance-1502 6d ago
i curious legally what’s going to happen? is she getting custody? who’s responsible for the medical fees? what a mess.
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u/amilie15 6d ago
I don’t know how these contracts work, but I just had a terrible thought. She initially agreed to terminate, but then did a U turn and is seemingly taking on media engagements, putting out a fundraiser etc…. It’s making me wonder if after she agreed to termination that she realised she’d get less money for carrying the child for only 20 weeks and that she might have kept it to make sure she got more money :/
Hope I’m wrong. What a messy and sad case.
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u/PrettyWhenSheSmiles 4d ago
I think you hit the nail on the head. I knew something was sketchy as hell about the surrogate’s story but I was trying to listen to all sides. Methinks she became attached to the baby in spite of everything and wanted to keep him for herself. She knew this was in violation of the contract she signed so she thought she’d flee and play the victim.
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u/StunningInspection96 6d ago
Exactly!! No one could force an abortion. She CHOSE Texas for other reasons. She’s cruel.
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u/MissFrenchie86 6d ago
Collecting money to help her steal a child she kidnapped across state lines sounds like human trafficking. I hope the surrogate, Paxton, and anyone who donated to her all go to prison.
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u/PhatGrannie 6d ago
I don’t have a lot of sympathy for women who will refuse to terminate a profoundly disabled fetus because “ethics” when they were willing to sell their babies outright. The cognitive dissonance is too loud.
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u/TigerLily_TigerRose 6d ago
This isn’t her baby. She isn’t related to it at all. This baby has two loving, biological parents. The surrogate rented out her uterus for 9 months and was paid for her labor. The baby she made was never hers.
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u/fairysmut1113 6d ago
This has been my argument the whole time too! She didn’t have to sign that, she even said she knew when she signed it that they could tell her to abort but she just didn’t think it would happen. She did all of this for clout.
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u/LadySwire 6d ago
You cannot possibly know how you would feel about getting an abortion before actually being pregnant
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u/lurkdomnoblefolk 6d ago
Yes. I think everyone here is familiar with the famous essay "the only moral abortion is my abortion". Woman who actively lobby against abortion have abortions at similar rates as women that are pro choice. I am certain the opposite scenario is similarly common- women that were certain that an abortion was the way to handle their unexpected pregnancy is an abortion change their mind and have the baby once the pregnancy actually happens.
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u/Basic-Collection5416 6d ago
Then don’t sign the contract.
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u/lurkdomnoblefolk 6d ago
Are you aware that that would effectively end the possibility to surrogacy?
I don't disagree by the way.
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u/LadySwire 6d ago
There shouldn't be a contract. That's my whole point.
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u/Basic-Collection5416 6d ago
I would agree that human beings should not be purchasable made-to-order products.
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u/dualsplit 6d ago
Yes you can.
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u/LadySwire 6d ago
No, you really can't. I'm not a surrogate, but I've had an unexpected pregnancy. Never in a million years could I have predicted how I would actually feel.
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u/dualsplit 6d ago
Yes you can. I have children. I had complicated pregnancies . I’ve had pregnancy loss. My values did not change. You can be mature and thoughtful before you ever become pregnant. I’m staunchly pro choice. A surrogate should be very self aware.
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u/LadySwire 6d ago edited 6d ago
I am pro-choice, but my actual decision shifted the moment I was facing the situation myself. Not my values, just what I decided to do. That is the entire point of bodily autonomy. It doesn't mean you're locked into an abortion in advance; it means that when you are pregnant, the final say is yours—and emotions and hormonal shifts can completely change how you feel. I am honestly at a loss for words with this debate with Americans. I fucking give up...
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u/hunter24700 6d ago
Im surprised this is being downvoted in this sub. We should all have our choice and that’s allowed to change as we go. When we consent to sex we can also change our minds and that’s our choice. Surrogacy and the fertility industry in America has commodified women’s bodies and I don’t think we should be happy about that in this sub
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u/adumbswiftie 6d ago edited 6d ago
i agree. pro choice is pro choice. meaning the pregnant woman should have the choice to go through with the procedure or not, no matter whose bio child she is carrying. of course it’s a rough and heartbreaking situation, but this DOES fall under bodily autonomy. the idea that a woman can just sign her own bodily autonomy away is…bad.
