A few days ago the picture you see went around the world: Pete Buttigieg and her husband Chasten Glezman Buttigieg posing with two newborn babies, with titles such as: 'We welcome our twins'. (see here).
The articles report in the light tone of an feel-good story the couple's statements on social networks. Statements that are intentionally unclear about how the twins, a boy and a girl, 'arrived'. Although the couple had previously spoken of unsuccessful adoption attempts, the deliberate ambiguity suggests that they used GPA or 'uterus for rent'.
The mainstream media did not dare to write about it, but it was widely read on social networks. Filling the gap is the article we are recommending, written by Jennifer Lahl, former paediatric nurse, president of the Center for Bioethics and Culture and producer of documentary films including "Eggsploitation", "#BigFertility" and the recent "Trans Mission: What's the Rush to Reassign Gender?" (see here).
So far, the Buttigiegs have maintained silence about where and how they got their children. Chasten has been making allusions for more than a year to failed attempts at adoption as a way of raising their family.
I would bet on a surrogacy contract, and I will be happy to retract my position when evidence to the contrary is provided. Since Pete Buttigieg is the Secretary of the Department of Transportation, a Biden appointment, I contacted the Department's press office to inquire about twins that may have been born via surrogacy.
Why do I think these children are the product of a surrogacy arrangement? Firstly, as a former paediatric critical care nurse, I am familiar with the data on the twin births.
Le twin births are rare, with a rate of 3 twins per 100 births. The Centers for Disease Control indicate the rate at 32.1 per 1000 live births per year in the United States, bringing the number of twin births to 120,291 compared to the total number of births in 2019 of 3,747,540.
From this adoption site we learn that in fact "a very small percentage of children awaiting adoption are twins".. And parents who want to adopt twins will have a very long waiting time.
Since Chasten stated that their attempts to adopt failed, but now the couple happily poses with their twins, it is not so hard to conclude that these children were born through surrogacy.
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If this is, in fact, the case, I have many more questions. Firstly: who is the egg donor? Gestational surrogacy means that the birth mother does not contribute her genetics, it is just literally a womb for rent. Who is registered as the mother on the birth certificates of these children, or both women were cancelled by legal contract, listing only Pete and Chasten as fathers?
Do the Buttigiegs intend to tell their children who their natural or genetic mother is? Or will they grow up never knowing their biological or birth mother?
It was a high-risk pregnancysince we know that surrogacy is already a riskier pregnancy than that conceived spontaneously, and having a twin pregnancy poses even more risk to the mother and the children.
Were the babies delivered by caesarean section, as is often the case in surrogate twin births? Regarding the egg donorwho was most likely paid and not really a 'donor', how are your health and fertility after the known risks of ova donation?
Finallydid both men provide sperm to have a biological link with the twins? This practice is common among gay couples who use surrogacy, because it provides them with a 'child of their own'. One couple describes it as follows"Our ideal was to have twins, with each of us as a father".
This practice not only demonstrates the commodification of women's reproductive bodies, but also the aspect of "tailor-made child of commercial contract pregnancies. I wonder if Pete and Chasten also used pre-implantation genetic screening on their embryos for the gender selection, in order to obtain a boy and a girl?
From my point of view, It seems that two women were bought and commodified for the rich Buttigieg to 'build their family' as a project, through modern technology.
Full article by Jennifer Lahl here
Introduction and translation by Maria Celeste
