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Pete and his husband adopted children, they did not use surrogates. Normally I'd think that was a mistake but the guy who made this cartoon is massively homophobic, anti-feminist and has a genuine hatred of women. He strongly believes that women's role in the world is to serve their husbands who they cook, clean and provide children for.
He might prefer for women to wear beautiful white sundresses and have their hair long and perfectly done like the tradwives on TikTok, but he wants them just as in the kitchen with a baby on their hip and another in their stomach as child buyer wants the woman gone from the hospital the minute she's stitched up and the check clears.
Let's not promote traditional misogyny over liberal misogyny. They're both terrible.
This. The Buttigeig children came from a private adoption, and the industry still has its problems, but at its core, adoption is about finding willing homes after conception has happened, not conception for hire. Some might say its distinction without a difference, but I disagree.
Pete Buttigieg and his husband adopted their children, they did not use a surrogate.
Its still super weird that they LARPed in the hospital bed after the mother gave birth
That's because both of their children were in the NICU, they were not there for the birth. They were only chosen by the birth mother after she had given birth.
I thought it was weird, but the reason they do that is for the skin to skin contact.
You need a camera for that? Does the skin to skin contact not work unless the photos are uploaded to social media?
I'm not sure why it has to be in the hospital bed, either. That part is always weird when it shows up. Not that anyone should put pics of their kids online these days, but the LARPing any couple does (straight or gay, doesn't matter) like they had more to do with the child other than purchase the end product might be what gets people's backs up.
Well I mean doesn't everyone show pictures of the baby pretty immediately in the past 15 years?? Smartphones and social media has facilitated this.
You're intentionally conflating two situations that are very different.
Situation A: A new mother posts a photo on social media of her first skin-to-skin contact with her infant, lying exhausted in the bed in which she just gave birth.
Situation B: A rich politician orders a baby from a biological mother, then months later shows up to the hospital and has his photo taken with his nonprocreative male partner lying in a hospital bed for no reason with their newly-acquired baby. Due to bed shortages and hospital regulations the exhausted mother who just gave birth may have been asked to stand next to the bed out of frame while holding a pile of sweaty sheets so she doesn't fuck up the photo.
Why are they in the fucking bed? Can you or I just wander down to our local hospital and climb into a bed for no fucking reason and take pictures? Did these two mess up a perfectly clean bed and require a hospital worker to change and resanitize the bed so they could have a photo op? Or did they kick the sweaty, exhausted (but now worthless, fuck off cunt you're ruining the photo) mother out of her own bed for the photo?
Which happened?
Nice fiction you're writing.
Buttigieg and his husband didn't "order a baby" and show up months later. This was not surrogacy and neither Buttigieg or his husband are the biological father of either baby. A woman gave birth, decided to place her children for adoption, and picked Buttigieg and his husband after the babies were born. They were not at the birth and did not shove the exhausted birth mother out of her own bed. Adoptive parents are usually given a room at the hospital to meet the infants they're adopting, they didnt just wander into the hospital for a photo op. They probably took photos on the bed because it is wide enough for them to sit side by side unlike most chairs in hospital rooms.
Do you think adoptive parents shouldn't take pictures in the hospital with the babies they're adopting? Or just the gay couples?
That is interesting, but doesn’t change a lot, from my point of view. It changes some, but not all, of the power dynamic: we know that adoption of newborn infants has frequently been coerced. The demand strongly outstrips the supply.
The narrative and imagery is all of two men who want babies, then get them (with their money), with no mention made of the woman involved who is the mother, who grew these babies and took on all the risk, who the babies will have bonded with. The narrative and imagery is all about the men and their wants and struggles, and the women doing all the work are vanished to the back room, barely even acknowledged as props.
So it's just an issue of gay men, got it. The homophobia on Ovarit is alive and well.
Buttegieg and his husband were chosen by the birth mother after she had given birth. They received a phone call from the agency that they'd been chosen by the birth mother the day the babies were born. I have friends, gay and straight couples, who had the same experience. But it's just a problem when it is two men pictured holding their adopted children, or do you oppose all adoption?
“So you’re saying you think you’re pretty?”
They received a phone call from the agency that they'd been chosen by the birth mother the day the babies were born.
That is not exactly the story that I’m getting when I look up what they actually say about the experience, and based on what I know about the industry of separating women from their newborns to give them to strangers in exchange for money, I can think of two pretty common situations that would match the actual description they gave.
But you “have friends, gay and straight couples” who have paid to get a newborn baby from a vulnerable woman who didn’t know them, so I imagine that you think this is a ‘choice’ the woman made, and that it being a choice means it is okay and doesn’t need to be examined. Like prostitution, and porn, and surrogacy.
I actually have more issues with adoption than surrogacy, but none of them have to do with the sexual orientation of the people involved. I wish no woman was in a position where she felt she had no choice but to place a child for adoption. But we don't live in that world, so I accept that adoption is a reality and gay and straight people should be able to adopt children, particularly where the birth mother chooses who will adopt her child or children.
And my gay friends who adopted did not pay a vulnerable woman for her child. A young woman in college, who happened to be a student athlete, did not realize she was pregnant until she was into the second trimester and could not get an abortion. She did not want to keep the baby, there were additional complicated family dynamics because the baby was biracial (a factor that may have been in play in Buttigieg's adoption, racist families make it harder for young women to keep biracial babies). She had not selected adoptive parents before the baby was born, but she chose a gay couple to adopt her child over all the heterosexual couples she could have chosen, because she wasn't a homophobic bigot like some women here. But you feel free to judge her for choosing a gay couple instead of a straight one.