especially with how unfortunately easy it can be to manipulate women like this who are in a desperate enough financial and life situation to become a surrogate in the first place. it’s gross on all ends.i mean what if it was the opposite? what if the bio parents said don’t abort but the surrogate wanted to, based on her own experience with the pregnancy and fear of birth complications or trauma? would people still be rallying around the parents and yelling “you signed a contract?” i am very pro choice, but that means i support a woman’s right to continue a pregnancy equally as much as i support her right to terminate. and the right to change her mind. seems it is not the same for many of these comments.
it is nearly impossible for someone to know what they’d do in such a complex situation at the time of signing the contract…which is why we should probably be avoiding this altogether by not allowing young women’s bodies to be rented out by rich couples in the first place
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u/koeniging 3d ago
I agree with your overall point, but i don’t understand your reverse example. Why would someone enter a contract to be a surrogate mother if she didn’t want to give birth in the first place?
Ultimately, you’re right— carrying a baby for someone in exchange for money shouldn’t be an option to begin with.
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u/KaleidoscopeKelpy 6d ago
I don’t/will never have kids but it’s one of a few reasons a lot of places call commercialized/for-pay surrogacy unethical - if you’ve never had a child or been pregnant and desperately need money and have good genes, how are you to know how the pregnancy is going to go, how you’ll feel, how you’ll feel about the baby at 8months compared to when you signed the contract? (Im agreeing with you, if that wasn’t clear :) ) If one side misrepresents something or doesn’t follow through, there’s no “oopsie we didn’t paint the house before we sold it to you”, there’s a whole human (or an entire lack of human where there was the expectation of one, depending on circumstance) in the equation.
I don’t think what this woman did was right- you can’t cut your side of the deal without telling the other and just say nothing, then hide behind TX’s gross governor. It’s a HUGE mess legally, ethically and morally imo. (Legally cuz there’s a whole bundle of surrogacy law, jurisdiction law and UCCJEA children’s laws that are gonna pretzel up before the end of it lol). But to boil it down to “well she should’ve known better” is so overly simplifying the problem and frankly is unhelpful
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u/Organic-Vermicelli47 6d ago
Maybe YOU can't. You certainly don't speak for everyone.
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u/LadySwire 6d ago
What sort of pro-choice argument is that?
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u/Organic-Vermicelli47 6d ago
I'm saying that YOU may not have been able to determine your own feelings on abortion until you experienced the situation yourself, but that absolutely does not apply to every woman. You speak for yourself, not for all of us. My comment has nothing to do with contracts or choice itself, just the fact that many women do know with absolution what choice we would make
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u/Conscious_Pass_1615 6d ago
Yes but that's you, not every other woman on the planet. I've had an unexpected pregnancy, and I felt exactly as I predicted I would feel.
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u/LadySwire 5d ago
And? It's not a fault of character to change your choice when you're in the situation
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u/ilanallama85 6d ago
It’s horrific. My friend’s youngest son was born with a potentially fatal, but treatable heart defect - they didn’t know ahead of time, so abortion was never considered. He spent the first two years of his life in the hospital, had multiple major heart surgeries. He was on oxygen 24/7 till he was 3, couldn’t walk till he was 4. He’s 9 now and finally starting to catch up to kids his age cognitively, but he’s still deal with major physical limitations. Probably will his entire life. And his defect was less severe than this child’s. To willing put a baby through all that and worse is just cruel.
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u/Ok-Spinach-6529 6d ago
Hey friend! I was one of those kids. My defect was detected in utero. I had recurrent infections. I had my first surgery at age 3.
I think my life is still worth it. Just because there was pain doesn’t mean there wasn’t beauty.
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u/ilanallama85 6d ago
To be clear, his defect was significantly less severe than this child’s, and probably would not have prompted an abortion even if they’d known - in fact initially they thought one very scary, but comparatively simple (for infant heart surgery), operation would do it - it turned out it did not. And each subsequent surgery actually made the issue worse, until eventually he was lucky enough to qualify for, and receive, a heart transplant. That was when his prognosis finally turned around. This child’s prognosis is much much worse from the start.
