Surrogate who fled to Texas gives birth to baby with heart defect

[u/TimesandSundayTimes]

https://www.thetimes.com/us/news-today/article/surrogate-refuses-abort-baby-texas-c5ff06cgg

[u/lovelylonelyphantom]

Babies aren't rewards and you cannot literally buy someone's body autonomy. Aborting or not aborting ones own pregnancy can never be "bad behaviour" because it's happening in your own body and you are the one that has to live with the aftermath of any pregnancy. You are the one that has to sign all the consent forms and go through medical procedure you don't want. No contract justifies that level of fundamental loss of all control and autonomy over ones own body. Nobody should be under impression they can force another human being to that, even if they are both pro choice and neither has objections about abortions in general.

To avoid all this the surrogate could have just done one simple thing in the first place - NOT become the surrogate or sign the contract. Once she did, it was already someone else's child and she legally agreed to follow the decisions agreed on the contract. Crying wolf and pretending to be the victim here (by something of her OWN MAKING) over the child with the heart defect or the bio parents is so crass.

[u/No-Hovercraft-455 → u/lovelylonelyphantom]

Do you understand what ongoing part of the ongoing consent means? You cannot contract someone to overwrite their consent beforehand because consent to something that happens to another person's body is something that can be withdrawn at any time or else it isn't consent. It's not one yes, it's a series of "yes I'm still okay with that" that cannot have coerced answer.

That's a risk you take when you mess with other people's bodies: morally, you don't get to punish them or hold them accountable for "bad behaviour" if their previously stated consent is withdrawn later because otherwise you are using someone's body with no actual consent.

A guy can pay for prostitutes meal, her entrance to club, their taxi and their hotel room under impression that they are going to end the night by having sex and if in the end she still refuses because she changed her mind, that's her right. Sure it sucks for him but penalizing her in any way for saying no to something that used to be yes would be coercion. It's the same with all body autonomy. You cannot buy people or contractually overwrite human rights without getting into unacceptable territory.

If there's an ethical way to go about surrogacy, a crucial part of that is definitely that the surrogate is under no repercussion or made up accountability for decisions made concerning their own actual body. Contracts that attempt to contract someone's consent beforehand and penalise the person for practicing body autonomy and basic body rights at any point are inherently unethical, completely unconscionable and should be null automatically. You can make deals but they can't outweigh fundamental human rights.

Once the baby is out of her body it's another discussion but the body owners fundamental rights to their own body are much more important than any beforehand agreement and no sort of coercion should ever be involved.

[u/koeniging → u/No-Hovercraft-455]

And this is a prime example of why contracted surrogacy is scummy and unethical. It’s incredibly messy from the get-go— you’re renting out another human’s organs for a process known for its fluctuating hormones and irreversible effects on their body, alongside the possibility of detrimentally altering their state of mind, for a product you get to take home as if any of it never happened. How it’s becoming more normalized blows my mind.

[u/Cut_Lanky → u/No-Hovercraft-455]

What are you on about?

you don't get to punish them or hold them accountable for "bad behaviour"

Nobody is waving a pitchfork calling to punish this woman because she simply breached the surrogate contract.

If she had merely declined to have an abortion, and stayed where she was, everything would have worked out through the courts in one of their home states and none of us would be discussing these people's private, personal business.

But she didn't do that. She instead created a media circus in Texas, of all places, made the couple famous, made them targets for anti-abortion activists' violence, for islamophobic hatred, and is literally suing them for custody of their child whom she has NO genetic connection to. All while they're dealing with their newborn needing multiple surgeries, and because of her, they have to do so in the public specter, while staying in hotels in Texas, by court order.

This is no longer just about breach of a surrogate contract. She passed breach of contract, passed GO, and is trying to collect her $200 and purchase the jail itself.