In episode 134 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Jennifer Lahl.
Jennifer is the Founder and President of The Centre for Bioethics and Culture Network. Jennifer couples her 25 years of experience as a paediatric critical care nurse, a hospital administrator and a senior-level nursing manager with a deep passion to speak for those who have no voice.
In this episode we cover the topic of surrogacy and egg donation through a mental health lens, which Jennifer is an expert on.
Jennifer has made two films on surrogacy called ‘#BigFertility’ and ‘Breeders: A Subclass of Women?’. She has also made two films on egg donation called ‘Eggsploitation’ and ‘Maggie’s Story’.
We do a deep diver into Eggsploitation and Big Fertility respectively in this episode.
These films expose what is going on in the surrogacy industry and tells the stories of women who have got involved in it.
In this episode we talk about the truth behind surrogacy, why a surrogate birth is so much riskier than a natural birth and the mental health impact on surrogates who have to give up the children they give birth to, back to the parents who have paid for it.
We ethically explore whether there can ever be a morally correct path for someone to be a surrogate, are arguments against surrogacy homophobic and the statistics behind surrogate deaths post-childbirth.
For Jennifer’s mental health, Jennifer spent an entire year in hospital as a 10 year old which had a huge impact on her life. We discuss the negatives of it and the positives in how it inspired her to take this healthcare journey, her parents divorce as an adult and the toll that working in critical care took on her mental health.
As always, #itsokaytovent
You can watch Big Fertility on YouTube here.
You can watch Eggsploitation on YouTube here.
You can follow Jennifer on Twitter below:
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