Were Matt's remarks to Adam homophobic?

Now that, I understand! She would have felt excluded if it had been another woman’s egg but would have been fine for another woman to carry her egg fertilised by her husband.

I suppose harvesting an egg from her was not offered, too expensive and/or risky? Then there would have been another procedure to plant the egg in the surrogate mother. Yerse, Kate’s offer to ‘throw in an egg’ would have been much simpler than Helen’s more qualified (and quickly withdrawn) offer.

4 Likes

Too bloody right!

3 Likes

If this wasn’t a surrogate child but a theoretically ‘unwanted’ baby of the mother’s own, then it is something of a relief that not only the civilised world but America too allows her to change her mind. Utterly heartbreaking though it would have been for the expectant adoptive parents, I know.
Gxx

2 Likes

I’ll try it:








It works!

Thank you.

2 Likes

The first baby they adopted in 2007 was the 9th child of a woman who gave birth when in prison , & she too had the 48 hours to decide

The ‘one that got away’ was born to a 17 year old, whose family decided within the 48 hours, to rally round & help her

The second adoption came about because of the success of the first . There are ‘Lookbooks’ produced, & the birth mother thought that they had done really well with Joshua, -there were photographs & documents to prove it, & that she would like her 4th child to be placed in this happy family environment. They stayed for 3 weeks, & brought him home to Austria with them.

In 2007 they had to stay for 3 months, so some things have improved. Luckily, a friend in the village has an appartment in which they could reside until the last month which had to be in a designated Hotel

The costs were phenomenal

Carinthia.xx

2 Likes

I know a woman who, after several rounds of fruitless IVF, adopted an Ethiopian orphan: a very young baby who had been left in the street. As I understood it, the main difficulty was that in Ethiopia as here it is illegal to dump a baby, so the mother was unlikely to come forward, but on the other hand in Ethiopia as here the mother has to give her consent for her baby to be adopted, so being allowed to adopt him was difficult. In the end the mother was found, and signed the necessary papers, but I think didn’t have to come to the court hearings. It took several weeks to achieve.

He is roughly the colour of a formal opera hat and she is a Scandiwegian blonde by colouration and her husband a blondish brown in hair and pink-skinned, so nobody could possibly think that they were his birth-parents. He’s a terrific kid, but clearly not of Anglo-Saxon birth! So not Designed, as it were.

I am not sure designer baby is the right term for a surrogate child, though: do they modify the the ovum or sperm before insertion? If not, it hasn’t exactly been designed. I don’t know what the term ought to be, though.

4 Likes

I would say: yes, in the sense that your thoughts are; but your thoughts are your own and (except in certain fairly extreme forms of religion) not to be punished, and your actions are what count. Do you think “oh, I don’t really like that” and then get on with your life, or do you wallow in what Those Nasty Gays are up to until you find yourself buying a flamethrower to take along to Pride?

I’m with that bitey fish on the matter of fertility treatment in general.

Jack Cohen used to claim 10%.

3 Likes

He always knew everything, but what was his source for that, d’you suppose?

2 Likes

ooof. OK, am going to have a ponder on that.

4 Likes

[quote=“Gus, post:7, topic:720”]

However, and this is a genuine question: does this make me homophobic?

I very much dislike the notion of gay couples creating families via surrogacy. Now sexuality isn’t entirely a matter of choice - although in many cases there is an element of choice - but if one’s identity is gay, then not being in a position to create children with one’s chosen partner is an intrinsic part of that deal.[/quote]

You aren’t alone in this. I’m the same.

It just sits badly in my mind.

Regrettably these days you can only voice this in an environment of people who are tolerant and willing to distinguish this from any action you might take to impress this view (in most/my cases … none whatsoever).

This being because some of the least liberal people in the World appear to be the loudly liberal.

4 Likes

On balance, I think taking a flamethrower along to Pride would be a very bad idea, but so is taking one pretty much anywhere and on reflection, all the times I have wanted a flamethrower to hand have been nothing to do with sexual politics at all.
Not being gay myself, what gives me the right to think that those who are and who want their own biological child are somehow cheating? I wouldn’t dream of lecturing, say, a Jew on how to be Jewish (wasn’t that a book or something, way back when the world was still several billion years old?)

I am deeply uncomfortable with a lot of assisted reproduction; at the risk of being clicheed (you mean you just noticed, dahlink?) just because we can doesn’t mean we should. Massive amounts of heartache and expense and horribleness and focusing on one goal at the expense of everything else in a relationship and a life… but then I am also not infertile (well I am now, so I bloody well hope, not that it’s an issue) so again, perhaps I should keep those opinions to myself.

Adoption, you know, I quite like. It adds to the sum of human happiness - it all going well, of course, and I know it doesn’t always.

I don’t want to identify as a homophobe, still less to be perceived as one, or least of all be one. I am still pondering, so thank you Hedgers.
G xx

4 Likes

Signing in to say that if hating Adam and Ian and hoping their bits drop off, their sperm is stewed and addled and one of them runs off with a barmaid with gleeful cries of ‘I was only joking all along’ makes me a homophobe, then that is a badge I will wear with - and even at - Pride.
Begorrah needs a good hearty smack in the gub. I’m thinking of something lingering involving barbed wirh and a couple of buckets of left-over OPs for Modom.

4 Likes

Nowt homophobic about that - they’re equal opportunities shites.

4 Likes

I thought I couldn’t loath them more. But now I do.

4 Likes

Yes. What the hell right does Ian have to mess with Lilian’s life like that? Even if all he had done was ruin the party for her it’s the act of a thoroughly nasty little man; he may well have been responsible for much, much worse.

he would be a nasty little man no matter what his sexuality.

4 Likes

And what a bizarre thing that ‘defending honour’ remark was. Sounded a bit creepy to me, as if Lilian had no mind of her own and needed a big stwong man like Adam to keep Matt from abducting her and having his wicked way with her. I realise she is having a little problemette making up her mind about the two chaps, but still … if only she had said,
‘Who bloody asked him to defend my honour, you interfering creep! And I mean both of you!’

She hasn’t found out yet what Ian said to Justin. To do Justin credit, he was not amused and Ian had to slink away feeling pretty small. At least I hope he did.

3 Likes

Just transfer the broad shape of things to a different culture and hear the wails of anguish that male relatives (I suppose Chef Broody counts as a ‘relative’; Adam certainly does, anyway) supervising a female relative’s doings and getting terribly het up about her ‘honour’ would provoke… can you imagine the clucking and squawking. Is there a w in ‘squawking’? Yes, on reflection there must be. ‘Squaking’ isn’t a thing (unless it’s something really awful that every one else knows about, in which case I have just embarrassed myself, not for the first time).

4 Likes

Speaking of squawking, I suppose it would be terribly wrong to hope for an honour killing by Justin of Lilian. It would put paid to that cackle at least.

2 Likes

It’s what mice do in Ian’s neck of the woods.

3 Likes
      • This keyboard is now under the control of the TMVF + + +

We never squake.

3 Likes