Speaker 0
Welcome to the Free Birth Podcast, a supportive space for people who are learning, exploring, and celebrating their autonomous choices in childbirth. Together, we'll unpack truths, share personal stories, and claim our ability to birth freely and intuitively. Here's your host, Emilee Saldaya.
Speaker 1
There are many ways to interact with Free Birth Society. These include our incredible offering, the complete guide to free birth, which is the most comprehensive online course available on how to give birth in your power. We also have a beautiful free birth meditation program called the sovereign birth meditation series, designed to help you release your fears and actualize your dream birth. Our latest course is called Through the Veil, a profoundly personal, radical pregnancy companion program by Yolande Norris Clark that offers the opportunity to travel with Yolande as she moves through the last trimester of her most recent pregnancy and invites you into her birth room to witness the birth of her eighth child. And if you're looking for a deeper connection and the opportunity for sisterhood in community with radical like minded women, the free Birth Society private membership is for you, and you can apply on our website to become a member. We also offer personalized one on one transformational coaching with a focus on learning the tools to move out of victim consciousness and towards self responsibility, skills that translate to freedom, not only in the context of birth and mothering, but in every area of life. And finally, we are offering all of you, our amazing listeners, the free gift of Yolande's twenty minute birth affirmations audio recording, a gorgeous, soothing meditation that every pregnant mother should have. So just head on over to our website at free birth society dot com, sign up, and Yolande's affirmations will be sent directly to your inbox.
Speaker 2
Hello. It's Yolande here, and I'm so excited to tell you about my latest endeavor with Free Birth Society. It's called through the veil and it's an invitation for you to join me on the most profoundly intimate experience of my life and yours. The journey of moving through the birth process into the underworld of birth to be reborn as a new mother into a new family once again. Through the veil is a very raw, very real third trimester, birth, and postpartum week by week program that includes seventeen videos in which I discuss exactly how I prepare for my free birth, including so many of the messy, emotional, logistical, and relational issues that aren't often talked about in the conventional prenatal context.
Speaker 3
Through the
Speaker 2
Veil also includes the hour plus long documentary of my eighth baby's birth, an incredibly loving, incredibly vulnerable, gritty, agonizing, naked, and beautiful family birth that I'm so so proud of.
Speaker 3
I really look forward to
Speaker 2
you journeying with me through the veil.
Speaker 1
Alright. We are back this week with our third episode of our three part surrogacy series. And today, I have Yolande Clark as my guest. Hey, love.
Speaker 3
Hey, Emilee.
Speaker 1
Glad to have you here as the as the third guest on this topic because as I've mentioned in the previous episodes, you were my catalyst to where I am today, with with my, you know, now a couple year old perspective and, being an active, activist against surrogacy. And so I'm I'm forever grateful to you for the many things that you've taught me, and surrogacy was one of the really big game changers, I think, when we first started our friendship of you, you know, being willing to walk me through, thankfully relatively quickly, but being willing to walk me through why it was so, harmful and ultimately offensive, you know. And and that I was a part of the birth worker community that didn't give it much thought and, didn't really didn't really think much of it, you know, and just kind of accepted it as to what I had been taught, which is, you know, it's this beautiful gift and it's the most selfless saintly thing a woman can do. And so, you know, our intention of this episode for all of you listening, and thank you for going on this journey with us. I know it's it can be very confronting and it's a lot to chew on. And last week's episode was, it was it's a hard one to listen to. But, but again, you know, we're sharing it because I believe it's just so important that we hear our fellow sisters' stories, that don't really get highlighted around the major cost and pain of surrogacy. And so this week's intention is to kinda bring it all together and do a bit of a deeper dive, like building blocks on what we started with Mary Lou. So Mary Lou did a really good job of, kind of laying everything out and giving us an overview of what's happening and why and, yeah, kind of like the the ABCs of the agenda of commercial surrogacy. And so today with Yolande, we're gonna build on that both through her personal experiences, of being asked more than once, to give away her children, which we'll get to in a minute. And then, and then, yeah, we're just gonna take it a little bit deeper on some of the the stuff that Mary Lou got into. Anything you wanna you wanna start off saying?
Speaker 3
Yeah. Actually, you know, right off the top, I'd like to say that, you know, tackling the topic of surrogacy in such a public way on this very public, very popular podcast is it's actually intimidating. You know, I'm as a woman who's never really shied away from controversy, I consider myself fairly open and and pretty game for, you know, both offering cultural critique and exposing myself to criticism as well. You know, I I don't think I'm a yes woman. I think the fact that this topic seems so dangerous even to me, you know, really says a lot, and I want to, as you just did, encourage anyone who's listening to, you know, really try to keep your mind open to some of what we're gonna discuss today. And and, of course, you've already talked a lot about surrogacy in the past. But, you know, whenever a subject develops such, I don't know, rigid cultural padding, you know, almost to the point where open discussion and debate are kind of socially forbidden.