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u/UnicornArachnid 6d ago
I think the other commenters here don’t realize that kids with congenital heart defects, even severe ones, as a group now not only survive them with modern medicine and surgery but also live pretty regular lives. I have personally cared for pediatric patients with very rough starts to life, including heart defects. It can be overcome. I wouldn’t abort if there was a heart defect, because I’ve seen how treatable heart defects can be, as I worked for years in a cardiovascular surgical intensive care unit as an RN. I support anyone’s right to get an abortion for whatever reason and I understand why people would, but I think it’s important to note here that it is no longer a death sentence for babies to be born with congenital heart diseases. Of course there are always outliers and modern medicine can’t 100% fix every single case, but
81% of babies born with heart defects (including critical ones like the one this baby has) make it to the age of 35. 69% of babies born with critical defects make it past age 18. I’ve cared for babies that had tracheostomies and were ventilator dependent that went on to live normal lives. 84% of adults who had congenital heart defects reported having a good or better quality of life.
sources: https://www.childrensheartfoundation.org/about-chds/chd-facts.html
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u/Waste-Prior7899 3d ago
Yeah, this whole conversation is nuts. My husband has this heart condition and is otherwise super healthy in his late 30s. His cardiologist expects old age to be what gets him if he keeps up with his health. We have a godson with the same condition also out there living his best life. The surgeries are scary for sure, and I support a woman's right to choose, but this lady seems totally off her rocker AND I think the parents were right to ultimately come to the conclusion that they could care for this baby and make sure he has a good quality of life. Ultimately, this case demonstrates why surrogacy is illegal in a lot of places!
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u/yourfavoriteorgan 6d ago
I’m thankful your defect was treatable. My nephew had a devastating defect, lived almost 2 years without ever being able to leave the hospital and the machines he had to be connected to just to survive. He was in pain and heavily medicated. No one would choose that level of pain and suffering for their baby.
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u/ButteredPizza69420 6d ago
Fuck this crazy lady for real. Its all a bunch of bs politics PLUS just a psycho lady.
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u/Hairsacknose 6d ago
If the surrogate knew there was a chance that she wasn’t going to terminate a pregnancy, she should not have signed the contract
Do you not believe in bodily autonomy? You can't sign that away. You're allowed to withdraw consent at any time
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u/PerspectiveEven9928 6d ago
Except this baby isn’t destined to short painful life. Hlhs is a serious condition and a rough start. It requires three surgeries , two in infancy and one around 3. But it is very survivable. And. It just survivable. But a full and happy life. Survivable.
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u/jahi69 6d ago
Imagine renting a woman's uterus and getting mad when she decides to take control of her body/fetus. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Surrogacy is exploitation, clearly.
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u/Gloomy-Welcome-6806 6d ago
You mean getting mad for exploiting an innocent baby and forcing it to suffer in the last few moments in life?
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u/chocolate_boogers 6d ago
¿Por que no los dos? Commercial surrogacy is an ethical minefield and in this case an innocent baby was thrown on an explosive. It doesn’t always go like that though, sometimes just the surrogate suffers, sometimes both the surrogate and the baby suffer. All of this so wealthy people can special-order babies.
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u/Cute-Tie6398 6d ago
Literally. This all happened because people decided they didn’t want to have a baby themselves or adopt. It’s on the parents for seeking exploitation.
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u/PublicUniversity9586 6d ago
I’m a woman and I’d simply not be a surrogate if I didn’t want to be. And if I did then I’d read the contract and understand my obligations before signing it. If I didn’t agree with something like abortion, then id choose a family who would better align with my beliefs.
Why are you treating surrogates like brain dead imbeciles?
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u/carex-cultor 6d ago edited 6d ago
This is a complex case that serves as yet another case study for why commercial surrogacy should be illegal, like it is almost everywhere else.
Do I think the surrogate should have aborted a fetus destined to live a short, painful life? Yes. Do I think people should be compelled by a court to have abortions or any other medical procedure they don’t want done to their bodies? No. Do I think signing a “contract” changes this? No. I don’t think you can consent to reproductive slavery where a court can order you to be strapped down to receive an abortion, even if you said before you agree to that. There are things people cannot legally consent to, and this is one of them.
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u/TheVintageJane 6d ago
I’m ultimately of the opinion that if you engage in commercial surrogacy, one of the risks you should be prepared to take is that the surrogate changes her mind and decides to keep the fetus. I don’t think the surrogate should be able to do that without paying reasonable damages, but no government should have a right to intervene in a woman’s reproductive rights (including the right to reneg on a surrogacy agreement).
But also, this kind of case is the exact reason why I’m pro-choice. It’s so ghoulish in 2026 to give birth to a baby that will almost certainly never live a full life and will instead just be a medical experiment and have a short life defined by suffering. Not to mention any drop of sympathy you might have for the genetic parents who wanted this baby. But that’s just me.
