People in China adopting custom-made white babies?

[Minoosh]

In that case I guess the question is, is there anything inherently wrong with "custom making" babies?

As long as they are wanted and accepted for who they actually are, I don't care. I chickened out on even the old-fashioned route. If I found a baby on my doorstep I'd probably raise it; I never went out of my way to create my own, custom or not.

And in principle, I don't really have an objection to things that are mere choices, like what color of hair or eyes or even skin the baby has.

My friend may have been guessing about the blond part. If he's right, my concern was for how such "Aryan" children (not my word) would fare in a homogeneous Asian culture.

 

[cullennz]

Which is why I'm looking for citations, etc. My claims is not that it's happening. I was asking if people had information that could back up the anecdotal account.

Your one story is anecdotal evidence?

 

[Beady]

Back when I first started at US Citizenship and Immigration (then Immigration and Naturalization), right after 9/11, there were stories that China was going to legalize brother-sister marriage as part of their fight against overpopulation (this was of concern to us because of various laws regarding familial relationship). Of course, that never happened. Now that China has ended it's one-child policy, it looks like the rumors are going to the other extreme.

Look, given the amount of anti-stem cell research (ie harvesting fetuses for their parts) sentiment in this country, why is it that *you* are the only one in the western hemisphere to suss this out? Why is it that the first any of us have heard of this comes from you, and not from a major news outlet?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

 

[Minoosh]

Your one story is anecdotal evidence?

Isn't it? Isn't an anecdote anecdotal evidence? Can you give me an example of what would count? Is it the second-hand quality of the anecdote/claim?

Look, given the amount of anti-stem cell research (ie harvesting fetuses for their parts) sentiment in this country, why is it that *you* are the only one in the western hemisphere to suss this out?

You think this board is a reasonable sample of the western hemisphere? Someone else may be researching this. How would you know? Because you've never heard of it? The fact that a dozen at most posters in this thread have never heard of it is not compelling counter-evidence.

I'm a journalist, now in a second career and not doing much original investigative work. This is how stories develop: Someone hears of something allegedly happening and follows up. Like, if there was a child molester using his position of trust to abuse vulnerable people in, say, a major church or a respected sports team. I have worked for major news outlets (mostly in op-ed). A lot of time they are doing what any individual could - finding a potential thread of a story and following it.

Why is it that the first any of us have heard of this comes from you, and not from a major news outlet?

As far as I can tell this is the same question you asked before. Same answer. Citizen journalists do break stories. Already people have offered leads here, such as firsthand information on how a patchwork of laws from state to state could make it possible. One first step in investigation: Find out if it's at all possible.

 

[Foolmewunz]

There is a ring of conspiratorial truth to the OP. You could actually ship embryos, regardless of who the donors are.

You could not have a surrogate American mom give birth and the just bundle up the kid to send to Chinese parents. That wouldn't happen. Adoption laws vary by state. Some require that you're a US Citizen, others require that you're at least a legal immigrant, and I think a few - only - will allow you to simply be here, residing in the states as a visitor. No one's plopping out a baby on June 4th and getting it a passport via its surrogate parent and shipping it off to China.

Further, no well-off Chinese is packing a surrogate mom off to China to have a baby. They send their wives to Hong Kong, Singapore or the US because the hospitals are superior. In the hospital in Hong Kong where my son was born, they have prices for HK residents, subsidized by the HK government, but even being part of China they charge Chinese moms five to ten thousand USD, depending on the length of stay/complications, etc... my costs were about a hundred dollars.

Not surprisingly, Cullennz..... you're wrong about something. The blog you disparage is actually fairly accurate. Chinese quite nearly worship whiter skin. It's not racial. It's about class. Darker skin, just as the article says, is associated with peasants who have to toil in the sun all day. In the west our latter class orientation is based on the Industrial Revolution and later in Northern Europe. Workers stayed indoors and were pale and the wealthy could go golfing or playing tennis and get a nice tan.

