Posted on 06/16/2018 6:09:34 PM PDT by Tax-chick
Her name is Monroe Christine. She is twenty months old. She was born on television.
You see, Monroe belongs to a reality television star and his partner—Jeff Lewis and Gage Edwards of Bravo’s Flipping Out. Her conception, gestation, and birth were part of the drama of the show, and now her parties and wardrobe and babbling continue to be part of the show.
The men will not do business with the woman who gave birth to Monroe ever again. Her name is Alexandra Trent, and she’s suing the men and Bravo.
As part of the transaction, Alexandra agreed to have her ultrasounds filmed while the men who paid for Monroe watched. But, according to Alexandra, she did not agree to having her delivery filmed and broadcast. And she certainly did not agree to the reality star’s commentary on her delivery.
“If I was a surrogate,” he observed, “and I had known there was going to be an audience, I probably would have waxed.” (Of course, he will never be a surrogate. He is a man. And he is rich.) “And that was the shocking part for Gage. I don’t think Gage had ever seen a vagina, let alone one that big.”
Someday Monroe will see the episode of her father’s show in which she was born. After so many years in the custody of men who find women’s bodies by turns amusing and repulsive, maybe she will be disgusted, too. I wonder what they will tell Monroe about her own body when it begins to change. Maybe they’ll tell her to make sure she waxes.
Monroe will not have a mother to talk about her body with. The men never met Monroe’s mother; they picked her out of an egg catalogue. What will the men tell Monroe about the catalogue? Monroe will probably want to know what made her mother special. Do they remember?
And Monroe certainly will not have Alexandra Trent to talk with. “I guess we won’t be using her again,” the reality star tweeted. I wonder what woman they will use next time. Whoever it is, she had better read the contract closely.
A concerned fan of the reality star observed that it was probably a mistake to let Alexandra spend time bonding with the newborn Monroe. After all, Monroe was paid for by the men, not by the woman whose being she had shared for nine months. They probably won’t make that mistake next time. Better to get the baby used to her new reality right away.
Monroe was baptized on television by an Episcopalian minister with a posh accent. Everyone at the event seemed bemused by the rite. (What level of sincerity is required for the renouncement of Satan to be efficacious? For Monroe’s sake, I hope not too much.) But it made for good television—especially interspersed with footage of Alexandra weeping at the ultrasound and screaming during delivery. The men beamed, and viewers sniffled: What a happy journey they had gone on together!
Monroe’s childhood will continue to unfold on television until either the reality star or the network decides it is no longer profitable for it to do so. She might belong to her men, but her men belong to the market. Everybody has a master, I suppose.
Alexandra Trent certainly understands that now. The reality star is upset that Trent’s lawsuit might “tarnish the most amazing experience of [his] life,” which was watching the girl he paid a clinic to manufacture be evacuated from the womb he rented while cameras rolled and he mused about the birth mother’s substandard grooming. He paid good money for that girl; that womb; that experience. He “thought this was over,” like any other temporary contractual relationship.
It may someday really be over for Alexandra. She might move on; a financial settlement might help her do so. But it will never be over for Monroe. She will always have been born on television. Her childhood will always have been a marketable commodity. She will always be the product of the will and the checkbook of two men who wanted a bespoke parenting experience.
Her name is Monroe Christine. She is a little girl who was paid for by two men. Her mother was picked out of a catalogue; the woman who gave birth to her was a contractually obligated guest star on a television show who was publicly humiliated by her father.
Remember Monroe Christine when you hear words like “equality,” “autonomy,” and “identity.” Who is equal, and who is a symbol of someone else’s equality? Who is autonomous, and who is an expression of someone else’s autonomy? Whose has an identity of his own, and who is an extension of someone else’s identity?
Who is a person, and who is an accessory?
Who is an end, and who is a means?
Who is a girl, and who is a pet?
That is the question.
I am sorry you people are against third party reproduction. There are many conservative and even quite religious families for whom it has healed their broken hearts after infertility. While adoption is a wonderful thing, babies and older children who have been through trauma are sometimes difficult to raise. It is a joy for many families to have either their own genetic kids or the ability to carry a baby and give birth and control the prenatal environment.
