The first step towards an international instrument to abolish surrogacy.

[TheywontletmehavethenameIwant]

"A group of states at the United Nations has launched a political declaration calling for an international moratorium on surrogacy, marking a significant first step in what its supporters hope will become a global abolitionist framework."

UN States Launch Political Declaration for Global Surrogacy Moratorium ━ The European Conservative

"That is a long road. But for those who oppose the buying and selling of babies and the exploitation of women, the fact that states have now placed the issue formally on the UN track is already the point: the market is global, and the response is beginning to become global, too."

I not sure I have any faith in the UN anymore, but hopefully this will gain some traction, I can see it clashing with the Global Left's Utopian ideals though.

Malthus was wrong. Provably wrong since we are here and the majority of humans are not starving because we cannot grow enough food. Think carefully about reducing populations. Someone has to work to support those who cannot - the old, the sick, the disabled (unless you would throw those people under the bus of course).
Surrogacy is evil because it treats humans as commodities to be bought and sold. We have a name for that: slavery.

Do you feel men are equally vulnerable to being coerced into providing sperm to sperms banks for donation to couples experiencing infertility or lesbians?

This is a great point. Sperm donation is equally exploitative

I agree. Going to poorer countries to buy organs from people who need the money would be seen as abhorrent. Why is surrogacy different? I mean, buying a kidney actually has greater benefits than buying a baby, because the person might die without it. And yet we, rightly, don’t allow it even to save a life. We don’t say “well if the person agrees then they should have the right to do what they want with their body, even if that means selling a part of their liver”.

It's also weird that we are now in a situation where anywhere a man's sperm can fertilise an egg, he can claim parental rights, according to one comment.

But it doesn't work the other way around - so a woman's egg can be used for IVF for another woman to hopefully conceive and carry, but the egg donor cannot claim parental rights AFAIK.

It’s an interesting debate for sure

Malthus would have been right were it not for the advent of the science which created the modern world. Without fertiliser (derived from oil), without insecticides (also derived from oil), with factory farming, without global food distribution networks (reliant on oil), without GM there would not be enough food to feed 9 billion people.

When it comes to supporting those who are old, sick, disabled etc we could always go back to doing it the way it was done in Malthus's day. Nobody has to be thrown under the bus but everyone has to be fed and watered.

You are right though surrogacy is evil and the global market in babies is already looking very similar to the global food production market.

I dont think men see it as exploitative, they like the idea of spreading their seed. At least, that is what one man I knew said.

And do the women involved in surrogacy always see it as exploitative?

There altruistic surrogates, especially in the UK.

Sperm donation is absolutely not exploitative.

Thats semantics, they can't have a baby fullstop.

But they can, and have. They don’t want to risk it for a second.

Why not?

How is it not?

Paying often hard up young men to donate their genetic material is exploitative.

Not the altruistic ones, no. You can join an agency to be a surrogate in the Uk. As you can't do paid work usually someone is supporting them whilst pregnant. As they have always had babies themselves, they probably have a partner supporting them.

Unable to have a baby then

Able to, but unwilling.

I am aware. I don't approve seeing 'altruistic' surrogacy as an open door to allow in the exploitative buy a baby sort on spurious altruistic grounds. This is child cruelty above all else that it is i.e. human trafficking (slavery). Their is no right to have children.

You have no idea what you're talking about.

The average age of a sperm donor is 36 in the UK. That is not young.

With a life expectancy of 80 I’d say it’s fairly young!

why is it exploitation when it’s women, but not men?

Are you daft? What does life expectancy have to do with this?

You can only donate sperm until you are 45.

You said they’re not young. I would argue, in the grand scheme of things, they are.

Malthus was wrong for the reasons you state but not because of them. He was living at the crux of the agrarian and industrial revolutions in Britain but did not understand the potential for improvement in human lives caused by the industrial revolution. The agrarian revolution had already increased crop yields and freed up labour (people) to work in the new factories where conditions (although appalling in hindsight) were much better than those working in agriculture or as e.g. independent weavers, when there was no end to labour i.e. an independent weaver and his family would work 7 days a week and as long as the light lasted (18 hours in summer) as would agricultural workers. Factories ran shifts and the hours of work were set - most factory workers had Sunday (or part of it) off.
Malthus was blinded by exponential mathematics in population and assumed that food production was not exponential, without seeing what was around him: improving agriculture and a shift from the majority working at subsistence level to a future of many working above that level.
We also do not see the implications of advances and changes now happening (some of which are invidious to us, as it happens) and wring our hands at 'over population' as Malthus did.
Those who believe Malthus' mathematics should beware. Lowering the birth rate (as has happened in advanced Western societies and is happening as others become more prosperous - another thing that did not impinge on Malthus' maths) means lowering the productive base of our societies. So the old and the ill must work longer because we will not have a wide base of the young and able to support us. A grim prospect which will cause the collapse of our civilization.
And yes, surrogacy is evil, it is one of the things that can be called modern slavery (no different from the old slavery afaik) with both mothers and children bought and sold.

Your argument is without merit.

In the grand scheme of sperm donation 36 is not young. It's in the upper half of the range.

In the grand scheme of men in general 36 is not young. A 36 year old man would be too old for many roles in the armed forces.