I know several Chinese/Western couples who have very caucasian looking babies. From his earlier pictures, Wollery [a longstanding member here who lived in China] had a waigworen looking kid who'd be a perfect example. Those kids are adored. My Danish friend, Soren, said that in Beijing he or his Chinese wife would have to cover the stroller/pram or the Chinese would mob them. But if they were in the Metro and wanted to get on a crowded train, all they had to do was uncover so that people could see the kid and it was like the parting of the Red Sea. "Make way for the golden child...."

I could very readily see a rich Chinese couple wanting to raise a perfect blonde haired blue eyed baby. They'd be the talk of the town. And Chinese do love themselves some status.

 

[Beady]

You think this board is a reasonable sample of the western hemisphere? Someone else may be researching this. How would you know? Because you've never heard of it? The fact that a dozen at most posters in this thread have never heard of it is not compelling counter-evidence.

I'm a journalist, now in a second career and not doing much original investigative work.

Your inexperience shows. You berate me for "thinking this board is a reasonable sample of the western hemisphere," after coming to this same place for a way to validate your agenda. Why not go to Wikipedia? That has more readers and contributors than this board has, and is just as reliable a source. After all, if you read it on the Internet...

How do you propose to follow up with first-hand sources? Email? Yeah, that'll get a Pulitzer. Which begs the question, have you done any real work in locating original sources? This has all the hallmarks of being researched by Michelle Bachman ("I don't know if it's true, but if it is...").

BTW, you do realize, don't you, that you've published your idea before a worldwide audience? All other questions aside, you're now in a race. Not smart.

Citizen journalists do break stories.

Yes, they do, but I play the odds. This isn't a man-bites-dog story, it really is Pulitzer material. Woodstein were inexperienced, but they had talent, were full-time professionals, and were backed up by experienced professionals. They also wore out an awful lot of shoe leather. "I'm a journalist, now in a second career and not doing much original investigative work." If your supposition is true, you're way out of your league and will do both the story and the public an injustice by pursuing it yourself. Get someone interested who knows what they're doing and I'll change my tone.

Already people have offered leads here, such as firsthand information on how a patchwork of laws from state to state could make it possible. One first step in investigation: Find out if it's at all possible.

Uh, I missed that. I thought all you had were anecdotal claims of what the various laws are. Of course, if you read it on the Internet..

Have you done *anything* on your own?

One last thought: A fetus conceived by an American citizen has a claim on American citizenship. Google "nationality charts." The implication is that, if you can verify your story, someone in the involved Federal regulatory agency/ies is complicit in exiling/exporting possible American citizens to a likely future opponent nation, who could possibly return to the US by right of citizenship while secretly owing primary loyalty to China. How big is your story now? Still think you're up to it?

Anyway, your question seems to have been answered; apparently no one here has heard of it.

PS. Have fun.



Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

 

[Emily's Cat]

Most claims usually require at least partial evidence

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

I don't know Minoosh. I haven't interacted with her in any large way before now.

I didn't read any of her posts as having made any material claim. So far as I can tell then only claim she made was that her friend said that his girlfriend told him she does this for a living. I have no reason to believe that Minoosh would make up an out & out lie about that, so I accept that single claim as being true.

Everything beyond that was speculation and asking questions. I thought that her speculation was pretty clearly speculation... and while some of it might be far-fetched, it also didn't come across as anything she was holding to as absolute truth. I didn't read it as being any less entertainment-driven than my comment that they're breeding sleeper agents for the eventual Chinese coup of the US.

Unless some of you think that I was 100% serious about that, I guess.

I can understand a family wanting an Aryan baby. But the steps taken to achieve this, the level of effort taken by a large number of individuals, the money involved, the absolute blockbuster of a story this would be for the gossip pages, I just don't see it getting to the reality stage on a significant scale. Not even close to the tiger penis level. I could be wrong, but it sounds like National Enquirer sensationalism.

There's a whole ton of weird stuff that happens out in the world and isn't news in the US, or even in the Western World. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

I don't doubt Minoosh is being honest, but I've learned to simply 100% disregard what people on the internet tell me. I can separate those two things. Yeah you're not a bad person and I don't believe you're lying but that's not enough to get me to the stage of taking it seriously. Call me a cynic I guess.