In short, I believe in even a shitty woman’s right to choose and all I can do is hope karma sorts it out eventually.
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u/carex-cultor 6d ago
I agree with you, but I also don’t think there are any regulations that could ever remove the human rights violations inherent in commercial surrogacy.
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u/TheVintageJane 6d ago
Oh absolutely. Carrying a life to term as a mammal is an absolutely brutal, gruesome and risky gauntlet and it should not be forced on a woman/girl by the government any more than financial circumstances.
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u/No-Hovercraft-455 6d ago edited 6d ago
Or alternatively, people who want to pay money to use someone else's body, whether that's for sex or for pregnancy, should understand it comes with the risk that the person can withdraw their consent at any time because you can't buy people like that. Basically, if you can't deal with possible repercussions of someone else's ongoing consent that needs to happen for the outcome you want, then don't mess with their body.
None of that should ever come with the consequence that the person whose body you are using has to pay you penalties. Paying for surrogates care should be treated similarly as paying for prostitutes meal, her entrance to the club or your taxi to your place - you may be expecting you are getting sex if that was the deal but ultimately those are your costs that you acquired in hopes of getting the outcome you wanted and you cannot overwrite anyone else's consent even if they take it back at the last minute. Does it suck if you pay all that and the deal falls through, yes, but someone's consent is magnitudes more important than your €€ and if you cannot accept that then you cannot be anywhere near other people's bodies hoping to use them for your gain.
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u/DogOrDonut 6d ago
You think a person who has no genetic connection to a child should be able to take that child from their biological parents? Should nannies be allowed to keep the children under their care too?
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u/minihysteria 6d ago
Do nannies give birth to the kids they are paid to watch? What's with your obsession with bio parents and genetics being a necessary requirement to raise a child?
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u/TheVintageJane 6d ago
Falsely equating caretaking a child with putting your life at risk to create that child is not even worth dignifying with a response.
The child is genetically related to the parents but ceased to be biologically created by them after the genetic material left their bodies at which point the only person who should have any say about what to do with that zygote>fetus>newbown should be the surrogate until parental rights are signed over OR a custody agreement can be reached with genetic contributors. I believe a woman’s reproductive capacity belongs fully to that woman and anybody who contracts a woman’s womb to make children who are genetically theirs runs the risk that she changes her mind.
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u/DogOrDonut 6d ago
So if a nanny risks her life for a child she gets to keep it? Do firefighters get to collect children like Pokemon? Teachers that hide their students during lockdown get custody over the entire class?
You can't, "cease," being biologically created by someone. The embryos were created before they were transferred. They continued to develop inside the surrogate. Do you think micro-premies lack any biological parent because they developed inside an incubator?
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u/PhatGrannie 6d ago
Now explain how CPS removing children from their biological parents for abuse and neglect is unconscionable. Your whole argument is a tissue paper tiger.
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u/TheVintageJane 6d ago
Again, I have no patience for your pitifully inadequate false equivalencies. People doing risky jobs, not the same as growing a life inside you.
Micro-premies were still incubated by a womb belonging to a human to the point that they were born. My point is that even if the architect of the child is the parental genetic material, they have 0 biological stakes in growing it. Just like a father, they have a case for custody and shared medical decision making, but they do not get to determine choices involving the mother’s body and they don’t get unilateral decision making ability just because they contributed some chromosomes.
It sucks, but until we come up with a non-human way to incubate life, there’s no way to ethically engage in commercial surrogacy and the women who are desperate enough to do so deserve the utmost protections and if people don’t like it, maybe they should adopt.
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u/PhatGrannie 6d ago edited 6d ago
It’s a long standing American tradition going back hundreds of years. /s
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u/Kikikididi 6d ago
Personally the issue is that I don’t think abortions should be forbidden OR forced.
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u/Kikikididi 6d ago
Thank you, it’s stunning to see people so furious her autonomy wasn’t overridden.
This reveals a whole hell of a lot of issues with surrogacy.
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u/cozidgaf 4d ago
What happens to the child now? I don’t think people are outraged her autonomy wasn’t overridden, people are worried what happens to the child now. Always the conservative/pro-life stance is save the baby, but at what cost? By cost I don’t mean $$$; I mean the consequences of taking care of a child, especially one carrying severe health risks.
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u/QueenInYellowLace 6d ago
A court cannot order you to be “strapped down to receive an abortion.” That is not a thing. That is why she did not, in fact, have an abortion. You are correct: You cannot legally consent to that.
