Friday 21 January 2011

Words and Phrases that Make Me Ill at Ease

'Gestational carrier', the phrase used by Nicole Kidman and her husband, to refer to the woman who bore them a second child.

4 comments:

  1. Sterile prose used to describe the most poetic wonder of the natural world. Completely agree with you. I'm glad I don't have to read their love notes to each other -- or, should I say: "Their endorphine-caused essays composed with the purpose of edifying each other's belief in the verity of their romantic bond." Blech.

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  2. I feel ill at ease about the way the phrase dehumanises someone who actually went through the flesh and blood experience - not a person, a carrier. This news coming hot on the heels of the news that Elton John and his partner have a surrogate-produced child makes me worry about the ethics of wealthy well-known people asking anonymous females to contribute their physical effort to the cause of producing the well-known people's offspring. On the subject of sterile interchanges, in today's SMH Mike Carlton reproduces quite a funny imagined breakfast table conversation between J Gillard and her partner.

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  3. We can all guess the contract-breaking storyline if the 'carrier' were referred to as a 'surrogate mum'. Hallmark Channel does a nice line in such 'based on a true story' films.

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