Speaker 1
For for context of anyone new to this, like, if Yolande or I even breathe a hint of these opinions on social media, we spend the next five days being annihilated with hate mail and, I mean, threats. I mean, it's just absolute outrage. Yes, that's such a good point to bring up. Anytime it is suggested that we should be silent around a topic, that's usually something that really needs to get talked about among women and really critiqued and explored.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Definitely. So, yeah, I'm really glad to have the opportunity to do that. And I think it's different to have a conversation about a topic like this than, you know, the pile on that social media often is. So Mhmm. So yeah. I have a a somewhat personal relationship with surrogacy, actually, or or rather with the idea of surrogacy. So, I think I'll start there. So prior to around seven years ago, I really wasn't very cognizant of any of the ethical or moral issues surrounding surrogacy. I was vaguely aware of surrogacy as a sort of, you know, outlying practice. It didn't have anything to do with me, so, you know, I didn't really know anything about it. But that was also at the time that I had really just begun to develop an overtly feminist consciousness and analysis at that point. But surrogacy came on my radar because I had just given birth to my, I think, my sixth baby at the time. And I remember, visiting with a really dear friend of mine who was, you know, really tragically, struggling with infertility, and she asked me very tentatively, I should say. But, in any case, she asked me whether or not I would ever consider being a surrogate. And as I said, I didn't really know much at all about it. I don't think at that point I even really digested kind of the basics or the facts of it. I hadn't really thought it through but in that moment, when this friend asked me if this is something I would consider, I had to really think through what surrogacy means and it dawned on me at that point that this friend was actually asking me whether or not I would consider becoming pregnant, spending nine or ten months gestating the baby, give birth to the baby, and then to hand that baby over to someone else upon giving birth. And, you know, at the moment in that moment when the friend brought the subject up, I was literally sitting in a chair holding my three or four day old infant. You know, I was breastfeeding him and I was really in that blissful postpartum bubble. And when I allowed myself to consider this concept of what this word surrogacy really meant and what it would mean to me if I were a surrogate, I had an immediately visceral reaction of absolute horror, to be honest. I really wanna emphasize that this friend of mine, you know, she wasn't being aggressive at all about it, but I was and and and she didn't she didn't specifically say, you know, would you be a surrogate for me? It was more you know, she was kind of exploring the issue herself as well. But, I was really, really taken aback by the entire notion, and my own reaction made me curious about it. You know, why did I have such an intense feeling of revulsion at the prospect? And of course, it didn't take much reflection reflect reflection, sorry, to recognize that this visceral repugnance was really a primal response given by my experience of motherhood and, you know, of being so totally biologically enmeshed with my children and experiencing what I believe honestly is, birth experiences that that represent, you know, the the biological norm to a large extent. Not that that's better or worse than any other kind of birth, but, you know, I I I have been incredibly fortunate to have had these very spontaneous physiological birth experiences. And, you know that involves the mother's body, the mother mammal's body, any mammal being suffused throughout the birth process throughout her whole pregnancy, but especially the birth process with these incredibly powerful hormones and chemicals that dictate this immediate and overwhelming attachment and love that we're designed to experience for our babies. And I guess what's coming up in my mind is, you know, that that cultural
Speaker 1
argument, but it's not your baby. It would, of course, be a bought or harvested egg. It would not be your husband's sperm. And so, you know, the the ask of us as women, the ask of us to disassociate, you know, from everything you just said and disassociate from that biological reality on the notion that if it's a harvested egg from, you know, a different woman's body, then we can be willfully reduced to incubators. You know, and that the the the when she was asking you that, you know, and of course, right, like in her mind, it's just will you just incubate what would culturally agreed upon be, not your baby. Just incubate it. Just put it in the oven, you know, let it fall out of you because you're such a breeder and and just hand it over to me, you know, because I asked you to do it. We're friends and and I've I've harvested the egg and and maybe it's my husband's sperm. Like, can you speak to that?
Speaker 3
Yeah. I mean, on on so many levels, that's it's so first of all, I don't think it's possible actually for us to, turn off biology. Right? I mean, adults can make up stories. We can tell ourselves lies. We can rationalize all kinds of things, and we do. But that doesn't it still doesn't negate the biological reality of what pregnancy and birth does to us, which is that it makes us mothers. And so even with all of that rationalization and and, you know, those concepts that we, may or may not be able to, you know, apply to ourselves that, you know, this doesn't matter. It's not our baby. It's, you know, you know, it's fine. I actually think that biology is much stronger than than culture in many ways and that we can't turn that off. But even if we could, the idea of propositioning a woman to to offer herself, her body in that way, to to have her body used in that way, to, you know, go through the process of pregnancy and birth to dedicate a year of her life to growing another human being that she believes she can dissociate from. I mean, even that is it's it's there's such entitlement there that it's it kind of boggles the mind. And and for me too, you know, my my first reaction to, you know, being asked if I would consider being a surrogate was, you know, repulsion because I feel so connected to my babies. But then on another level, it was real kind of indignation. You know, I how dare anyone assume that I don't have my own babies to raise, you know, projects to fulfill a life to live.
Speaker 1
How dare anyone assume that they can use you?
Speaker 3
Exactly.
Speaker 1
Exactly. You know, and that's just like what Mary Lou says in in her episode. She says, It's horrific that we're grooming the next generation to believe that selling our bodies is a viable economic option. You know, and I'm sure that you would have been well cared for and, you know, if you were in an agency, of course you're compensated. But, you know, when when we understand global commercial surrogacy, you know, it can be said for sex work as well. When we understand global sex work, if you have the privilege to have the choice to opt into surrogacy or sex work, then it is your duty not to do it for your fellow sisters who don't have that choice because it's normalizing the commodification, you know, of our bodies in a way that is inherently, obviously harmful and and completely in keeping with our own oppression.