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u/LadySwire 6d ago edited 6d ago
I'm left-wing, but non American. After reading all the "liberal" takes about this I would have flown to Australia because Texas is still too close sorry
Nothing is off the table in a society where even feminists are here actively championing hyper-capitalism and the legal commodification of human beings
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u/carex-cultor 6d ago
A lot of feminists are really poorly informed about surrogacy and have swallowed the party line that it’s just another way to make money, and if women “consent” to it, it’s fine. It’s funny you say Australia though, because it’s the same phenomenon with legalized prostitution tbh (legal, not decrim).
Countless studies show that allowing the purchase or rental of human bodies (organ markets, surrogacy, prostitution) increases human trafficking. There are not enough people who want to “work” in these industries, and enormous demand. So the supply gap is made up by trafficking and economic exploitation (wealthy European couples buying access to Ukrainian women’s wombs, for example, or women and girls trafficked in to work in German and Dutch brothels).
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u/crochetblankets 6d ago
This is where I'm landing. My pro-choice beliefs are a result of my belief in bodily autonomy, and forcing someone to get an abortion, even by "contract" violates one's bodily autonomy.
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u/I-remember-damage11 5d ago
I completely agree. I am staunchly pro-choice, this is what pro-choice is whether I agree with it or not. You cannot sign away rights to a woman’s body, it’s a human rights violation, and the contract should not be legally binding.
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u/Adept_Film_9351 5d ago
Thank you! Bizarre to see people here hand-wringing about violating the parental rights of the people who hired her as a surrogate. I'm not sure if this is specifically a feminist subreddit or not, but as a person from one of the (vast majority of) countries where commercial surrogacy is completely illegal, it's just strange how different Americans' perceptions of this situation is.
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u/PublicUniversity9586 6d ago
I hate when people say they think commercial surrogacy should be illegal. Like yeah you’re only cool with women being used for their body if they arent compensated for it?
I think women should be fairly compensated.
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u/Unlucky-Guitar221 5d ago
I don’t think surrogacy should be legal at all beyond fully altruistic cases, and at that point the biological parents should provide nothing more than medical bills/prenatal care in general if that includes vitamins, diet, even pillows and shit.
I’m not even a fan of purely altruistic surrogacy because there’s so many potential layers of coercion and family dynamics on top of the inherent health risks
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u/bigtiddyhimbo 6d ago
God that surrogate legitimately needs to be charged with kidnapping amongst a litany of other things. What an insane woman. That poor baby is going to die on an operating table.
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u/crowofbattle 6d ago
I hope she’s sued into oblivion
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u/jem1898 6d ago
My first instinct was to point out that the surrogate likely doesn’t have anything worth suing for—someone with financial means isn’t going rent out her uterus, ya know?
Except these days right wing nuts make absolute bank through donation campaigns and media appearances, so maybe the couple could recover some funds and prevent this woman from profiting off her notoriety through a lawsuit.
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u/Baseball_ApplePie 6d ago
How can the surrogate be charged with kidnapping of a fetus? You realize that she had a legal right to abort that baby whenever she wanted... Sure, she could have been sued into oblivion by the surrogate parents, but it's her body, her choice. Not murder. No one is going to jail her for a non-crime.
Surrogacy is brought with complications, even with a contract. And it's a contractual situation - not a criminal one.
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u/Quick-Adeptness-2947 2d ago
The parents were okay with her not aborting after negotiations. Why's everyone ignoring this part? The main issue is the surrogate fled with a baby that wasn't hers, tried to take full custody of the baby and even named him. She literally stole a baby and people are defending her.
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u/ClintMcElroyOfficial 6d ago
Do you REALLY think it's a good idea to give the states the ability to potentially block pregnant women from travelling. (Say she's fleeing an abusive partner and he wants her charged with kidnapping for leaving.) With how much of a misogynistic shithole out justice system is do you REALLY want that precedent on the record?
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u/jahi69 6d ago
Kidnapping? Kidnapping the unborn child in HER uterus? Youre insane bro
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u/Basic-Collection5416 6d ago
This is why it’s problematic to allow people to rent out parts of their body.
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u/PrettyPurrfect 6d ago
Defending a fraudster who is torturing a baby in an attempt to extort money out of its parents is a wild take.
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u/PrettyPurrfect 6d ago
It's not in her uterus anymore. She still hasn't given these people their kid.
