I don't know what you expect to achieve by calling those selfless women who choose to do surrogacy prostitutes. The surrogacy sector in the United States is highly regulated, and surrogates are highly protected (https://health.ny.gov/community/pregnancy/surrogacy/surrogat...). Yours is an ignorant, misogynistic stance.
Most surrogates are not selfless--- they get paid for what they do...in the US often $60,000. Some jurisdictions do require that women choosing surrogacy have to do it altruistically, receiving only reimbursement for medical expenses. This causes a shortage of surrogates compared to market demand. People looking for surrogates often then travel to jurisdictions where the laws are different to obtain them (I know people personally who have done this). The US is not the only destination, and there are less protections in other markets than in the US. Surrogacy is certainly not prostitution, but poorly regulated markets exist and pose similar issues.
> Poorly regulated markets exist and pose similar issues.
Right, but this sort of applies to anything though. Labour markets, for example. Does the fact that Bangladeshi clothes factories are exploitative of their staff make hiring staff intrinsically immoral in the United States?
> Most surrogates are not selfless--- they get paid for what they do...in the US often $60,000.
Including the lead-up and recovery period to take the whole process to a year or so, and accepting your very high estimate of $60k in surrogate compensation, that's hardly a windfall for the average American woman. There's far easier ways to earn $60k in an entire year in the US than carrying someone's baby. For American surrogates, there's usually an element of selflessness involved.
"The last several years have seen significant progress toward the development of an artificial womb which would facilitate the survival and growth of prematurely born fetuses from approximately 23-24 weeks gestation onward."
Seems a long way from eliminating the need for surrogacy.
Being critical of the surrogacy industry treating women like cattle means that I'm misogynistic? What sort of logic led you to that conclusion?
As for the harms of surrogacy, here's a good article that explains what's really happening, it's not the rosy picture you're painting: https://thecritic.co.uk/end-womb-trafficking
A) Denying the agency of women to make their own choices is by definition misogynistic. Asserting that when women make choices you don't agree with, it must be due to exploitation, is likewise misogynistic. Paternalistic too. Hardly the vocab of women's lib.
B) Somehow I doubt I'll be getting a particularly balanced take from a website called 'the critic slash end womb trafficking'. Julie Bindel is a fiery political opinion columnist - the Ann Coulter of radical feminism - and the article you link is brazenly polemical. I could respond with my own polemical links which counter yours, but I honestly don't see what the point of that exchange would be. It sounds like surrogacy is a culture war issue for you, which is sad, because the culture war is a parasite on good intentions.
Your definition of misogyny is far too narrow then, if you're focusing entirely on the concept of individual agency, yet ignoring the larger structural inequalities and power dynamics that constrain women's choices and perpetuate exploitation.
Did you actually read the article I linked, or are you just complaining about the URL? If you did read it, do you dispute the factual content that describes several examples of exploitation of women in the surrogacy industry?
Complaining that a woman has a strong opinion is a rather odd criticism, Julie Bindel has been actively researching surrogacy and its harms for many, many years now and it would be very surprising if she wasn't opinionated on this topic.
Just because there are some regulations in place doesn't mean that exploitation doesn't occur. The fact remains that surrogacy often involves financial transactions where women's bodies are being used as a means to an end. It is not at all misogynistic to critically examine this.
> Your definition of misogyny is far too narrow then, if you're focusing entirely on the concept of individual agency, yet ignoring the larger structural inequalities and power dynamics that constrain women's choices and perpetuate exploitation.
There's a long history of imagined threats being used to take away people's rights. At the end of the day, you're saying that you know better than individual women what is best for them, and implying that you wish to take away their right to choose in ways that are inconsistent with your views. It's the pro-life argument, just in a different context.
> Just because there are some regulations in place doesn't mean that exploitation doesn't occur. The fact remains that surrogacy often involves financial transactions where women's bodies are being used as a means to an end. It is not at all misogynistic to critically examine this.
The problem with your argument is that there's ample evidence of successful surrogacies, with all sides walking away very happy. Your argument rests on some tortured process of explaining to people that no, they're actually super unhappy, they just don't know it. Which is nuts. Anecdotes from third world countries without adequate legal protections for surrogates are only useful for making the point that we need strong legal protections for surrogates, which I totally agree with.
Ultimately, I do believe you're coming from a good place. I disagree though, profoundly, that banning surrogacy will in any way elevate or protect women. It will not. It will mostly harm same-sex and infertile couples. Many of which contain women. (It will also lead to many, many instances of people choosing to be surrogates anyway, except with no legal protection or framework.)
Using more words does not make you not misogynistic. ChatGPT can also spew endless pages of superficially coherent but intellectually devoid text, and is also entitled to the same amount of entertained debate.
