Surrogacy has been a hot topic in the Irish media as of late. We have been inundated with stories about Irish couples and celebrities like Rosanna Davison “having children through surrogacy”. Most of whom did so in the most popular surrogacy destination, Ukraine.
Sinéad Gallagher-Hedderman and Mark Hedderman are just one of these couples who have been heavily covered in the media. The couple had been trapped in Ukraine with baby Theo after Ukraine was put on a travel ban list by the Department of Health. On the 14th of May, the couple appeared on The Late Late Show to share their story. As a feminist, I knew going into the interview that I would disagree with Sinéad and Mark’s perspective on this industry which strips women of reproductive autonomy, puts them at risk of serious health issues and commodifies children. But I was not prepared for them to be so shamelessly demeaning toward the so-called “surrogate” nor could I have prepared myself for Ryan Tubirdy’s reciprocal lack of regard for the woman as a human being.
I simply could not sit with the interview and not address it especially given the positive reaction it received.
Tubirdy kicked off the interview by inquiring as to why the couple chose to go the surrogacy route which he described as “a massive step”. In response, the couple shared their painful experience with infertility, IVF and miscarriage. Sinéad told Tubirdy “Nobody wants to have to have somebody bring their child into the world that’s not them”. She went on to say “We had to go the surrogacy route. We had no other option” and even went so far as to say she was “forced”.
This is a narrative we hear time and time again on the topic of surrogacy. It is borne of the notion that an individualistic desire for a child translates to a necessity for a child and therefore a right to a child. Couple this delusion with the patriarchal lie that women are little more than sexual and reproductive resources to be used and exploited and you have a justification for surrogacy.
The idea that one is entitled to a child is a profoundly adult-focused view. As Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, Dutch jurist and former UN Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, has rightly pointed out, there is no right to a child under international law, nor should there be given that “Children are not goods or services that the State can guarantee or provide. They are human beings with rights.”
Jessica Kern, a woman who was born of surrogacy and now advocates against it has stated “When the only reason you’re born into this world is a big fat paycheck, it’s degrading”. This statement is incontestable. Commercial surrogacy is, at its core, the degradation of a human infant to a purchasable object.
As there is no such thing as a necessity or entitlement to a child, there is absolutely no grounds on which any individual could be “forced” to rent a woman’s body to impregnate. On the other hand, women are forced by circumstance into becoming “surrogate mothers”.
Poverty as force
It is no coincidence that the vast majority of “surrogate mothers” come from impoverished backgrounds, from poor countries and are usually part of a marginalised class. Just like in prositution, women are coerced by people who have economic power over them and who are usually white, middle-class and western. BioTexCom, which controls 70% of the surrogacy market in Ukraine, acknowledges this economic power imbalance quite proudly on their own site saying “‘the cheapest surrogacy in Europe is in Ukraine, the poorest European country”.
Alina, a woman who resorted to becoming a “surrogate” to pay for her son’s education, has been outspoken about the abuse inflicted on her and other women by BioTexCom.
“We were all very stressed. Most of the women come from small villages and are in hopeless situations…We spent the first week just lying around, crying. We couldn’t eat. This is a typical situation for surrogates.”
She also draws attention to how women’s lives are controlled and their voices silenced under threat of losing their much needed payment.
“If we weren’t home after 4pm, we could be fined 100 euros. We were also threatened with a fine if any of us openly criticised the company.”
Some women are coerced into surrogacy by male partners. Of course, it is impossible for “intended parents” to know that the woman they choose to exploit is not being forced into it by other parties.
While we can all understand how heartbreaking infertility can be, it never justifies exploiting other women and putting them through turmoil like this.
However, as the interview proceeded, it became clear that the woman’s ability for free choice and legitimate consent was not of much concern. The only concern was ensuring that any potential doubt or hesitation on the birth mother’s behalf would not interfere with the end goal.
Reproductive rights
When questioned as to why they chose to exploit a Ukrainian as opposed to a woman from anywhere else, Sinéad told Turbirdy that Ukranian surrogacy laws were “airtight” as “There’s no risk of the surrogate backing out”. It is glaringly obvious that this couple are not at all oblivious to the dehumanisation and lack of rights afforded to the so-called surrogate mother who is in actuality a birth mother. The appeal of choosing a Ukrainian woman to exploit was their comfort in the knowledge that these women are not even provided the most basic courtesy and right of genuine, freely given, continuous consent.
In surrogacy, a woman is required to relinquish her reproductive rights to the exploiting couple or individual . Many Ukranian women exploited through surrogacy are subjected to forced abortions.