Especially women are so deeply satisfied by being able with medical assistance to carry and give birth or just have their own newborn baby, no matter the genetics. It makes all the difference in their lives.
this is disgusting
Please see my posts after yours.
Egg donors are not morally bankrupt. One’s eggs are not one’s child. Men are certainly quite willing to dispense with their seed.
Thanks for posting this, T-c.
This is a brilliant article. The implications, understood by those for whom essential human dignity is indisputable, are devastatingly clear.
A woman and her ability to conceive, gestate, and deliver a child are commodities, as is the child.
To me a woman is naturally AND symbolically esoteric. There is the obvious “outer” and the mysteriously powerful, mysterious, and desirable “inner.” And a reason for public modesty is to preserve the power and privilege of intimate nudity and self-disclosure.
This sad age reduces everything good to amusement and everything unpleasant to vice. It is all jumbled.
Absolutely disgusting.
I am not, Yaelle, although I believe Mrs Don-O is. I think the technology has been abused but it has also assisted in miracles.
I celebrate those miracles (including my grandson) but I think we cannot leave children defenseless in the hands of those who want to use them for some fantasy or even to abuse. In the present climate of amorality it is difficult to draw any of the protective lines we once would have thought common sense. I hope that with the welfare of the children at heart we may make progress.
Yeah, reality t.v. stars using petri dishes and surrogate mothers were so common back then!
Regards,
How fashionable.
My prayers for the child.
What happens to her when the lifestyle of her “parents” punches their tickets before she reaches adolescence?
I do see the two separate issues. The benefits of reproductive endocrinology to help good people become loving parents. And the change in society that has permitted singles and gays to raise kids.
For the former, yes, there are problems, like left over embryos. I’ve stepped up and taken some of them and plenty of others can too. Most left over embryos are not capable of becoming children but they still deserve testing or a chance.
For the latter, with everyone having rights these days, who is to say who might or might not be suitable parents? There are a lot of heterosexual parents who are abusive. There are gay parents who are quite loving and decent. I am ok with freedom in raising kids. The world is no longer going to be traditional marriage Uber Alles, and I’m used to it now. I despise abuse of children and will always discuss and fight it. But some of the worst child molesters are “religious” and married to the opposite sex.
Damn Skippy. Their hypocrisy is thrown in our faces without a care in the world.
A very positive comment, and a good idea for all of us!
Yes, that's true. Then they say that a person's sex is not intrinsic. Then they say one's "gender" can vary throughout the day. Then they say one can't "identify" as a different race from the one "assigned at birth."
As Professor Kirke said, "Logic! Don't they teach them logic in these schools?"
Yes, and that's wrong, too.
“Compensated” and “paid” are the same thing.
Yes, those are the issues I see. My take on the first is similar to yours.
I am not in agreement on the gay parentage. I think the child’s rights are paramount. Despite all the love and caring a gay family could provide, children need a father & a mother as role models. Many children don’t get them but that is an accident of fate and admittedly makes it much harder for them to succeed in life. To deliberately create a child who will have such burdens growing up is callous no matter how well meaning.
This is a topic where people hold strong beliefs and courteous discussion is not the norm. Thank you for the opportunity.
As I see it, the key phrase in your post is “essential human dignity,” an intrinsic element to be honored in every human being, regardless of circumstances.
In various “identity” movements, it seems as though “dignity” is conceived as the ability to demand that others provide you with what you want. However, “essential human dignity” consists in the absolutely right to be treated as an end rather than a means - as Pope John Paul II said, and this author mentions.
Thanks. Yes.
I also was musing about “the meaning of the (human) body.”
I haven’t spent enough time with the “Theology of the Body,” but when gestation is a commodity and birth an opportunity for public display and snark, a kind of natural blasphemy and even desecration is evident. Some sights are privileged.
“Natural blasphemy and desecration” is another good phrase.
I believe modern philosophy teaches that the body has no “meaning.” It’s simply the material means by which the autonomous will enacts its desires and preferences.
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