Has The Business Of Making Babies Gone Too Far?
Posted by: Susannah Breslin
Filed in:
news, sex
8:00AM, Monday December 1st 2008
In last weekend’s edition of the New York Times Magazine, Alex Kuczynski, the author of Beauty Junkies, writes about having a baby by surrogate in “Her Body, My Baby.” In her late 30s, Kuczynski couldn’t get pregnant. Over the course of several years, she tried in vitro fertilization and miscarried multiple times. Finally, she found a surrogate mother who would carry, as she puts it, “the product of my egg and my husband’s sperm.” It’s a story about the lengths a woman will go to have a baby—but it’s also a story only a wealthy woman could tell, as Kuczynksi and her financier husband spent over $100,000 to make her baby dreams come true. (The surrogate was paid $25,000 for the use of her womb.) In the article’s comments, readers are tearing Kuczynski apart, deeming her a “disgusting… spoiled brat” and a “rich, self-obsessed snob,” while far fewer others are commending her for telling her story at all. So, what do you think? Has the high-tech business of baby-making gone too far? Or is having a baby by any means necessary a 21st century fertility reality?
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Amelia
wrote on December 1 2008 @ 08:34 am: [report]
I hate to get all judgey wudgey about stories like this that I have no personal experience with, but why in the hell did she not adopt. I can’t help but feel like the reason has to do with vanity—wanting a baby to look just like her and her husband—give her track record.
wendykay
wrote on December 1 2008 @ 08:45 am: [report]
I don’t think wanting a biological baby is necessarily a vanity thing at all. It could be a comfort thing in knowing the medical history in your baby’s genes, and having control in the gestation period (i.e. no drugs and alcohol, a healthy diet, etc.).
Amelia
wrote on December 1 2008 @ 08:46 am: [report]
@wendykay Oh I totally agree—except given Alex’s track record, she seems to make A LOT of her decisions based on vanity.
Rose
wrote on December 1 2008 @ 09:25 am: [report]
I’ve had fertility problems. I declined invasive, potentially dangerous interventions, but that was my decision, not anyone else’s. I’ve tried to adopt and found it expensive, harrowing and without guarantees - much like fertility treatment. There is no “quick fix” for infertility. You can’t make your body produce a baby, and you can’t just buy one at Wall Mart. The intensity of some women’s desire to have a baby, at all costs physical, emotional and financial, is what I think deserves more open discussion, without judgement.
Arty
wrote on December 1 2008 @ 09:29 am: [report]
Adoption is a much more difficult process than people seem to think. It’s not like you go to an adoption center fill out some paperwork and bring home a baby. A lot of people are denied for whatever reason. It’s possible she wanted her child to be a product of her own DNA, and but it’s also possible that she did not adopt for other reasons.
rowdygirl
wrote on December 1 2008 @ 10:00 am: [report]
My only question would be this: Is she actually raising and caring for this child herself after going through so much to have it? Usually someone like this uses nannies, caregivers, etc…. If she has turned over the daily child care activities to someone else, I would say it was just a “want”, not a real desire.
ShortyDooWop
wrote on December 1 2008 @ 10:44 am: [report]
I’m sorry but I know that if I were to find out that I couldn’t have children, I would never adopt! Ever! I just don’t like the idea of having a child that is not from my body. Surrogacy wouldn’t happen either. However, I’m totally for people adopting and extremely for the rights of gay people to be able to adopt!!! Adoption is just not for me!
vanya
wrote on December 1 2008 @ 01:15 pm: [report]
Adoption isn’t necessarily cheap, and doesn’t always guarantee a baby/child, either. International adoptions (which many couples prefer b/c birthmothers don’t change their minds as frequently) can easily run over $50,000 each. A round of plain IVF at $30,000 seems a bargain.
Honestly, it’s their money, to do with as they wish. Funny how people aren’t as critical about money when it’s some celebrity’s diamond ring - some of which cost millions - but hey, a couple spending their own $100,000 on IVF and suddenly everyone weighs in on how spoiled & rich & self-obsessed they are. Let’s see where these same folks are the next time a movie star gets his girlfriend a 10-carat diamond engagement ring, eh?
Perceptible
wrote on December 1 2008 @ 02:38 pm: [report]
I adopted a baby girl from Guatemala just this year and my experience was absolutely wonderful. The paperwork was intense, but worth the effort. The total cost — $38,000 including airfare and hotel and all fees — was not beyond the cost of some IVF treatments. I know other families who adopted internationally, and met many who were back for their second and third children while I was in Guatemala. With so many children who need families, how can anyone not consider this option? My daughter is healthy, happy, and is incredibly bright and engaged.
BTW, I have one biological child, and now one adopted child. I love them equally. It makes absolutely no difference that my daughter did not come “from my body”. She is as much my child as my son is. Adoption is a wonderful option and a win-win situation.
vanya
wrote on December 1 2008 @ 03:10 pm: [report]
In all fairness, we don’t actually know that Alex and her husband did not consider adoption. It’s an article on surrogacy, not an article on considering one’s options when struggling with infertility.
aislynn88
wrote on December 2 2008 @ 01:08 am: [report]
I think allowing another woman to carry you baby is about the LEAST vain thing you could do. I applaud the whole ordeal.
writergirl
wrote on December 10 2008 @ 07:29 pm: [report]
I read the article. And while I do suffer infertility, I don’t agree with surrogacy for several reasons. The main one being that surrogacy is not—as the author stated in the article—regulated. Long-term, I think this can lead to problems.
What I *did* take exception to were the photos that accompanied the article and those photos were what turned me off to the author. The first of the author herself with her son—with the uniformed, black nanny literally standing at attention to the side of them at their house in the Hamptons.
The second picture was of the surrogate herself seated on what was, presumably her front porch of a house seventy years or older and in need of some repair. I live in the same area as the surrogate. I don’t know her, but I do know the area. She is not poor, or even considerably close to poor, but I would guess solidly middle class. The house she lives in isn’t unusual for the area and there are a few of these old, farm-type houses remaining. They look worse for wear because they are just that much older.
The opposing visual images couldn’t be more distateful. Never in my life had I felt that this was a case of “the rich” hiring “the poor” to bear their children. While the article hinted at it; the pictures confirmed it.
I would say even the editor at whatever magazine published the article even thought the same thing. I didn’t like the article, didn’t like the author and the pictures just completely turned my stomach and reaffirmed, for me at least, why I don’t agree with surrogacy.
motoko
wrote on January 22 2009 @ 12:48 am: [report]
It was not fun to be told at the age of 23 that I have a condition which gives me only a 5-10% chance of being able to have my own children (which basically means not at all since it’s such a crapshoot anyway). It was even less fun to have my OB/Gyn continue “oh but don’t worry, when you decide you want to have babies we can just pump you full of Clomid.” Humans are not breeding sows people, we need to stop obsessing about the sanctity of our own genes and tend to the kids who are already here or on their way and will need good, attentive parenting, as well as ask questions about why so many of us are infertile to begin with. The industry that has grown up around fertility is obscene - to spend a college-education’s worth of cash pursuing your own genetic child because anything else is faulty merchandise? To allow people to profit so hugely on the damage the environment is doing to our bodies? Vanity, selfishness and greed. This is a choice that I could make, and could likely afford, and I’ve already decided that I never will.