Speaker 3
That's right. And, you know, the parallels between surrogacy and prostitution are very stark and and poignant and and present. And, Swedish writer, I'm gonna mispronounce her name, darn, Kaisa Ekus Ekman has written a lot about those parallels between surrogacy and prostitution. And, it's interesting because one of the big arguments that so many have when when we present our side of of this issue, our opposition to this issue is, you know, how dare you trample all over women's agency. You know, like, women have have women have choices, and they can do whatever they want with their bodies and blah blah blah. And that's true. I actually agree with that. I think women should do whatever they want with their bodies. I'm in in total opposition to the purchase of people's bodies. So, I'm opposed to prostitution because it involves, primarily men who feel they have an entitlement to pay for access to, you know, women's vaginas and and anuses and other parts of their bodies. But my issue is not with women who are, for the for the most part, in such terrible financial straits or or, you know, involved with with addiction and and and who feel that they need to sell their bodies for money. My issue is with anyone who feels that they have the right to purchase another person's body. And when it comes to surrogacy, it's a little bit different because that whole argument of, well, women can do whatever they want with their bodies. Yes. But surrogacy is not possible without this enormous medical industrial infrastructure. Right. Right? So that whole that whole suggestion that that, you know, that an opposition to surrogacy is is is an opposition to women owning their bodies. It's just ridiculous. You can't enact surrogacy without this, you know, this this huge apparatus that
Speaker 1
Well, I guess in Handmaid's Tale where the rich, you know, husband just rapes the handmaiden and then she lives with them, you know, to for her to breed. I guess someone out there would probably think that, okay. Yeah. You could do that, but that's not what commercial surrogacy is. That's not what's happening.
Speaker 3
No. But, I mean, there are parallels there too. And and and I think, you know, that example is really interesting because I think most people would would find that atrocious. Right? Most people would be appalled by by that suggestion. And I know that Mary Lou has, has has, presented the example of of, you know, why would we have a problem with just literally selling babies on Kijiji if, you know, considering that surrogacy is is, is accepted in our culture. But, you know, I think it's I don't know. I mean, the the fact that sorry. Go ahead. I was
Speaker 1
gonna say, what is Kijiji?
Speaker 3
Oh, it's a Canadian Craigslist. Oh, I
Speaker 1
was like, is that some, like,
Speaker 3
weird compass? No. Sorry. Craigslist. Just just edit that edit that out.
Speaker 1
I'm keeping it. Because I guarantee people are gonna wonder what that is. That's Okay. Glad to clarify that.
Speaker 3
But, you know, I mean, really, for me, the fact that, you know, mammals are designed biologically to immediately adore our infants so much, you know, to the degree that we will instinctively and we we see this all the time. We instinctively when when women give birth, you know, on on untether, unhindered, we instinctively lift our infants to our breasts and we would literally kill anyone or anything that came between us and our child. And I think I mean, this gets into hospital birth and home birth, but I think the reason that so many women's instincts are, I think, diminished, has, of course, to do with industrial birth and how we tend to birth in in North America and all over the world. But, you know, from the infant's perspective, newborn babies also have a corresponding biological requirement to be on their mother's bodies, you know. So just from that basis of understanding, surrogacy is anathema. It it just it's I don't know. It's it's outrageous to me. Well, that was that was what
Speaker 1
was profound to me was you and and Mary Lou and people who started to bring this into my into my, you know, brain was when you think about surrogacy from a child's perspective, from the baby's perspective, it's very easy to quickly see how unethical it is. You know, we we're gonna get to the whole entitlement of parenthood stuff later, but from a baby's perspective, from a newborn perspective, it does not know or care if the egg was harvested from another woman's body. That baby one hundred percent understands biologically that the incubator is the mother. Right? And so that really helped me was, you know, as a birth worker who of course publicly and and internally prided myself on how what an advocate of mother baby I was and what a, for women, trust women, be with women, I'm here to serve women, and yet, I was unknowingly, completely participating, in the normalizing of one of the most disgusting industries that harms mother baby.
Speaker 3
Yeah. It really, really does.
Speaker 1
And And that and that literally manufactures trauma. Absolutely.
Speaker 3
Absolutely.
Speaker 1
Okay. So where do you wanna go from here?
Speaker 3
I don't know. I'm just feeling sad at all. Sorry. I don't know. It's you know, I'm I'm politically opposed to surrogacy on every level. You know, I feel passionately that all forms of surrogacy should be, frankly, criminalized. I I know that sounds like a very extreme view, but I think it's kind of the only reasonable response to what is in effect child trafficking. You know, surrogacy is the buying and selling of human babies. It's dehumanizing. I think it's amoral. I think it's unethical both for the woman whose body is being instrumentalized and commodified, you know, for her reproductive labor, in a similar way as it is for the child who's effectively being sold as chattel. You know, these realities are significant not only in terms of the economics of surrogacy, as an arrangement, but our humanity resides in our ability to love and be loved and to have some sense of our parentage. You know, I mean, these are not arbitrary relationships. You know, motherhood is not something to be taken lightly and surrogacy on a grand scale just dismantles everything that is sacred about motherhood and it's it's especially birth workers and midwives and doulas who purport to understand the physiology of childbirth and the science of, you know, maternal infant attachment and really the holiness as I see it of pregnancy and birth who should be standing up on mass to protest the surrogacy industry and the movement. That's totally destructive, I think, to our humanity. You know, I mean, again, it sounds dramatic, but
Speaker 1
No. I mean, it is it this is a dramatic thing, you know, just because it's been integrated or or sold to us as this normal thing, you know, it brings me back to what I was just saying about the the viewpoint or the experience of the newborn. Of course, I would hope that the newborn who's being bought is going to a family who very much wants this child and you could, you know, safely assume that's probably true since they had to go to quite financial and and emotional lengths, you know, to make this happen and yet, you know, there's no denying that the newborn is being, taken to a stranger, right? It doesn't Mhmm. It's no less strange to the newborn, if if, you know, if the egg comes from that woman which as Mary Lou shared is getting less and less common. It's usually harvested eggs, you know, the whole thing is kind of curated and pieced together. You know, and so again, you know, there's the and that's where I guess I would love to get into a little bit more about the primal wound and about mother baby and anything you wanna kinda add around. We mentioned the primal wound, in the first episode and, you know, and of course adoption is where that idea came from and there are absolutely circumstances where the mother, the birth mother is not available. Right? If the if the mother chooses or has to, give the baby up for adoption, okay.