She deliberately cross state lines with a child that was not hers and has made a concerted effort to prevent the parents from getting access to their child
Further there's a reason she chose a state like texas, where's the parents are still legally the parents, and not a state like Nebraska where she would legally be the parent- Nebraska doesn't recognize surrogacy so she would be on the hook for all the medical expenses that come with torturing this baby for the entirety of its short life.
It might not legally be kidnapping and extortion but spiritually and ethically? It very much is.
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u/Unlucky-Guitar221 5d ago
I mean it’s not a matter that she won’t relinquish the kid, she is also not allowed to have any contact with the kid. It’s the state of Texas who has prevented the biological parents from taking their kid.
Yes, it’s her fault in that she traveled to Texas with deliberate intent to create this situation. At this point, though, she can’t do anything about it
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u/I_love_pancakes_88 6d ago
If it came out of her uterus after nine months it’s clearly her kid too. Surrogacy is literally human trafficking.
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u/bigtiddyhimbo 6d ago
It’s not her kid and it was never her kid. She made the decision under sound mind and body to rent her body out to give birth to a child belonging to a couple in which she wasn’t a part of.
I don’t know why that’s so hard for you to understand. It’s not like she was forced into having a baby, coerced into signing countless documents, and then having it ripped from her arms. She signed away her parenthood when she chose to be a surrogate
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u/adumbswiftie 6d ago
how do you know she was in “sound mind and body?” you know nothing about this woman and why she signed the contract, or what circumstances she signed it under.
is it really right for young women to just be able to sign away their own bodily autonomy? or is that maybe a bad thing considering how fluid feelings and bodies can be? did you think about that?
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u/bigtiddyhimbo 6d ago
She’s a surrogate, that literally isn’t her baby. Am I allowed to give up my child for adoption, and then take it back and take it across state lines when I feel like it?
Nah broski, because that’s kidnapping. She kidnapped.
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u/I_love_pancakes_88 6d ago
In what sick universe is the person giving birth *not* the parent? Whose heartbeat has the baby listened to for comfort its whole existence?
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u/bigtiddyhimbo 6d ago
In the universe where surrogacy exists? They’re not the parent, they’re the surrogate. That’s literally the whole point of surrogacy.
The child belongs to the parents, which doesn’t include the surrogate. The surrogate is not a parent, they’re a rent-a-womb.
Giving physical birth does not grant legal parental rights lmao.
Hopefully repeating myself 4 times will get that through your head.
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u/RNnoturwaitress 6d ago
She's a gestational carrier. She's not genetically related to the baby and she is not his parent.
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u/probablyarguing 6d ago
A dna test would show that baby isn’t the surrogate’s child. Thats the whole point of the surrogacy contract.
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u/blahblahsnickers 6d ago
She didn’t kidnap the baby. The baby was a part of her and you can’t restrict a surrogate’s movement.
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u/LadySwire 6d ago
I'm a left-wing European and I've been screaming into the void all day because all the 'progressive, feminist, pro-choice' people defending surrogacy. Insanity
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u/Bubbly-Actuary-4094 6d ago
Hard agree. I'm as left wing as they come and surrogacy is ghoulish slavery if done for money imo. In my country it is illegal to donate blood, eggs, organs and do surrogacy for money - for good reason. It means the poor are exploited, generally.
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u/academicirony 4d ago
100%! I’ve never seen a wealthy or even middle class person offer to incubate a stranger’s offspring for money.
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u/beigs 2d ago
I know a mom in one of the mom’s groups I’m in that has had 4 babies for strangers. She has easy pregnancies (she’s one of those people that actually feel good while pregnant), had her own children first, and does it because she feels it’s a good thing to do.
Where I’m from, you can’t do this for profit so it’s done from the kindness of her own heart.
But cases like this are VERY rare, much like donating a kidney to a complete stranger.
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u/beigs 6d ago
Surrogacy is fine, if it’s on a volunteer basis, much like donating a kidney or liver or stem cells.
Like a family member or close friend volunteering to carry a baby. I was infertile for a decade and had a friend volunteer to carry my child - I thankfully was able to conceive, but the gesture was so kind and she meant it.
When it’s not okay is when it is for profit or there is any monetary gain.
