If You’re A Woman Who Can Afford ‘Social Surrogacy,’ Go Right Ahead

shutterstock_94548661__1397760344_142.196.156.251The phrase “too posh to push” is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard. Having gone through two c-sections I can tell you there is nothing “posh” about having a child sliced from your womb. It seems there’s a new “posh” birthing trend in town – social surrogacy; using a surrogate without any medical indication. Basically, women who don’t want to disrupt their lives for nine months or experience childbirth. Good for them.

If you have the money and have no interest in carrying a child – why not? I think this is very liberating for women who can afford it. Men have always been able to enjoy parenthood without any of the trials of pregnancy – if their financial state allows it, why shouldn’t women?

Vicken Sahakian, a doctor at Pacific Fertility Center in Los Angeles, says he’s overseen about 20 ‘social’ cases.

‘They’re for reasons most people would find offensive,’ he explained, adding: ‘I don’t ask these patients too many questions because I don’t want them to feel judged.’

The article cites cases like a marathon runner who didn’t want to interrupt her training, a businesswoman who could not take the time away from work and a woman who was just plain scared to be pregnant.  We always assume people resort to surrogacy because of fertility or health issues but who really knows? Women are constantly judged for the choices they make so I can understand keeping hush-hush about their motivations.

I always wanted to be pregnant – I romanticized it really. When all was said and done, the pregnancy was really no big deal for me. I wasn’t one of those women who talked to their fetus everyday and really bonded with my children before they were in my arms. Having been through it twice, I understand women who don’t feel the need to experience it.

I think you can have a strong desire to want to have your own biological offspring without necessarily wanting to carry them. Obviously, adoption is a great alternative for those who have the money and don’t have the desire to grow a child in their wombs – but who am I to tell someone they are not entitled to reproduce biologically? When it boils down to it, I just think this is one of those issues that will be judged harsher because it’s a woman’s issue. If men gave birth no one would give outsourcing the trials of labor a second thought.

(photo: altafulla/ shutterstock)

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