But it does seem to be enough to put you on the offensive in terms of argumentation?

Anyway, there are actually several articles out there about Chinese people using American surrogates, for a variety of reasons.

In my totally unprofessional opinion, I think there are two reasonable possibilities here:
Either Minoosh or her friend misheard some element of the description; it is

1. actually eggs and sperm from the Chinese parents being implanted into American surrogates or
2. At least one person, and potentially both, from the Chinese parents is infertile so a donor is being used.

If there's a growing market in American surrogates for the dual purpose of having a second+ child and gaining a leg up on citizenship, I could see that a niche might exist catering to couples who are infertile as well. At least one of the articles I found mentioned that when a donor was used, the Chinese parents preferred that the donor be of Chinese ancestry:

While some couples are able to use their own eggs and sperm, those that need to seek donors tend to look for eggs from women of Chinese or other Asian ethnic backgrounds, Weltman said.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/23/news/china-us-surrogacy/

 

[Emily's Cat]

Look, given the amount of anti-stem cell research (ie harvesting fetuses for their parts) sentiment in this country, why is it that *you* are the only one in the western hemisphere to suss this out? Why is it that the first any of us have heard of this comes from you, and not from a major news outlet?

Do any of us claim to read every single article put out by every single newspaper in the US? Is there no chance that something very niche-market-ish could fly under the radar?

 

[Beady]

I didn't read any of her posts as having made any material claim. So far as I can tell then only claim she made was that her friend said that his girlfriend told him she does this for a living. I have no reason to believe that Minoosh would make up an out & out lie about that, so I accept that single claim as being true.

Single claim? A friend of a friend? That isn't even second-hand. No, she's not lying, but she's certainly not using perspective or proper procedure. The first step would be to locate the friend of the friend and ask, "Did you say this?" Everything from then on would follow from the answer. If the answer is No, no story; if Yes, then you get into the rest of the 5 Hs and W. Then you work on corroboration and background.

As I said above, her inexperience is showing. This would be hard news reporting, not a powder puff feature. I haven't been in the field for decades and the medium has changed, but reporting is reporting and you have to sweat to earn your spurs.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

 

[Beady]

Delete. Meant to edit but wound up replying. I need a break.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Single claim? A friend of a friend? That isn't even second-hand. No, she's not lying, but she's certainly not using perspective or proper procedure. The first step would be to locate the friend of the friend and ask, "Did you say this?" Everything from then on would follow from the answer. If the answer is No, no story; if Yes, then you get into the rest of the 5 Hs and W. Then you work on corroboration and background.

As I said above, her inexperience is showing. This would be hard news reporting, not a powder puff feature. I haven't been in the field for decades and the medium has changed, but reporting is reporting and you have to sweat to earn your spurs.

Apparently you have to sweat to even have a discussion on an anonymous interwebs discussion forum too?

Seriously, out of everything I wrote, it seems odd to me that you would fixate on me acknowledging her "someone said that someone said a thing" constitutes Minoosh making a claim. Because literally, Minoosh claimed that someone told her that a third party said some words.

 

[Beady]

She's not making claims, she's blowing it out of all proportion and she's not following the tenets of what she claims as her craft. The 5 Hs and W are arguably older than the formalized scientific method, and I can't see where she's followed either of them. She's not even in the right place to ask the right questions, as I said before. She should have gone straight to the purported source.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

 

[Minoosh]

You berate me for "thinking this board is a reasonable sample of the western hemisphere," after coming to this same place for a way to validate your agenda.

1. Quote me berating you. 2. Reveal how you have read my mind to decide I have an "agenda."

Why not go to Wikipedia?

Durn, why didn't I think of looking on the Internet? Doh!

How do you propose to follow up with first-hand sources? Email? Yeah, that'll get a Pulitzer. Which begs the question,

No it doesn't beg the question. Do yourself a favor, find out what this actually means. Want a second opinion? OK, your behavior is also extremely boorish.

BTW, you do realize, don't you, that you've published your idea before a worldwide audience?

REALLY? Double Durn! If there is a story I don't care who breaks it.