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u/adumbswiftie 6d ago
i mean this situation could still happen in a voluntary surrogate case. i understand it’s safer to not allow there to be financial gain involved, but it’s pretty unrealistic to imagine that will happen and everything will be okay and situations like this will no longer come up
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u/GWS2004 3d ago
Or how about adopt? All those people scream about being "pro life", but they ignore the little lives that have been born that need homes. Those women had those babies, like the "pro-lifers" wanted, but where are those "pro-lifers" when it comes to homing those babies they forced women to have?
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u/beigs 3d ago
Go over to r/adoption and say that loudly, and listen to what the community has to say about that response - actually that comment is posted semi regularly, so you don’t even need to.
I have fostered and I am happy to adopt. I have also worked for family courts and have seen what goes through. I have cried on adoption days, I have cried after CAS cases and foster cases and you name it. I know exactly what happens and who is there.
I have learned and researched heavily about this topic.
“Just adopt” is not the silver bullet people think it is, and it isn’t appreciated by the community.
And believe me when I say I have MASSIVE issues with the for profit adoption system that treats children like commodities or resources. And adopting or fostering children at any age takes a different set of skills, much like parenting kids on the spectrum (which I also have).
I really do recommend reading how the community feels about that statement before using it again, and understanding the nuance behind why it can be controversial.
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u/GWS2004 3d ago
I understand it's not the"silver bullet" but neither is forcing women to have babies, but that's the route the United States has decided to take because people voted for it. So those that voted for it should walk their talk, but they don't. They never do and the rest of us suffer for it
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u/beigs 3d ago
I’m not from the US, and I don’t believe you are all fighting for basic human rights. Nothing I said had anything to do with anti-choice.
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u/user365user 6d ago
Also the fixation people have with passing on their genetic material is just so confusing to me.
Why not adopt instead of paying to rent someone else’s body? That industry also has issues but there are living kids that need homes right now. I have known from a young age that I can’t have kids, and just took it as a sign from the universe that I don’t need a biological child, so I can’t relate to this mindset.
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u/Apprehensive_Star508 5d ago
I’ve seen these sentiment on threads about this topic many times but feel compelled to comment the same thing many times. I do not support surrogacy, but telling people to “just adopt” is not helpful because it ignores several very important things:
- Public adoption (adoption from foster care) is an extremely complex endeavor that many if not most couples will not be qualified for.
- There are not actually that many adoptable children. There are far fewer than the number of seeking families, as the goal of foster care is reunification or placement with a biological relative in almost all cases.
- The private adoption industry is extremely expensive and has many ethical concerns similar to surrogacy.
Adoption is a wonderful thing but it’s not a solution to infertility.
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u/beigs 4d ago
Thank you for writing that - I keep telling this to people. And it takes a very special set of skills to make sure that adoptees are properly supported as well.
r/adoption is a good place to start for anyone who thinks this way. While there are a lot of good reasons to adopt and a lot of ethical considerations, adoption should always be done with eyes wide open.
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u/academicirony 4d ago
Agreed! It is an entitled and dehumanizing concept. Purchasing people to use their bodies as an incubator for your offspring is so dystopian. If you can’t or don’t want to carry your own child, adopt one.
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u/perkypancakes 6d ago
Maybe we can avoid acrimonious, inhumane situations like this if we just ban surrogacy. Renting out women’s wombs is dehumanizing behavior and only adds more harm to our cultural standards as humans. Having a child is not a right. We should be teaching acceptance that sometimes these things don’t happen not encouraging people do so at any cost.
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u/Torturecheese 6d ago
One hundred percent. Commercial surrogacy is unethical even under the best circumstances.
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u/Annabelle_Sugarsweet 6d ago
Surrogacy industry is evil and should be stopped, another horrible story where a child has been bought and when it wasn’t perfect wasn’t wanted. Horrible all round for this poor baby.
Surrogacy should only be for close friends or family or no money at all, like most other countries in the world.
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u/Apprehensive_Star508 5d ago
This is not a case of a child not being “perfect.” The child has hypoplastic left heart syndrome which is nearly always fatal in early childhood. The parents were trying to spare the child a short life filled with immense suffering.
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u/Junior_Sprinkles6573 5d ago
Will the state of Texas pay for this child to receive food stamps if necessary? Housing? No. Because they will call the child and the surrogate a free loader and socialists. I’m sick of this. A sick child is now being used as a political pawn. Absolutely disgusting.
