thats what my friend told me when i visited the states and had to drive. he told me ''do NOT give anyone the finger when you're driving!''. you do not want to get shot at. i don't know if he was just pulling my leg or not but he was serious when he said that and i believed him.
What the Heck?! Thread (Closed)
- Thread starter TerraN_EmpirE
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thats what my friend told me when i visited the states and had to drive. he told me ''do NOT give anyone the finger when you're driving!''. you do not want to get shot at. i don't know if he was just pulling my leg or not but he was serious when he said that and i believed him.
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
Yeah....
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plawolf
Lieutenant General
More reason why there should be some sort of minimal professional standard for journalism.
Currently, any random nobody can make up any BS story they want to, and hide behind "freedom of speech" to shield them against any and all consequences of their stupidly and/or deliberate lies.
That is simply unimaginable and unacceptably in any serious professional.
Remember, words can have real and devastating consequences.
America went to war over the "smoking gun" falsehoods of Saddam's nonexistence WMD, Libya was turned into a failed state largely on the back of warmongering from the press, and they were all set to repeat the same trick with Syria until the British government bottled out of it at the 11th hour.
The holly grail wet dream of all journalists is to have enough influence that their words can shape public opinion, and along with government policy and history. Yet they are determined to never be help responsible for the consequences when they misuse the power they so crave and spend their lives chasing.
Every time in history when you give any group of people great power with zero person responsibility and consequences for misusing said powers, those powers get horribly abused and great harm is done.
It is hubris and stupidity of the highest order to think the moral-less rabble of the press can break that well establish trend.
AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
Giant city in the clouds over China.
What the heck!
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2015-10-20 16:01 | China Daily | Editor: Wang Fan
After giving birth as a surrogate mother for a Chinese couple four months ago, Terry is now matched with another Chinese couple, in Canada, and waiting for her medical appointment.
"It's really a good thing to do," said Terry, who asked that only her first name be used. Terry said she was even learning Chinese now from her Chinese colleagues at Extraordinary Conceptions, a Carlsbad, California-based agency that offers surrogate parenting services, where Terry works as a medical records clerk. Terry also has a child of her own.
At Extraordinary Conceptions, surrogacy mothers are usually women age 21 to 39 who have at least one child. They are paid $30,000 to $50,000 for carrying a child.
The agency now has 60 percent of its business from China and seven Chinese-speaking employees have been hired to deal with the surging interest from the country.
"I've been going to China for the last four years and have worked with hundreds of Chinese couples," said Mario Caballero, executive director of Extraordinary Conceptions. "I go to China every three months, meeting clients and middle agents, and visiting IVF (in-vitro fertilization) centers in China."
He said he started having more Chinese clients when words spread out. "You can come to the U.S. to have a baby; you can be a single person or an older person. All of this has been communicated by media back to China, so people decided that they could have a family when they thought they could not," said Caballero.
As China's law forbids surrogacy service and the government periodically cracks down on the underground surrogacy market, more Chinese couples are looking to overseas agencies.
It usually costs from 800,000 yuan to 1.1 million yuan (about $125,790 to $172,950) to have a baby in the U.S., much more expensive than in other countries such as Thailand, India and Nepal.
"The U.S. passports", the "stability of U.S. laws", and "the highest success rate" are among the top reasons why Chinese choose American surrogacy mothers, according to Caballero.
"And many of those countries do not issue birth certificates for the babies," he added. "In California, the paperwork with the names of the intended parents is at the hospital before the baby is born, so the surrogate's name never appears on the paperwork."
Another incentive is that the child born in the U.S. is eligible for U.S. citizenship and can sponsor their parents for a "green card" on reaching the age of 21.
Although surrogacy is illegal in China, Caballero said both he and the Chinese parents do not have legal concerns "because they know they are not doing surrogacy in China".
In April, the Chinese government set up a special task force to crack down on medical organizations, medical personnel and agencies providing illegal surrogacy service. But industry insiders said local family planning commissions as well as industry and commercial bureaus do not interfere with their business as long as the surrogacy is not done in China.