This isn't a man-bites-dog story, it really is Pulitzer material.

I now feel I've gotten to the bottom of it and no, it won't win a Pulitzer. Everything is confirmed in this story except those seeking egg/sperm donors "tend to" seek people of Chinese or other Asian background.

CNN Money
While some couples are able to use their own eggs and sperm, those that need to seek donors tend to look for eggs from women of Chinese or other Asian ethnic backgrounds, Weltman said.

However, in its particulars, nothing has been debunked. (1.,2,) Donor sperm or/(and?) egg. 3. IVF 4. U.S. surrogate. 5. Baby goes to China.

Your argument from incredulity fails.

If your supposition is true, you're way out of your league and will do both the story and the public an injustice by pursuing it yourself.

Add personalizing the argument to the list of crimes against logic.

The implication is that, if you can verify your story, someone in the involved Federal regulatory agency/ies is complicit in exiling/exporting possible American citizens to a likely future opponent nation, who could possibly return to the US by right of citizenship while secretly owing primary loyalty to China. How big is your story now? Still think you're up to it?

Since the article ran a year ago in CNN Money I'll save myself the trouble. I came here to seek verification and found it. Thanks to the mature posts (thanks, Emily's Cat et al.) in this thread.

Anyway, your question seems to have been answered; apparently no one here has heard of it.

Is this some kind of performance art to see how many ways you can be wrong in one post?

 

[Minoosh]

Single claim? A friend of a friend? That isn't even second-hand.

Then what is second-hand?

The first step would be to locate the friend of the friend and ask, "Did you say this?"

Actually the first step would be finding out if anyone has already reported on it, which I took by asking forum members and reading their links.

As I said above, her inexperience is showing. This would be hard news reporting, not a powder puff feature.

Oh please. I'm not inexperienced. You get a tip, you see where it goes. Your fundamental error is assuming I care about a personal scoop.

 

[Minoosh]

Mrs J served as a gestational surrogate for two different families.

Thanks for your insight and for not being a dick. The CNN Money does not explicitly rule out cases in which both donor eggs and donor sperm are sought. I would hope someone would have to be some relation to the resultant child, but I'm not sure this is always the case.

Lol, I failed to link the one article I found!

I never got that link to work - the story came up but disappeared. However you gave me the search terms I needed!

There is a ring of conspiratorial truth to the OP. You could actually ship embryos, regardless of who the donors are.

Nothing is preventing the scenario, as far as I can tell, except the possible requirement that you can't use donor sperm AND egg. I haven't confirmed whether this is a requirement in every state.

Thanks to you and others posting from Asia. My information on mixed-race children was badly outdated. I always thought Chinese babies were cute, might have sought a liaison but now it would have to be adoption.

ETA: Thai babies are even cuter, of course.

I could very readily see a rich Chinese couple wanting to raise a perfect blonde haired blue eyed baby. They'd be the talk of the town. And Chinese do love themselves some status.

As long as the children themselves are loved, it's OK with me.

 

[Dipayan]

This blue eyes/blond hair was speculative on the part of my friend. All he knew is his GF found donor sperm, donor egg, IVF, surrogate mom in U.S. And babies end up in China. They could be looking for the next LeBron James for all I know. They could be cherry-picking Chinese American CEOs.

Fair enough, I didn't realize that was speculation. In which case do we know if the donor sperm and egg were both American, or is that also speculation?

Because they may be U.S. citizens being shipped to an uncertain fate in a repressive regime. Or they could have a great life. I just want to know more about the mechanics of the process.

So is it just curiosity about the process? Because your OP specifically jumps to 'embryo harvesting' and 'genetic manipulation' and 'nature vs nurture experiments'. If you are facing aggressive debate in this thread, I would submit it is only because of this seemingly underlying fear of 'the other'.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

Thank you for an awesome post. I'm relieved to see you providing information rather than just making fun of me. Babies are born in all sorts of circumstances, often untidy, and my main concern is that somebody really wants them in their family. I understand that my speculations can get pretty dark, but there are people on this thread saying it can't happen, period. I mean the basic 5-point plan: Donor egg, donor sperm, IVF, surrogate, the baby goes to China. If immigration isn't a factor, IMO it would make more sense to bring the surrogate bearer to China, or use a Chinese surrogate, than to open a can of red tape worms. Or a red can of tape worms.