They adopted newborns after having been in the market for a baby for quite some time. Not sure what the difference really is, functionally. The infant is an accessory to their trendy gay lifestyle no matter what.
So straight people adopting babies is ok, but when gay men do it, the babies are just lifestyle accessories? Do you know any couples, gay or straight that have adopted newborns?
How is wanting a child a "trendy gay lifestyle"?? In what way is adoption the same as surrogacy??
In what way is adoption the same as surrogacy??
And on and on and on. It is all part of the same thing: people desperately wanting newborn babies without disabilities, and the exploitation of vulnerable women to deliver these for them.
*Edit: and this one, which is probably the one you should read if you’re an American who genuinely isn’t aware of how newborn adoption has serious issues.
You didn't answer the first question. As far as forced abortions, that is horrible. But most of the links you showed were from decades ago when society was more backwards. As far as now, women who don't want their children for whatever reason but don't want to abort should not be forced to be a parent. If she doesn't want to be a parent due to poverty, than that is where governments should increase welfare payments and such. But she shouldn't be forced to be a parent if that is not the issue. That doesn't sound pro choice to say otherwise.
You didn't answer the first question.
No, I didn’t. I’m not the person who made that comment, and it’s not a comment I would make. I’m not interested in defending it. I am interested in raising awareness of why newborn stranger adoption is an issue, and specifically a feminist issue.
But most of the links you showed were from decades ago when society was more backwards.
Oh my sweet summer child. The cycle is that everyone acknowledges the issues that happened thirty years ago, and says that thank goodness such things don’t happen now so no need to change or examine anything. We’re very sorry for things other people did in the past.
That’s why I gave you a mix, so that you can see it is the exact same thing still happening. It’s easy to see it was wrong, when it happened in the past. It is still happening.
Particularly look at the last link I edited in later.
Are you aware that one of the babies Buttegeig and his husband adopted has disabilities?
…which is probably why the woman suddenly had babies she needed to place. Not because she suddenly “chose” him and his partner: because (as is not unusual) the person who had paid for her to bear these children on their behalf did not want a disabled child and left her in the lurch. This is a thing that happens.
So they refused the goods on delivery, and another couple stepped up to take them at a discount. The adoption company made their money.
It is all a system that systematically exploits women for their reproductive labour and hides them away.
huh?? The woman wasn't a surrogate--- that is she didn't get pregnant on purpose to give the child away.
I am begging people to read up on the problems around private adoption/stranger adoption of newborn infants.
It is an industry.
I never even said I endorse it, but it is not surrogacy which has its host of problems. Using women as incubators is the issue with surrogacy. The unethical nature of adoption is another. If you have a case you don't have to lie about a couple using surrogacy to bolster your case.
Using women as incubators is the issue with surrogacy.
And it isn’t an issue if the woman uses her own eggs? The push for egg donation isn’t an issue? The ‘frequent flyers’ in the adoption industry, the young women who would have terminated their pregnancies if not for the offer of money, the young women who would have kept their children but were told they’d have to pay everything back, the women pressured into giving up their children under threat of social services, and on and on.
Seriously, how do you imagine these babies’ mother came to be in a hospital bed, with twins, deciding at the last minute to give them up to a stranger who wasn’t expecting it? And why was the deadline so tight?
You seem to imagine that this is about finding specific people to blame, about this Pete guy and what his motives and understanding were. It is about systems and narratives and power and imagery and language and exploitation and profit motives and the vanishing of women and their reproductive labour, their bodies, which is assumed to be a resource that others are entitled to.
This is all one thing. It is all connected.
Seeing women on here supporting this sort of adoption is as shocking to me as if they were supporting prostitution.
I can’t stand Shane Dawson.
I still cannot believe that that man was allowed to have a child. Holy shit. I mean, I can believe it because he’s a privileged male. But it’s so irresponsible and downright dangerous for a man like that to be a “parent”, I wish it wasn’t true.
There should be a heterosexual couple there too.
Heterosexual couples are the ones mostly doing this. I get the sense that the person who made the comic didn't care about surrogacy until gay couples were involved.
Huh?? By virtue of most people being heterosexual by a long shot, most surrogate users are heterosexual. But gay men also do this.
People have pointed out that the person who made it probably does have an axe to grind against gay couples. I still think it makes the point simply. I would think that you would need a completely different meme design, if you included a heterosexual couple, because it would need to be obvious that the woman had outsourced the reproductive labour to a vanished other woman.
I would be interested to see what you make, if you can think of a design that conveys that clearly. Post it and I’ll boost it. If you gave permission, I’d make stickers and spread them around.
Too bad the guy who made this comic also makes anti-abortion comics, promotes the lesbian domestic abuse myth, and makes a number of misogynistic "jokes."
Even though the message of this comic isn't necessarily wrong, it's unfortunate when people's opposition to surrogacy seems to just come from hating gay people over any actual concern for women. ☹️
So enforced birth is wrong... but only when homos benefit from it? 🤔
Yeah. Do you have a better image that makes this point, that people can use?