Speaker 3
You know We're not allowed to say that though, Emilee. That's what's happened here. That's what this whole kind of industry has has created is this sort of cultural sense that it's not acceptable to voice the fact as I see it that mothers and babies need each other, which is so bananas. Like, I see I I'm not a fan of the adoption industry either. I think there are huge problems there. I think there are lots of anyway, that's kind of a different topic. I don't wanna get into that, but there are there are lots there there there are a lot of legitimate criticisms that that should be made of the adoption industry. But as you said, there are some circumstances where that is inevitable and I can understand that, you know, sometimes that's appropriate, but adoption is very traumatic. I mean, any infant that's taken from its mother experiences, like you said, a primal wound and, you know, doulas and midwives, like I said, should be the first to be standing up against this, but instead, they're first in line, not only to the photos. Share the photos. Yeah. I mean, that too. That's something I wanna wanna bring up to, but but they also be are becoming surrogates themselves. There are so many doulas and midwives who are actually volunteering to become surrogates. And, you know, I don't think I've ever come across a more impressive example of cognitive dissonance because these are women, you know, primarily women, obviously, who see birth, who understand that when a woman has carried her child for ten months and is desperate to give birth, that desperation isn't just because her ankles are swollen. It's because she's yearning for her baby, yearning to see her child's face, you know, to bring her child to her breast. It's madness that somehow the surrogacy industry has been so effective in its propaganda Mhmm. That they've recruited not only women in droves, but women whose background is supposedly the protect Protect. Yeah. Of the maternal infant bond, you know, And it is propaganda. It's propaganda that plays off the fact that, you know, girls and women are socialized to deny the importance of our biology. We're socialized to negate and, you know, subsume ourselves and our own interests. And, you know, we're we're socialized to accommodate others, to center others' feelings. And, really, we're socialized to remain blinded at all costs to our own subjugation, you know, even to the point that we would rent out our wounds. I mean, our wombs for others to use and give away the babies that have been nurtured inside our wombs.
Speaker 1
And then have that be called empowerment.
Speaker 3
And have that go be called this is if this isn't the example of the apex of women's bondage and enslavement to patriarchal priorities, I don't know what is. It is just outrageous.
Speaker 1
In getting you know, and and just rolling back one step there, it's one thing if a baby is born and the mother, you know, God forbid dies, and that trauma is unavoidable. Right? It happened and now the baby has to go to strangers to be cared for and and to survive. Or the sixteen year old girl that's forced to give up her child, you know, into adoption or whatever. Which would be
Speaker 3
completely awful as well and I
Speaker 1
Oh my God. Of course. I mean, giving up your child by any force, you know, it's anyway of course so tragic, but there are there are circumstances, you know, unfortunately unavoidable circumstances that happen sometimes to some people, to some women who either you know die in childbirth or are you know, because of their circumstances and, you know, their own, you know, patriarchal society that they live in have to give up their child or sell their child. And so, okay, so let's just pause there, that is true and then it's a whole another thing to curate that, to actually go after that outcome. And that that has been so I wanna move into the entitlement piece that that has been sold to us, you know, being being explained to us and accepted, you know, by us as, a noble and appropriate and worthy, you know, that that inherent trauma of a, you know, woman, you know, selling her baby and and you know, receiving quite relatively small compensation for that, to which there is no actually fair compensation to that. You know, but but the like agreement I guess socially is that sure, okay, you know, every, you know, many many many women, you know, can say that they support surrogacy but that they would never do that. And so, you know, I think it's important to kind of pause there. Why? And and underneath this whole lie that people are entitled to children if you can afford it. Right? So if you can afford it, so wealthy gay men, wealthy couples, hetero couples who choose, to not go through it because they don't want to put their own bodies through it, celebrities, you know, Kim Kardashian is the famous, you know, one right now who's been using surrogates. So, yeah, this entitlement piece, I think, is one of the the most fiery things that we get a lot of hate back around, having the having the bravery to say, hold on a minute. Let's pause there. Could it actually be true that everybody who can pay for it is entitled to buy a woman and buy a baby? Could that, you know, and if you're listening to this and I've never considered this, I really encourage you to sit with that for a second. I'm gonna say it again. Could it possibly be true that if you are able to purchase a woman and purchase a baby that therefore, that renders a person in our society entitled to a baby and to parenthood, could that really be something that we're all going to just accept and swallow and and just, not question?
Speaker 3
Mhmm. Well, I mean, I'll answer you. You know, I've had several people write to me in outrage when I've, you know, posted little things here and there in opposition to surrogacy. And, you know, they ask me, are you actually suggesting that two men are not entitled like, don't have a right to have their own biological child? I mean, yeah, that's exactly what I'm suggesting. And and and it's really very unfortunate to be accused of of being homophobic because I'm against surrogacy. It's not the same. It's it's really an an unfortunate, it's it's ridiculous. You know you know, intended parents, wealthy people who feel this entitlement to a child. I think that in large part, these people have been used by the industry as well, you know, and I'm sure that the kids that have been created through this maladjusted process within this industry are are being raised in love. I don't I don't doubt that, you know, I think that intended parents in large part do have the best of intentions. I'm sure the vast majority of them do. It's not a personal argument against individuals who for whatever reason have have, you know, found themselves choosing
Speaker 1
Well, they've been raised to feel entitled about it. They have. Yeah. It's totally normalized. So, you know, it's not like they think they're doing something evil.