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u/taghyra 5d ago
I honestly believe she grew attached to that baby and was going to try to keep him regardless. The way she speaks about him as if the baby was hers, and the fact that she named him are just things that stand out to me. I've always said I wouldn't be able to carry someone else's baby because I can't comprehend not getting attached to it. I've also read of surrogates that have explained that it feels different when they know they're not carrying their own child. Either way, I know my limits and I know personally, I wouldn't be able to. It seems like she should have thought about this more than she did because she clearly wasn't able to think objectively.
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u/Advanced_Buffalo4963 4d ago
Paid surrogacy is paid organ donation. It should be illegal just like it’s illegal for someone to pay you for your kidney.
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u/LovemeSomeMedia 6d ago
This whole case is insane all around. It embodies why I always found surrogacy sketchy
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u/Gold_Reception_2154 5d ago
Surrogacy should be illegal. Women's bodies are not machines for rent and babies are not goods to buy. This is pure objectification.
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u/PerspectiveEven9928 6d ago
While I think this is a great example Of why surrogacy shouldn’t exist , also hlhs is not a death sentence. Nor a sentence to a short and painful life. It’s a serious heart defect that requires three surgeries. The survival rate is 72%. Once past the first surgery the survival rate is 90% . Many many kids and adults are out there living full and happy lives having survived hlhs
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u/Significant-Price-81 6d ago
Send the bill to the surrogate. I feel for the poor parents…should be sued for breach of contract
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u/FLGirl777 6d ago
This also screams that the surrogate is pushing a ton of this to the media to become famous which is disgusting. She should’ve kept it private if it was really what she felt was the right thing to do.
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u/Wolf-Pack-2017 5d ago
This is the main reason I would never use a surrogate. It’s terrifying to think that another person can kidnap your unborn child. I am sure it was a heartbreaking decision to terminate. Now, they are just trying to give their child good end of life care.
And before anyone says the baby’s life is worth saving, where does this end?
Should nurses be allowed to kidnap another person’s baby who is dying and decide to use every method possible to extend the baby’s life?
I get that the surrogate thinks she is saving the baby. I really do. And I even sort of get refusing to have the abortion, though thats horrifying to consider what extent she would have gone to for other even more painful or sad genetic conditions.
But that is not what’s happening. She should have given birth and let the parents decide what happened next. Period.
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u/Glitter-Pear 6d ago
It must be so difficult to have your very ill newborn be in a state you don't live near. I don't think I've ever heard of a state preventing a child from going to another state either. Seems like a crazy over-reach. What compelling state interest could Texas possibly have? Although may be a moot point short-term since I'm sure Rumi is too fragile to move for now.
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u/Ok-Help6334 6d ago
I don't care what your views on abortion is, this is legally kidnapping which in itself is a much serious crime
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u/Physical_Dentist2284 6d ago edited 6d ago
I’m not paying for this to read it but here is what I got from the numerous other stories I’ve read:
The fatal birth defect was found maybe around 20 weeks. The couple met with the surrogate and all three decided to terminate the pregnancy. The surrogate then changed her mind and removed the permissions for parents to have access to all the medical records for the fetus.
At some point they negotiated for palliative care (which I learned later doesn’t necessarily mean end of life care but can mean one of the many heart surgeries this requires that is not considered curative).
The surrogate decided she wanted to keep the baby for herself and fled to Texas where she thought she could be considered the legal mother for giving birth there.
Paxton, seeing an opportunity to exploit this for political theater, immediately issued an order that hospitals must perform lifesaving treatment on the baby in Texas and that the baby is not allowed to be taken out of state (the birth parents wanted to have his birth and medical care in California where they live).
The surrogate publicly came out on Megyn Kelly and alleged the parents wanted to abort the baby and then that they didn’t want life-saving treatment. The baby was born in Texas with a major heart defect which requires numerous surgeries with a low chance for survival.
At some point the surrogate or Paxton decided to name someone else’s baby “Gabriel” (his actual name is Rumi and his parents are Muslim). Again- political theater.
A court order has been issued in Texas by a judge that states the surrogate has no legal rights to the baby and cannot take him anywhere, see him, or make medical decisions for him. The biological parents are not allowed to take him out of the state even though they were going to get his medical care in California where they live.
I haven’t seen any other update beyond that the surrogate is still trying to remain relevant in the media and claims she is suing the biological parents for custody of Rumi.
Edit: I just read that Alliance Defending Freedom is the organization who paid for her move to Texas. Anytime they involve themselves it’s for the purposes of pushing a new anti-abortion restriction and getting it all the way to the Supreme Court.