I propose the following business plan to sell Lex Luthor a custom army. We hire Mexican women and ship them to the Philippines or somewhere where they have decent hospitals. Instead of being captured to the sex trade, they're happy and under contract, getting really good medical care, enough money to sock away for the future waiting them on return to Mexico and a stipend while they're under contract to cover lifestyle and living expenses, which we keep low by imprisoning them the way universities do - minimal privacy housing, something easy but rewarding to do and free food several times a day.

Meatspace intervenes with elaborating further at this time.

 

[cullennz]

Just as a side note.

A mate of mine was telling me his brother said to him his girlfiends workmates brother told his wife that the trails you see coming out of planes are actually deadly chemicals

 

[Minoosh]

Fair enough, I didn't realize that was speculation. In which case do we know if the donor sperm and egg were both American, or is that also speculation?

I have not confirmed that any IVF clinic in any state would be comfortable using donor sperm AND egg to create embryos. The American-ness [of the donors] wasn't the primary issue with me - it was my uninformed (though possibly not wrong) speculation that a child unrelated genetically to either of its putative parents could be gestated by a 3rd party and born in the U.S., thenceforth winging its way to Beijing as a U.S. citizen to be adopted by people it wasn't related to.

So is it just curiosity about the process?

Essentially yes, it boils down to curiosity about the process, because only by knowing the steps in the process can I identify potential for abuse.

Because your OP specifically jumps to 'embryo harvesting' and 'genetic manipulation' and 'nature vs nurture experiments'.

Yes, but it jumped there from a certain place, which was a thread about how the West was going to get stupider and stupider because the Chinese were already splicing genes into human embryos. The OP of that thread lauded these efforts. There is potentially not a heck of a lot of transparency in China's research efforts, and also less inhibition as far as manipulating human embryos.

If you are facing aggressive debate in this thread, I would submit it is only because of this seemingly underlying fear of 'the other'.

No, it's an underlying fear of China. And actually I wouldn't call it fear - more like wariness. Yes, my friend's speculation about "blond hair and blue eyes" did send me off on a tangent. I thought most Han Chinese would want a Han Chinese child, and that a white or mixed-"race" kid would have a tough time of it, so I wondered why anyone would want to do it. That led to status-symbol imagery and worse. From what I've read I don't get a flattering view of China's wealthy princeling class.

The Economist magazine occasionally drops a hint about "ugly" Chinese nationalism, which I think might boil down to Han Chinese believing Han Chinese are a superior race. Would China have any compunction about running experiments to prove it? Or, would China have any interest in looking at the genomes of other "races" to identify which traits might inspire cross-breeding experiments?

I'm not talking about infants at this point, more like: Some Asians have a reaction to ethanol that isn't seen in "Caucasians." Can this be bred out of an embryo line? Can other traits be bred into an embryo line? And if scientists got this far, how much farther might they want to go? In Googling around I found a reference to China cloning human embryos. A possible next step, IMO, would be implanting these embryos into various wombs to see how close they could get to creating duplicate human beings, and what environmental factors might be varied in utero.

If any country has the will or wherewithal to do it, it's probably China. Its 20th-century history shows a willingness to indulge in social experiments and national pride could easily fuel enthusiasm for original genetic research that would IMO be more difficult to carry out in the "West." If China has an edge here, why would it stop? It has every reason to carry on.

 

[Minoosh]

I propose the following business plan to sell Lex Luthor a custom army. We hire Mexican women and ship them to the Philippines or somewhere where they have decent hospitals. Instead of being captured to the sex trade, they're happy and under contract, getting really good medical care, enough money to sock away for the future waiting them on return to Mexico and a stipend while they're under contract to cover lifestyle and living expenses, which we keep low by imprisoning them the way universities do - minimal privacy housing, something easy but rewarding to do and free food several times a day.

With the bonus of outsourcing illegal immigration.