As an adoptive parent, I find this entire scenario to be deeply upsetting. They’re infertile, and yet cannot move past the commodity aspect of the attempts to create a life and raise it.
They are a grotesquery of adulthood. Both of them. Whether or not I was able to get my body to reproduce ( I was not ), I at least had thought through the ramifications of raising a child ! A human !
:mad: Heartless bastards.
Cartooniverse
You know, after 12 months, I’d think there was more of a risk to her if she left the kid inside… ;D
Oops, I meant weeks, but you knew that aleady didn’t you:D
Umm, I think I need something explained to me.
Cartooniverse, as an adoptive parent, maybe you can help?
Okay, you and your spouse cannot have a child on your own. You want a child badly enough to go to the time and expense of hiring a surrogate. She becomes pregnant. You’re thrilled, right?
Then you find out that you’re going to get not just one, but two babies. Wouldn’t you be twice as thrilled? I sure as hell would be. I would be ecstatic.
You start out thinking you may never have kids, and you end up with two at once. Isn’t that a good thing?!?
I’ve got to side with the prospective parents here. They contracted for one child, not two, and there was a clause to abort in the case of multiples. Whither there was a 12 weeks exemption, verbal or otherwise, is moot: the surrogate mother knew at 8 weeks and should have scheduled an abortion immediately.
What I find distasteful is the sheer contempt many people have expressed towards the prospective parents because they didn’t want two kids. Just because someone else might be twice as thrilled with twins does not make it so for everyone else. So they only want only one kid. BFD. That is their choice. Why should they be forced to accept a morality other than their own. Keep your preferences, morality, and sentimentally about kids to yourselves.
As for the legal complications involved in this case, where the surrogate mother dallied to long, I’m not so sure there is an easy answer. If I were on a judge and if abortion is still a medically viable option, I’d say the surrogate mother must comply or take charge of the extra child herself or plan to have it adopted. Otherwise, the prospective parents should take the first born and fulfill the contract.
Are you seriously suggesting spliting up a set of twins?
It seems as if there is a couple ready to sdopt the twins.
I think the couple who wanted a baby in the first place would of been happy to have twins, I know it can be at least twice as hard to raise two at a time, but how bad can it be fincially for them? They had enough money to go the route they did in first place. Speaking of money, I think they should pay the woman they hired to carry their child for them, even though they don’t want the childern now.
So? It takes more than just money to raise children, Pepper Mill. Perhaps they thought that twins would be too stressful.
First and foremost, I’m suggesting abortion if medically viable; otherwise, yes, I’m seriously suggesting splitting up a set of twins.
Kinsey
I was thinking the same thing the whole way through!According to the Ananova article linked above, the couple were prepared to pay 14,000 pounds to the surrogate mother to produce them one child. Surely getting two for the price of one is a good thing? And even if it means paying extra, doesn’t it mean they don’t have to go through the process of finding a surrogate and fertilising her for a second child in a couple of years? Any family that can afford to pay 14,000 pounds for a baby can afford a nanny to help out, I would assume.
I don’t think any parents are ever ready for the arrival of twins, yet most don’t abort one of the babies because it’s inconvenient - if that were the case, there would be very few multiple births in the world.
Geez, these people suck. They would be the kind to turn around and say “A GIRL? But I wanted a boy! This isn’t what I ordered!! Take it back, and bring me what I wanted in the first place, or the deal is off!”. They are the kind of people who would have their dog destroyed for peeing on the rug.
It’s sad that nature was smart enough to stop these two reproducing, but science paved the way for their moronic genes to go on.
Pyrrhonist, just idle curiosity…do you have kids of your own?
None. And I’ve had a vasectomy so it will always be that way.
Assume nothing. They could have been saving their pennies for a few years to pay the surrogate. So unless you know what the preoperative parents earn, what their financial obligations are, kindly refrain from assuming they can afford a nanny. How do you know they are going to want an a second child? How do you know, if they did want a second child, they’d want to have it through a surrogate? Maybe they’d want to adopt next time around.
Boy, aren’t you’re the Grand Pooh Bah of assumptions, cazzle. Where did you read that they’d turn away a child based on the gender? Where did you read that they’d destroy a dog for peeing on a rug? Are any of your accusations based on fact?
Do you often say and think nasty things about people who have a different set of ethics and morality than you? Or do you just think they’re scum because they’re lawyers?
So this couple only wants one child. It is a free country. It is their choice. GET OVER IT! Can you possible penetrate your Neanderthalian thick skull that a difference of opinion, a contrary idea of how many children is good and right, is not fixed by your standards. If you want people to think and act like you, maybe you should consider moving to Iraq and schmoozing with Saddam. Perhaps you can get a job as Dictator of Good Parenting.
Personally, I think the prospective parents have dinglebarries for brains for spending 20K to have a kid. If they’d only invest that money for eighteen years… I get giddy with the delight of signs. But, you know, that is just my opinion, that’s what I’d do, but I can’t condemn them for not doing what I’d do.
Oh yeah, before someone chews my butt, its was just an assumption that you have a thick skull or that you’d want to be a Dictator of Good Parenting.
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I was going to assume that this statement was made facetiously, but….
This statement show a basic ignorance of basic biology and basic bigotry. Nature is not “smart” and can’t stop people from reproducing based on their system of beliefs. What you call “moronic” in these people is not a hereditary trait. You may believe in XYZ, but this belief is not in your genes. There is no genetic code for believing in XYZ. The fact that you believe it means that you’ll teach it to your offspring, thereby increasing the likelihood of the kids believing it too, but there is no hereditary correlation.
