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I don't find it unpalatable in the least, and it would be a stretch to call me wealthy or influential. I'm not even a likely customer.
I find the instinctive flinch away from it as sheer stupidity, especially when countries like India now ban surrogacy for pay.
I look to such people, and think: You're telling me that it's legal and widely accepted for someone to work in a sweatshop making textiles for a year and only maybe make a few thousand dollars at best, and them having to undergo pregnancy for 9 months for potentially several dozen times the sum is somehow worse!
We all sell our bodies and limited time under the sun to make ends meet. And we all pay an emotional toll for it, unless you're lucky enough to have a job that you'd do for free. The only question is if you're being paid enough to make that worth your while, and a childless couple offering ~$50k to poor woman in the Third World represents a sum that will set up both her and her future children for life.
I contend that it is neither unethical nor illegal in the least, and that the world would be a much better place if people didn't let their innate disgust reactions or severely miscalibrated notions of fairness lead them around by the nose.
Well I feel you're being consistent here with your belief system based on what I understand of it, so I won't necessarily argue with you, and I certainly won't say your view is "sheer stupidity," but from my point of view there are many points besides the purely materialist view of conception and birth as simple physical acts.
If one subscribes to a purely materialist view (as possibly you do), your argument makes a certain sense--though your analogy of surrogacy as just another job collecting a big paycheck for work done seems pretty thin to me. There is no equivalent to motherhood for a man that comes to my mind, and you and I as men are therefore just in our heads here. Going out on a hypothetical limb, what if you could saw off your own leg and donate that to another person, who was for some reason one-legged? Would you make the argument that the mendicant who did so would be in no way being exploited, that hey we all work for the man one way or another, this is just a logical and acceptable extension of that? It's a weak analogy and to my knowledge this isn't quite possible, but a similar (again, not exact) principle applies.
You write:
Do you think this law is equally stupid? If so, why?
There's something metaphysical (in the most literal sense of that word) about motherhood, much that we do not understand about maternal bonding to children (or paternal bonding, for that matter). I am not sure that we are yet at the point where we are as a species ready for gestational surrogacy, or if that point will ever come.
I appreciate you extending charity and noticing that my worldview is, to the best of my understanding, consistent, even if it's unusual.
I think paid organ donations should be legal, though a leg would be a difficult one to pull off.
So yes, I think it should be legal, and if the donor had capacity to make decisions, and was being compensated at a rate he was happy with, I see no other reason to disagree.
If they wanted my leg, I wouldn't say there isn't a sum that wouldn't buy it, but it has a lot of zeroes in it. Someone elsewhere would probably do it for much cheaper. And there are people who'd pay for the privilege, either as a fetish or because of a weird disease that convinces them that their legs shouldn't be attached to them.
I've elaborated elsewhere in the comment chain, but the gist of it is that I consider it a transaction at the end of the day, it might be an expensive one, but I consider most things fungible, and I think there are easily sums of money that leave the adoptive parents and the surrogates happy about the arrangement.
I mean, you do see that I disagree on the metaphysics here, and I haven't heard of most surrogacy arrangements ending badly, not that I know any personally. Definitionally, the ones in the news are either because they're celebs, or because something went wrong. I think that's not true for the majority.
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I've never had an employer or customer put something inside me for even a moment, let alone nine months.
I wouldn't do my current job for free. But I also enjoy talking about it - and find no shame it doing so - with my friends, family, and other acquaintances. Sometimes I have stressful days, but I don't end every day or week thinking, "A what a fucking emotional toll I had to pay!" In fact, I'm quite excited about my job because it lets me do all these other cool things with friends and families - and I feel like I really am creating some tangible value on a day to day basis.
And this matters why? What qualitative difference does it make? Has your employer ever needed you to put in earphones? Or go through a health checkup?
If you don't like the terms and conditions, don't sign the contract.
Jobs vary, from the fulfilling to drudgery, from the stressful, to the relaxed. Mine certainly has its ups and downs, and it isn't all things I currently do for free online if someone were to politely ask. Getting pregnant and making $50k in 9 months strikes me as a much better deal than having to break your back laboring for the same sum, or have it represent life-time earnings, as would be the case in the Third World for many surrogates.
Someone having to work at McDonald's after their PhD in Underwater Basket Weaving failed to net them the jobs they dreamed of is obviously unhappy about it, and probably embarrassed to disclose it to friends and family. There are many low prestige jobs out there. Some of them even pay a premium to account for the fact it's not most people's first choice.
There is a categorical difference between an employer requesting you put in ear phones or get a health check up (both of which you can refuse) and agreeing upon incubating a human inside of you for nine months in order to receive payment. If you're saying "No, it's just a difference in degree" then we have an intractable disagreement.
Regarding job quality and relative value, my response was when you asserted "we all pay an emotional toll" - which I think is incorrect. Some people do, absolutely. All of us do not.
I can't quite follow your thread on McDonalds PhDs etc. It seems to me your argument is roughly "find the best mix of compensation / perceived labor / emotional stress" and go from there. Valid enough, but I'd argue there are jobs that may in fact be pay well, be low in labor requirements, and have limited emotional stress that you shouldn't take - drug dealer, pornstar etc. (although, I'd also argue that those "jobs" specifically have high emotional stress - those that do not feel emotional stress in those "jobs" are perhaps demonstrating dissociative or anti-social mental states)
I mean, outside of obvious coercion and indentured servitude, the surrogates can say no. I'm perfectly fine with coercion being illegal, I just don't think the usual argument that the difference in wealthy is necessarily coercive is worth a damn. I don't have a womb, but for the typical sum quoted, I would say I'd at least be interested.
Let's say you have a physically active job, and you've got clapped out knees. When you protest at being assigned field work, I see no reason why the employer can't ask you to get surgery to fix your knees, if a desk job is not a mutually acceptable option. You have the right to refuse, and find another job. That is, technically, something being put inside you for the purposes of work. At any rate, I don't see the qualitative difference between something in or outside you, as long as you agree to it.
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