In an investigation into Ukrainian surrogacy, ABC Australia interviewed a woman who had been subjected to this practice. The woman wished to stay anonymous for fear of recrimination from BioTexCom. She informed ABC that she was intrigued by an online ad calling for surrogate mothers after her husband had considered selling his kidney to escape poverty. Shortly thereafter, she was impregnated with 3 embryos for a Spanish couple, one of which she was forced to terminate in order to increase the chances of a successful birth. Unfortunately, the twins she was left with miscarried. As the birth was “unsuccessful” she was compensated for her trauma with a mere €125 payment. Still desperate to escape poverty, she applied for surrogacy again, this time being forced to terminate two of the embryos. When asked about her feelings towards the surrogacy agency she had this to say;
“Surrogate mothers…just a flow of incubators, as they say. They don’t treat you as a human being. They show no understanding”
Even Julia Osiyevska, director of New Hope Surrogacy Agency, has acknowledged this “ethical difficulty” stating,
“A surrogate has no say in an abortion. She has no rights”
This statement indicates that these women have no right to choose to terminate the pregnancy themselves if they so wish. This is unsurprising given reports that even women who miscarry or have stillborn births are denied payment.
This violation of women’s rights is not only confined to the Ukranian surrogacy industry. According to Concieveabilities, A surrogacy agency in the U.S.A which is another popular destination for Irish people seeking surrogates, “if termination breaches the contract she would not be entitled to compensation and may face other legal implications”
Signing away women’s reproductive rights with a commercial contract is something that we would expect self-professed progressives to vehemently oppose. However, this is not the case. Many Irish leftists have even gone so far as to herald surrogacy as an LGBT right.
So I must ask, how do “progressives” who promote surrogacy reconcile their “my body my choice” pro-abortion stance with their conflicting “her body, their choice” pro-surrogacy stance?
Risking lives
Later in the interview, Ryan Tubirdy had the gall to assert that Sinéad and Mark’s “lives are dominated by this person’s health”. I cannot fathom a more perverse obfuscation of reality. The only lives at risk in this affair are those of the birth mother and child.
All pregnancies through surrogacy are considered high-risk. This is because the likelihood of health complications for mother and baby is significantly increased. Some of these complications come with carrying multiple embryos, which is routinely done to surrogate mothers to increase the chances of success. Some of the health risks faced by these women include ovarian torsion, reproductive cancers, stroke, premature menopause, placental abruption and yes, even death. The need for a C-section is also more likely with multiple gestation pregnancies which comes with a variety of risks. Karen Rotabi and Nichole Brofield who carried out a study on surrogacy in developing countries found that women are often given C-sections purely to make the timing convenient for “commissioning parents”.
“Surrogacy babies” also face health risks such as low birth weight, prematurity and miscarriage.According to an article on the ethics of surrogacy for The Journal of Medical Ethics. “One-third or even one-half of infant mortality is due to complications of prematurity, and a large contributor to prematurity is infertility treatment,”
In surrogacy, it is not the lives of the exploiters that are at risk. It is the exploited women’s and baby’s lives that are at the mercy of delusional, privileged couples who somehow believe they have a right to use women as incubators.
Ryan Tubirdy’s brazen display of his consideration for this woman as little more than a contraption that might go on the blink as opposed to a human being who may suffer severe health complications is deeply offensive and callous.
Deprived babies
Going on to speak about baby Theo’s introduction into the world Mark tells us that “Theo was on Sinéad’s chest to get that connection”. Unfortunately Theo was not getting that connection. All babies born through surrogacy are deprived of the connection they so desperately crave. Mother and baby attachment begins in utero. The baby knows their mother’s voice and smell before being born into the world. For newborns, being separated from their mother causes intense stress. This is why the importance of skin-to-skin is so heavily emphasised. Even companies that profit from surrogacy advise the buyer’s to give the baby something with the mother’s scent as a “transitional item”.
Pro-surrogacy advocates can go on and on about “intended parents” all they want. There is one person in this who knows for certain who the mother is and that is the child. To intentionally deprive a baby of their mother’s arms is an act of profound child cruelty and inconceivable selfishness.
Erasure of birth mothers
Finally bringing the interview to an end, the couple spoke to Tubirdy about the totally crazy law that says women who give birth to babies are mothers. My patience was gone by this point in the interview. To have to watch two fully functioning adults engage in a back and forth with a man feigning disbelief at the fact that people who buy children are not considered mothers was quite frankly, insulting.
Mark: On the birth cert Sinéad is not recognised as the mother!
Ryan Tubirdy: Who is?!
Mark Hedderman: The surrogate!
‘Oh my god! How shocking! How insane! She’s not even a person!‘ was the general tone of the exchange.
In Irish law a person who gives birth to the baby is the mother. This isn’t just a law. It’s material reality. To attempt to make this simple fact of nature sound ludicrous requires serious mental gymnastics. What else would one refer to a woman who has given birth to a baby as? All around the world and throughout history we have always known that a woman who gives birth is a mother. This is the primary definition of ‘mother’. Only with the introduction of the surrogacy industry have countries like Ukraine pretended to not know this.