Calling what they believe “moronic” is out and out bigotry. It displays a willful intolerance to what other people believe by assuming that it is wrong and you’re right. Would you call a Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, or Atheist “moronic” because they’d believe in your flavor of religion? Would you call a gay or lesbian “moronic” because they were not heterosexual like you? Would you call a member’s of the opposing political party “moronic” because they don’t vote like you? Maybe you would.
I wonder if the woman (the one who would keep the kid, not the surrogate) would feel if she was fertile and had gotten pregnant with twins herself. I’ve heard stories of other multiple pregnancies (triplets and up) undergoing selective reuction, but never twins. Would she have chosen this option if she were giving birth to them herself?
There seems to be more going on in the mind of the biological parents than meets the eye here. I wonder, as well, if there isn’t a lot of deep-down hostility on the part of the mother because a donor egg was used. She may have just gone through the procedure to please her husband, who has able to conceive the children using his own sperm, and now that she’s got more than she bargained for… well, I can’t condone what she’s doing, but if this is the case, I can certainly understand where her anger and frustration are coming from.
Pyrrhonist, you don’t want to have kids, fine. Those of us who do have kids know that you sacrifice for your children. The fact that these people are sacrificing one of the fetuses to meet their ideal family tells us they aren’t ready to be parents. It’s just, cold-hearted, and nothing a true parent would do. Seriously, I can’t imagine wanting to have a child, then finding out it’s going to be twins, and aborting one of them. You’re in a different mind frame, because you don’t ever want kids.
I think this statement …
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… pretty much affirms that you don’t understand the blessings a child provides you. They give much more than a comfortable bank acount ever could.
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I don’t know if moronic is the right word. But, these people are very selfish, no matter what religion, race, creed or species they are. They are selfish, because they never thought of how the surviving child might feel if they found out their twin was taken from them on purpose because “two” wasn’t acceptable. I’m pro-choice, but I agree with the feeling there’s something awfully damn cold about all this.
I can’t understand when a couple goes through surrogacy because they want a child SOOO bad, but decides that more than one child is, well, inconvenient, so abortion is the best option.
You’d think, wouldn’t you, that they’d want to be at least in the same time zone and no more than a half-day’s drive, if that much, from their surrogate. This issue probably could have been hashed out long before the 12th week if they’d been able to communicate in person.
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*Originally posted by Pyrrhonist *
Did you miss the words “they would be the kind”? I didn’t say they killed their poor old dog for incontinence, or that they demanded a child of a specific gender. I lumped them into the same catagory as people who do those things. Talk about Grand Pooh Bah of Assumptions.
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Frequently, one of the reasons given for aborting a child instead of carrying it to term and then giving it up for adoption are that the mother has to endure the pregnancy, and then give birth to the child, and then give the child up, which would be a heart wrenching experience - more than even giving up the child to abortion in the early weeks of pregnancy.
In this case, the parents don’t have these reason for not bringing both babies to term. There is no physical strain on the “mother”, and the surrogate would prefer to carry both than abort one at this stage. The couple have shown they are prepared to give up both babies because the surrogate wouldn’t fall into line with their requests, and they obviously have no worries about splitting up a pair of twins. So why not let the surrogate carry them to term, and then put one baby up for adoption? Why is this such a problem? They have experienced childlessness, and they have the chance to help out another childless couple, yet they would rather see the baby dead that in the hands of anyone else. On the flip side, they’d rather see both babies in the hands of someone else than in their own home. Why?
There were so many options open to these people. They did not need to demand the death of one baby, and they did not need to give up both babies.
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Yes, I think and say nasty things about some of the people who have a different set of ethics and morality than me. If you can’t judge a person by those things, what can you judge them by? I hate people who steal, murder, rape, attack and cause misery to those around them. I would not do these things, because it would violate my sense of morality. There are people who do this kind of thing, and are able to justify it because they have different ethics.
I consider people who would abort one half of a set of twins - because they doesn’t fit in with their lifestyle - selfish and cold hearted. I may not be right, but these are my morals and my ethics, and I will stand by them.
What do lawyers have to do with this?
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Can I quote you on my resume when I apply for the job? With such a ringing endorsement, the job is mine.
Now, I don’t know if you’ve quite grasped this, but I am not telling that couple what to do. I may be sitting in judgement on them, but I am not in their faces demanding they do what is right or wrong by my standards. I am sitting here disapproving of them for being so cold-blooded. To me, it looks as though they have no parental attachment to these children. I worry about how they will deal with a baby that is given to them - will they treat it as their own, or will they treat it as 1/2 their own and 1/2 an unknown egg donor?
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Tell me, why did you even enter this thread? With gold dust flowing in your veins instead of blood, you would only see children in terms of the cost, rather than the intangible returns.
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It was. And no, I wouldn’t call someone of a different race, religion, sexual orientation, etc moronic. Perhaps I should withdraw the word “moronic” and replace it with “selfish”.
Don’t get all high and mighty with me. They are not doing this out of religious beliefs and they have no moral high ground. I would be interested in seeing how they justify it. Especially as they seem to have realised that they are coming across as cold blooded and selfish - their spokesperson apparently says they didn’t DEMAND and abortion, rather they REQUESTED one.
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Without trying to sound like a total bitch, can I just take a moment and say…good.
I think cazzle and I would probably get along very well IRL. 
You said exactly what I was thinking.
I don’t think these people (in the OP) deserve to have any kids at all.