I talked to my boss when I first got hired about being pregnant and doing my job. It was a very physical job with long hours and could be quite dirty, but many women did it pregnant. He agreed with me that pregnancy was no hindurance to the job. For over a year I talked about becoming pregnant and he assured me it was okay. On the day I was supposed to fly out to meet the parents, he informed me that he would let me go if I went. I had my shift covered, everything was in line. I was dumb founded when he said that if I thought he was going to let me work there pregnant I was wrong. All that time he had been fine with it. So I prodded, trying to find out what changed his mind. His wife even did the same job while she was pregnant with their son! His response was "but she didn't sell the baby." He wouldn't let me explain, talk to him, or show him why he was wrong. He just told me to leave. I loved working there until that day and no amount of money could have brought me back after that. Selling my baby?? So far from the truth!
Based leftist boss fighting against human trafficking?? :so-true:
I mean, I gotta admit, like if someone's boss found out they were involved in selling children off to Little St. James and fired them, and I doubt anyone would fault them for it. And based on the thread we had the other day, it seems like a lot of this site believes that surrogacy is "literally buying babies" or equivalent to Murray Rothbard's "free market for infants" - or at least, a bunch of you think that's a reasonable position to have. So I'm curious if any of the 50 or so people who upbeared that thread see any problem with that boss's decision to fire his pregant worker for, as you would agree, "selling her baby." I'm curious to know if you'd make the same decision in his shoes, and if you see any problem with that situation - other than of course, that he couldn't hand her over to the cops as well.
I guess I'm just trying to better understand your positions. Like, is this something that you actually believe, or is it a superficial, exaggerated rhetorical flourish that you know is bullshit but use anyway because it provides a pretext for infringing on women's rights? You know, like "abortion is murder?"
I also wouldn't mind hearing from some centrists and moderates on the issue. Those who think both sides have a point, between, "Surrogate mothers are engaging in human trafficking by returning a child to their biological parent," and, "Surrogate mothers have a right to bodily autonomy." Is there one side that you think is more reasonable, or are you a true centrist, right in the middle of those two, equally extreme positions?
While I'm at it, I'd also like to open up the discussion more broadly. Is there anything else women's bodies do that you think is immoral, or maybe just plain gross? Anything else you think ought to be illegal? I'm really looking to hear from some men here, because I feel like we never get their perspective on that.
Anti-surrogacy is just anti-choice for anti-natalists.
I think that's reasonable. But yeah generally I think that the approach of like, "This is exploitative so we need to ban it" is a bad approach, because it's not focused on looking at why people are in a potentially vulnerable position to start with, but instead on taking away options from vulnerable people just because we think an option is... icky? Uncouth? Generally, letting people have options is better than taking them away, unless there's a good reason, like, the option is a trap and most people who choose it wish they hadn't, or, it's not actually voluntary and it's availability means people will be forced into it (as can happen with sex work). When we look at the actual material reality, neither of those is the case in this situation. Taking some precautions to ensure it doesn't become predatory is one thing, but outright banning it, not because it's actually predatory or harming anyone, but because you personally don't like the vibe of it, or you have some purely idealist speculation about how it could theoretically become predatory, is a completely absurd proposition.
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What zero materialism does to mfers.
Relying purely on vibes and intuition while being immersed in a patriarchal culture is naturally going to lead people to take a heavier hand than necessary when dealing with women doing things outside of the norm. I'm just disappointed to see this BS on the communist bear site.