Legislation
Sinéad and Mark, who believe the recognition of mothers as mothers under law to be an archaic crime against humanity, make the point that should baby Theo need to medical treatment when Mark is not present, Sinéad cannot sign consent forms for any procedures or treatment he might need. Therefore, they conclude that the law should be changed to erase birth mothers and allow commissioners of wombs to be listed on the baby’s birth cert as mothers.
In actuality, the solution here is not to introduce laws that disenfranchise birth mothers, be they Irish or foreign, “altruistic” or commercial, further than they already have been. The solution for preventing situations like this is simply to ban the reproductive prostitution of women and subsequent trafficking of children.
These children are not in this position because of some imagined bigotry in Irish law. They are in this position because they are child trafficking victims. I don’t say that lightly. Commercial surrogacy fits the definition of child trafficking as it is laid out in article 35 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child:
“States Parties shall take all appropriate national, bilateral and multilateral measures to prevent the abduction of, the sale of or traffic in children for any purpose or in any form.”
The phrase “for any purpose or in any form” is significant, and surrogacy is no exception to the article’s prohibitions.
And it is the “intended parents” of Ireland who have chosen to put these children in this position. They decided that they were somehow entitled to a child, to the life of a human infant. They bought their way into the uterus of a woman who had little to no other option but to comply. They exchanged money for the child’s life. They tore the child straight from their mother’s womb, deprived them of her touch and they trafficked the child back to Ireland. They are responsible for any hardships these children may face as a result of their totally avoidable choice. To be born through commercial surrogacy is itself child abuse.
What Ireland actually needs are laws which would prevent Irish citizens from exploiting foreign women. Just as Norway has criminalised sex tourism in order to prevent their citizens from travelling to abuse foreign women and children, we must criminalise reproductive tourism which causes significant harm to women and children by dehumanising them to a most extreme degree.
Defying Ukrainian efforts to end reproductive tourism
Thailand, where the infamous Baby Gammy case took place, and India have already banned foreigners from availing of commercial surrogacy in their countries due to mass exploitation of women. This ban is largely credited for the booming surrogacy industry in Ukraine. Naturally, Ukrainian feminists and politicians are also advocating for banning foreigners from travelling to Ukraine for surrogacy.
The Commissioner for Children’s Right, Mykola Kuleba, who has compared pregnancy through surrogacy to slavery, called for a ban on surrogacy in Ukraine stating;
“The birth of a child far from the mother is unnatural. In this way, Ukraine simply becomes an international online store for babies…I am categorically against commercial surrogacy. It is the objectification of the child and its positioning as a commodity,”
Ukrainian deputy Iryna Sysoyenko agrees with Kuleba’s sentiment and in 2018 co-authored a bill to ban foreigners from seeking surrogacy in Ukraine. She says “We don’t want to be seen as a country where you can fly in, choose a woman and have a baby,”.
Despite the efforts of Ukrainians to abolish reproductive tourism, many Irish politicians, advocates and lobbying groups such as The National LGBT Federation, choose to continue to campaign for laws that will facilitate Irish couples in engaging in this human rights violation. There has even been a coalition formed called ‘Assisted Human Reproduction Coalition Group’. According to GCN “The primary objective of the Group is to inform the development of laws or policies pertaining to AHR from the perspective of the human rights and equality of children conceived using AHR, their intended parents and families.”
Of course, as usual, there is absolutely no mention of the human rights and equality of the birth mother. She is totally erased. The claim that they are concerned with the rights of children is also extremely dishonest. You cannot simultaneously advocate for the human rights of children and the commodification of children.
In conclusion
Ireland loves to believe itself to be a new progressive nation, unrecognisable to the country that allowed patriarchal institutions dominion over society. This clearly is not true. Surrogacy is but one manifestation of patriarchy. It is, on a fundamental level, misogynistic, misopedist and classist.
The fact that a broadcast in which women were so denigrated and spoken about in such a debasing manner was met with sympathies from the public instead of anger only goes to show that Ireland has never shaken its perception of women as reproductive resources. How can a nation claim to be horrified at the sale of children of “fallen women” and then spit on other more vulnerable foreign women by advocating for much the same to be done to them?
So long as we value patriarchy over women’s liberation and adult desires over child welfare, scandals like this will continue. As feminists, we cannot allow a woman-hating practice like reproductive prostitution to be granted any sort of legitimacy under Irish law. Feminists must do everything we can to fight against this gross exploitation of women, pillaging of the female body and abuse against infants. Stop Surrogacy Now.
Student, 25, Radical Feminist. If you enjoyed her work, donate to this writer.