Speaker 3
Right. Right. You know, this whole philosophical argument has to be based on what the effect of this industry is on those who are the most vulnerable. Right? And those who have the least privilege in these very complex equations, and that's the women whose wombs are being used and the babies who are totally innocent who have no agency at all. They're being manufactured. They're being created as a commodity object. I don't know. It's it's just, like, the this this eliding of a critique of surrogacy with homophobia especially, it's a tactic on the part of those who would discredit anyone who's in favor of abolishing this industry. And, you know, I'm a humanitarian. I'm a biophile, unabashedly, and I'm a a womanist. And I love women and love babies, and I understand the preciousness and necessity of maternal attachment. And I fully support my amazing lesbian friends, like I said, who've become pregnant using sperm from their friends or even sperm banks. There's no equivalency there. It's it's really not the same and, you know, I get accused also of of being, I don't know what what do they call it, like a biological determinist or something like that.
Speaker 1
Oh, essentialist, isn't it?
Speaker 3
Biological essentialist. Yeah.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. I've heard that.
Speaker 3
And and, oh, and, of course, you I have eight children. How dare I Yeah. Suggest that I have any room to speak on this topic, and that really upsets me as well because this is a global issue Right. That affects everybody. If we create this world, which we have, which we are, where it's actually socially acceptable to buy and sell people. It's socially acceptable to purchase access you know, sexual access to people, and it's considered socially acceptable to manufacture babies for buying and selling. That affects my life. That affects the lives of my children. I do not want my daughters growing up Mhmm. And, you know, seeing economic options that include prostitution and you know, renting out or selling their body parts. It's just not that's not okay with me and I have a right to to speak on that. And I also fully acknowledge that I'm incredibly lucky to be a fertile woman. Very, very lucky. Not privileged though. Right. Privilege. The ability to bear children is a biologically endowed reality Mhmm. That most women are bestowed by virtue of our physiology. Right. So our reproductive capacity is also a vulnerability. Mhmm. And it's weaponized by men, primarily men, men who run corporations in a multitude of ways. And our fertility is also used as a punishment. It's used as a leash. It's used as a source of humiliation, as a way to control us. Parenthood is not a right. No one is entitled to a child outside of their own biological capacity. And I really think suggesting so is, you know, what has created this this enormous problem, but also it's it's money. Right? It's money and power and and again, my primary concern is with these corporate entities that have, you know, arisen that are profiting off of vulnerable women and, you know, vulnerable yet wealthy and entitled families who and I I I don't know. It's just Mary Lou has brought this up too that, you know, we're likely looking at a real coming firestorm as more and more of these children who have been created, you know, in labs grow up. And I just I can't imagine it. I I I really it's it's very dark, and I I think people also don't you know, we're not looking into what the future of this could hold for for our culture. It's it's really, yeah. I don't know.
Speaker 1
Yeah. That's scary. It's scary. Well, it's really short sighted. Right? You know, people the same people that support surrogacy would probably, you know, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that they're totally appalled about slavery and would say that they're objectively against slavery, which of course, yes, everybody should be and this is an extension of of what slavery means, you know, the the buying and selling of people against their consent, you know, that that's happening in sex work and in surrogacy all over the world.
Speaker 3
But you said you mentioned consent and that's really important. That's something that that that that is is brought forth as an argument in favor of surrogacy that that these women consent. Right? Women consent to this. And an example of this is is altruist so called altruistic surrogacy. So I live in Canada and here in in this country, paid surrogacy is illegal. So all surrogacy supposedly is altruistic. And isn't that nice? You know, how lovely. Consent. Consent. But as always, you know, if you dig into how the system actually works, it's very sinister. So first of all, a large proportion, you know, I think almost half maybe, of intended parents in Canada who who come to who who who engage in certain the surrogacy industry in Canada come from other countries. So Canada has actually become this surrogacy tourism destination of sorts because the demand for surrogates globally is massive. It's massive, terrifyingly massive. And obviously, this is the demand on the part of the wealthy and increasingly over the years, countries where glow the global surrogacy trade has proliferated, you know, thanks to, you know, horrific economic discrepancies and, you know, out and out racism, you know, places like Thailand, Nepal, India where women are, you know, kept in these compounds where they, you know, just live there and gestate the babies of rich people, you know, like slaves. Like dairy car
Speaker 1
like dairy cows.
Speaker 3
Dairy cows. Right.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 3
And, you know, a lot of these countries have recently imposed restrictions on surrogacy, but Canada is wide open to altruistic surrogacy. Now that essentially means voluntary surrogacy, surrogacy out of the kindness of a woman's heart. But but this is the thing. Right? Surrogacy surrogates in Canada and I I hate saying that. I don't that just that term, you know, calling women surrogates. Like, it's become a like, people these are women. Right? It's it's become a product, but these are actually individuals, women, human beings, but they're called surrogates. So surrogates in Canada cannot be paid outright by other Canadian residents, but they can be compensated for their expenses. Right. And they also can be paid as long as the money comes from outside of the country. So there are lots of ways to kind of get around this. But but in in the in the altruistic, rubric, that compensation is a euphemism for payment. Right? And Of course. You know. Right. And so, you know, you read the these delightfully sunny websites of, you know, Canadian surrogacy agencies that are cropping up like weeds in every province in this country. And, you know, the expenses that a surrogate can earn include expenses for new clothes, special foods, you know, transportation, anything related to pregnancy, rent. And that can run into the area of, you know, twenty five to thirty thousand dollars. Now for working class women who might make, you know, twenty grand flipping burgers part time, they can get pregnant and go on maternity leave while collecting money from an intended parent family on the basis of her pregnancy expenses, well, gosh, you know, that sounds like a pretty good deal. So it just it it it's coercive no matter how you look at it. And and then, you know, we talk about this in the birth world as well, and this relates to prostitution too. I'm against prostitution and people say, well, you know, can't women do whatever they want with their bodies? Yes. Absolutely. But consent cannot be purchased.