It is believed that the higher demand for surrogacy from China is partly due to the rising infertility rate. A report on China's infertility released by the China Women and Children Career Development Center in 2012 finds the infertility rate has increased to 12 percent in 2012 from 3 percent of 1992, which means about one in eight couples have reproductive problems.
The industry insiders said the surrogacy market will continue expanding at 30 percent a year.
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2015-10-20 16:01 | China Daily | Editor: Wang Fan
After giving birth as a surrogate mother for a Chinese couple four months ago, Terry is now matched with another Chinese couple, in Canada, and waiting for her medical appointment.
"It's really a good thing to do," said Terry, who asked that only her first name be used. Terry said she was even learning Chinese now from her Chinese colleagues at Extraordinary Conceptions, a Carlsbad, California-based agency that offers surrogate parenting services, where Terry works as a medical records clerk. Terry also has a child of her own.
At Extraordinary Conceptions, surrogacy mothers are usually women age 21 to 39 who have at least one child. They are paid $30,000 to $50,000 for carrying a child.
The agency now has 60 percent of its business from China and seven Chinese-speaking employees have been hired to deal with the surging interest from the country.
"I've been going to China for the last four years and have worked with hundreds of Chinese couples," said Mario Caballero, executive director of Extraordinary Conceptions. "I go to China every three months, meeting clients and middle agents, and visiting IVF (in-vitro fertilization) centers in China."
He said he started having more Chinese clients when words spread out. "You can come to the U.S. to have a baby; you can be a single person or an older person. All of this has been communicated by media back to China, so people decided that they could have a family when they thought they could not," said Caballero.
As China's law forbids surrogacy service and the government periodically cracks down on the underground surrogacy market, more Chinese couples are looking to overseas agencies.
It usually costs from 800,000 yuan to 1.1 million yuan (about $125,790 to $172,950) to have a baby in the U.S., much more expensive than in other countries such as Thailand, India and Nepal.
"The U.S. passports", the "stability of U.S. laws", and "the highest success rate" are among the top reasons why Chinese choose American surrogacy mothers, according to Caballero.
"And many of those countries do not issue birth certificates for the babies," he added. "In California, the paperwork with the names of the intended parents is at the hospital before the baby is born, so the surrogate's name never appears on the paperwork."
Another incentive is that the child born in the U.S. is eligible for U.S. citizenship and can sponsor their parents for a "green card" on reaching the age of 21.
Although surrogacy is illegal in China, Caballero said both he and the Chinese parents do not have legal concerns "because they know they are not doing surrogacy in China".
In April, the Chinese government set up a special task force to crack down on medical organizations, medical personnel and agencies providing illegal surrogacy service. But industry insiders said local family planning commissions as well as industry and commercial bureaus do not interfere with their business as long as the surrogacy is not done in China.
It is believed that the higher demand for surrogacy from China is partly due to the rising infertility rate. A report on China's infertility released by the China Women and Children Career Development Center in 2012 finds the infertility rate has increased to 12 percent in 2012 from 3 percent of 1992, which means about one in eight couples have reproductive problems.
The industry insiders said the surrogacy market will continue expanding at 30 percent a year.
The US really needs to shut off this immigration loophole, just one among many that denigrate what US citizenship means. There can be a baby-making industry but these babies should not get US citizenship unless their intended parents are already US citizens.
solarz
Brigadier
Well the problem is not just surrogates, there's also pregnancy tourism, where people with no chance of staying in the US drops a baby there, waits 18 years, get sponsored and retire in the US with full social benefits.
I think that the Department of Immigration is tolerating this kind of phenomenon because Chinese surrogates are relatively affluent. They constitute an influx of capital from China to the U.S.
GreenestGDP...this type of language and sentiment is not welcome on SD. It is basically a racist sentiment.
It leads to bad places.
Please do not delve into this type of discussion here on SD.
DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS MODERATION.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
Indeed, all too often, its one set of rules for the poor and a differnet set of rules for the rich.
Isn't there even citizenships/Permanent Residency rights you can basically buy by investing or signing binding contracts to invest something like a million dollars in the US and other countries?
As I always said, wealth has no nationality. So long as you have enough money, its the only passport you will ever need.
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