Speaker 1
Right. You can't
Speaker 3
buy someone's consent. So, you know, our area of of expertise is is birth. We talk about consent all the time. Would it be acceptable for a doctor to, you know, pay a woman a thousand bucks if she just agrees to the c section so she he can make it to his golf game? Like, it's you can't purchase consent that that belies the very notion of what it is to consent. I mean It's such a crock. Ludicrous. Right? Yeah. But, you know, it's it's it's terrifying. So, you know, the surrogacy brokers who are the ones who are really making coin, you know, they're directly profiting off this objective harm that's being done to mothers and babies, and it's, it's it's terrible. What
Speaker 1
a I remember I think Mary Lou said it in the first episode of just making this distinction that in surrogacy, the baby is never hers. Whereas with adoption, you have the option at any point, during the pregnancy and even postpartum before hand or handing the baby over, it's always seen as the mother, the birth mother. You know, that's even called that, right? My even when people who are adopted, they still say my birth mother and then my, you know, maybe they say real mother, or my bio mom. Right? So it's kind of understood in the adoption realms that and it's legally, I guess more importantly, it's legally understood in the adoption realms that a woman has the choice to change her mind because it is understood that she is the mom. But with surrogacy, because it's, you know, curated through agreements beforehand and that the woman gets pregnant, with intention, you know, to be a surrogate mother, the baby is never seen as hers. So, what a, what an epic, you know, way to reduce a woman and a mother. I mean, just what a really like, like mind blowing way to reduce a woman to nothing but the product, you know, or like the machine, like Robbie Davis Floyd talks about.
Speaker 3
Exactly. In
Speaker 1
tech you know, in the technocratic model of birth, and it's we said this before we were recording, it's such an extension of industrial birth and the way that we dehumanize women and then getting into social media, the way that the headless woman is celebrated and the hero doctor is sexually assaulting her as the baby is born and it's just celebrated as normal birth, and oh my God, the miracle of life. Then we go into surrogacy, and seeing
Speaker 3
how
Speaker 1
willing women are to celebrate the dehumanizing, absolute rape of mother baby.
Speaker 3
Exactly. And and, you know, another accusation that's often, you know, hurled my way, our way is, you know, you're fetishizing motherhood. You're like ideal like, why are we idealizing motherhood? Well, yes. I'm absolutely I I definitely idealize mother. Motherhood is ideal. Motherhood is everything. Like, who are we if not for our mothers? Like, it's Right. It it it just hurts.
Speaker 1
For better or worse. Right?
Speaker 3
For better or worse. Exactly. You know, and, you know, from the moment mean. Fetishize. It's so disgusting. You know?
Speaker 1
Well, it's just every single way of shutting us and silencing us, you know, every single way and obviously we don't care and we have we have thick skin and we're never gonna shut up about this, but every single way possible, you know, in the horizontal violence, which is the genius of patriarchy, it's the genius of, you know, you turn the oppressed communities on each other. It's so, you know, it's so it's it's painful. I don't wanna make light of it. It's really painful to witness how quick women come to the defense of their own oppression.
Speaker 3
Definitely. And and and how eager we are to further this disconnection between our bodies and nature and this amazing earth, like this whole, I just from the moment an embryo starts to develop inside a woman's body, whether or not the embryo or fetus are created from that woman's own genetic material, this thing that's gonna become a fetus and a baby, it's being nourished and formed by that woman's blood. Her heartbeat is regulating the baby's heartbeat. Her cells and organs are allowing that baby to grow. You know, it this child is being constituted as a human being from her body. Every single cell is being influenced by that woman's emotional state, you know, her chemical state, the food that she eats. When she has an orgasm, that baby's being flooded with oxytocin from this woman's body. You know, whether or not they share a genetic imprint at the beginning, you You know, by the end of the pregnancy that woman is the only mother this baby knows and she's the child's entire context. You know, she's everything to this to this child. So you know, when I read all of this pro surrogacy literature, especially the, you know, propagandist websites of these surrogacy brokers and agencies, which includes testimony from surrogates themselves who say things like, it was such a wonderful experience. You know? At first, I was worried about not bonding with the baby, but I quickly realized that it's just not my child and I was able to disengage. Like, this is so heartbreaking. It's so heartbreaking and it's a lie. It's not a conscious lie perhaps or a deliberate lie, but it's a lie that I think women who act as surrogates have to, invoke in order to Yeah. Assuage the pain of acknowledging this connection. Biological lie. It's a biological lie. It's it's That's what I was saying.
Speaker 1
Powerful about what we shared last week with Brianna's story is that she totally went along with that, you know, halfway through her pregnancy until she couldn't lie to herself anymore. And then when she connected those dots, the cost of ingesting the truth, you know, and and and being real with what she was doing, you know, she has to live with that the rest of her life. Oh, that's true. And yet, you know, she chose the truth. She chose to not hide from the truth and to feel the pain of that, but I could totally empathize with the woman who are What the fuck is a woman supposed to do when she's already pregnant? It's not her legal right to retain her child and so my God, you know, and yeah, like going, you know, into the the just the many ways that we get silence like you mentioned earlier, you know, who are we to speak because we've been blessed with the privilege of fertility and And I think there's another space there of, you know, I don't know what it's like to navigate infertility and I can only sympathize with what I've witnessed and the women around me who have had to contend with that. And, you know, I I neither of us in any way, shape, or form, would ever make light of how deeply painful that is if a baby is wanted. And yet, you and I both know women who contend with their infertility and would never purchase a baby and use a woman. You know, that just Oh,
Speaker 3
there are lots of women who are in you know, who who who struggle with infertility, and and and also, you know, gay men and and lesbian women who are All
Speaker 1
gay men struggle with infertility. Yes. No. But my thank you.
Speaker 3
Yes. They do. That's true. But it shouldn't necessarily be a struggle in their case. Anyway Right. Right. Thing too. Right? But, no, lots of lots of women who who who are infertile, who who also understand this and who who are, you know, in favor of abolishing the surrogacy industry as well. But I just wanted to say a quick thing about, just that dissociation that, you know, Brianna mentions in her interview with you in which, you know, many brave women who have been who have acted as surrogates and who are who are willing to acknowledge, you know, their experience really truthfully. And it's actually quite similar to many, former prostituted women, women who have exited from the sex industry who will talk about how while they were in it, they had also convinced themselves that this was very empowering, that it was work that they enjoyed, that they just were, you know, highly sexual women. And so this was like a great job for them, you know, that it was great, that none of it bothered them. And it was only until they were able to exit the industry that they could look back on, you know, those attitudes that they expressed and recognize them as, you know, trauma. This is this is how people deal with trauma when they're in the midst of it is really denial, I think. And it's very, very common. And I I also wanted to just speak quickly to again to that that that what what we often and and this is prevalent throughout, you know, industry, circuit industry kind of testimonials, positive testimonials. You know, the sense that, like, oh, well, I recognize it wasn't my baby, so no. I didn't get attached, you know, all through the pregnancy. I just knew it wasn't my baby. You know, I didn't feel any attachment. And I actually talk a little I don't talk about surrogacy, but but in my program through the veil, I talk as a pregnant woman because it's a, you know, that program, travels with me through my my previous pregnancy. I talk a lot about and this is important to me because I've experienced it, you know, feeling as a pregnant mother that I don't necessarily have a connection with my baby, you know. You know, almost every mother that I've ever coached or consulted with, including myself, has said has said at one point during their pregnancy that, you know, they don't really feel connected with their babies. They they feel alienated. They feel as though even this might be like a foreign invader and Mhmm. Or You
Speaker 1
know my violent.
Speaker 3
Right. Or just a lot of the ambivalence about the pregnancy. My response to that is that it's completely normal. We don't have to, as pregnant mothers, feel consciously connected to our babies. There's no requirement that this be a conscious or happy or, you know, fluffy kind of, you know, sense sense. Right? We are our babies. You know, I felt totally disconnected from my babies during several of my pregnancies even a lot of the time, you know, throughout a pregnancy.
Speaker 1
Well, what does that even mean? Right?
Speaker 3
What does that even mean? Because Like that
Speaker 1
you're not having, like, dreams of them telling you the name and that they're, you know, you're feeling I mean, what does it even mean to say that we're connected or disconnected when they're literally inside of us? Exactly. That And that if it's not your biological material and it was put in you and then you grow the baby, it does not negate this point.
Speaker 3
It doesn't. You know, that this this encounter that we have with with our children as they grow inside our bodies, the connection is already there. It's under the surface. You cannot escape it and we can't escape it intellectually really even if we want to.
Speaker 1
And what about when we flip it and how many women I know who have done IVF or IUI or whatever where they use someone else's egg and then the egg is put into their body. I mean, are we gonna say that that's not their baby? That's exactly.
Speaker 3
Yeah. That's that's very true too. Really important. Yeah. And and yet at the same time, you know, I can't help but wonder what the effect might be if we're going out of our way to disassociate from the child that's kicking and moving inside our womb. I mean, like, who knows? I I don't know if there is an effect or if there's an outcome, but, you know, the purpose of birth is not just to eject some random baby from a random vagina, you know. The purpose of birth is is to actually establish that chemical and physiological condition for the most ecstatic and highest experience of bonding and connection possible for human beings ever. Which then renders optimal survival and outcomes. Exactly. Like, this is a chemical and physiological reaction. It's not a choice. Mhmm. We don't I mean yeah. It's you know, this is what happens to every single mammal on the planet unless the birth is radically disturbed and then anyway, that's kind of a different thing, but it's I don't know. It's just so it's depressing and scary, honestly.
Speaker 1
So, I guess our, you know, ask of all of you listening is to consider this and to really do your own, you know, insightful internal, assessment of considering what we've shared on this three part series and considering, I'm gonna I'm going to assume if you are listening that you love women and that you love babies and that you, you want women and babies to be protected and honored and supported because you understand that that is the way to a better world. I'm going to just assume that if you're listening to this podcast, that you understand that the wellness and protection and love and support of mothers and their babies, you know, is is the path. And so we can't have it both ways. We can't commodify and traffic, babies, you know, and women's bodies. We cannot reduce women to incubators, and and, you know, call that empowerment and also say that we want women and babies to be protected and supported and centered. We can't we can't do it both ways because they're they're on, they're, you know, they're opposing sides. And so, you know, my my intention with these episodes are to, stir up some thought, you know, if you haven't thought this before. Like I say in the first episode, it took my older sisters walking me through this to get it, in the way that I get it now. And so I'm really grateful to women like Yolande and Mary Lou who have the, just enormous courage to keep putting out what is seen as radical and dangerous and should be silenced content, which you know, back to Yolande's original point, isn't that just exactly highlighting the very reason why we're here today and why we we, we must talk about this stuff. And even if you don't agree with it, you know, and I I I guess that's fine, but even if you don't agree with it, hopefully, you know, you're willing to consider, you know, consider what we've discussed and that our sole intention is, you know, is to be for women. And we cannot be for women and believe this absurd misogynistic lie that selling our bodies is empowerment. You know, this whole this whole, neoliberal reframing never hurt anyone's feelings and always talk around anything and avoid any real standing for any, you know, any platform so that we can all kumbaya without ever actually, you know, talking about anything.
Speaker 3
Like the birth world is so exactly, you know, the birth world in general is complicit in this industry because, you know, social media is riddled with photographs of these surrogate births, which on one hand, you know, graphically and blatantly just depict these terrible instances of separation that, they're they're they're depicted actually quite honestly. You know, often you'll see these beautiful shot beautifully shot photographs of a brand new baby, you know, tagged with the hospital bracelet, of course, wearing those stupid newborn caps. They're so dangerous and detrimental. Being handed off to be placed on a a strange man's chest, you know, the intended father. Well, the surrogate, the birth mother, is kind of blurry in the background of this photograph with her arms sometimes even reaching out Oh. Baby that she just gave birth to because, you know, she's still a human being. Right? We we we we think.
Speaker 1
If that doesn't make you cry?
Speaker 3
I I don't know. I mean, these are all being these these images are being glorified all over social media because, you know, the birth photographer has a stake in Oh, yeah. In in in Going viral. In going viral. Right? And, you know, the midwife has a stake because she's been hired to, you know, be present. So I think we all need to have a little bit of courage here and stand up for what I think I hope we all on some level know is right. This is not right.
Speaker 1
You know? It's like it's like intersectional new wave feminism has forgotten about women. You know, it's so interesting. It's like for the gay man and for, you know, and for, you know, all these other people, you know, it's like where where is women?
Speaker 3
You know what it is? It's that people don't understand what feminism or intersectional intersectionality mean.
Speaker 1
Right. Of course.
Speaker 3
That is another that's another courage to cover quite yet. You know,
Speaker 1
but but yes, I mean that the centering of women, that's a very simple obvious thing and does surrogacy center women? Fuck no. So, you know, that's that's how we can find our way back to, to authentic feminism by asking the question, does it center women? And no, you know, and and and you know what? If somebody in there in the in the world listening to this wants to challenge us, challenge us and show us where it does, I am super open, to hearing that. But I think you'll be hard pressed to prove that. So is there anything else that we want oh, I guess I also wanted to say, you know, around the social media stuff, you know, things that we as a audience or community or participants in social media can do immediately, is stop sharing. You know, stop celebrating, stop, normalizing the de centering of the birth mother and the commodification of babies, and acting as if that's some beautiful, you know, gift, and and this beautiful new wave, act of feminism, because it's not. And it's actually very old and very, it's a very tired example of patriarchy. And that's where I think, you know, Yolande and I are kind of navigating constantly that what often is billed as feminism in the birth world is actually deep, deep, deep, deep anti woman patriarchy. And, you know, we're hoping to, continue, you know, bringing some fucking truth to that and not, you know, like so many birth pages and platforms just totally capitulate to this disgusting notion that everything is birth, everything should feel good, you know, there's no such thing as trauma, you know, belly birth blah blah blah. Everything is just, you know, if language doesn't mean anything anymore, we've lost something, you know. And if if if there's no one to give a shit about physiological undisturbed birth, we've really lost something.
Speaker 3
Yeah. You know, when a child is taken from their birth mother at birth, this creates a massive primal wound for the mother and the child. However they came together in originally. You know, it's massive. It's unavoidable, this trauma. And like so many issues that relate to industrial birth, to pregnancy, to everything that I've been talking about for the past twenty years, this is complicated by the fact that humans are so incredibly adaptable and that we can and do go through our entire lives sublimating these issues, transferring these issues, you know, wondering why we're so mysteriously depressed or dysfunctional, Right. Wondering why we have no, you know, social cohesion. And we're just not making these connections, you know. Why we
Speaker 1
bite our nails because we have so much anxiety. I mean, come on.
Speaker 3
I mean, this dynamic of trauma and loss is what industrial capitalism is built on, and we're just digging the hole deeper. And, we need to start, taking care of each other and ourselves.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Alright. Well, thank you. Super appreciate your time and and, you know, your courage to talk about this in a in an open platform like this because, you know, I hear you. It is a little scary, and I think we're just constantly up against many people wanting us to shut up. And, you know, I think for both of us, that only inspires us more to keep talking because Absolutely. Yeah. You know, like shit. Alright. Well, thank you for going on this journey with us. You know, if you made it to this episode and you've listened to all three surrogacy episodes, I'd love to hear your feedback. And, yeah, I really hope that this provided some light bulb moments for you listening like like it did for me, you know, and that's why I wanted to do this and have these three guests on for this three part series. And thank you, Londa, as always, for your time and and your intelligence.
Speaker 3
Thanks, Emilee. Bye.
Speaker 1
That's it for today, everyone. Join us next week for another episode of the Free Birth Podcast. Thanks for joining us. And remember, your body, your choice. Lots of love.
