A fascinating item in the International Herald Tribune about a new and rapidly expanding industry in India - surrogate motherhood.
India, widely known for the destination of a variety of outsourced jobs is now fielding a corps of housewives available for artificial insemination - at bargain prices!
"Reproductive outsourcing is a new but rapidly expanding enterprise in India. Clinics that provide surrogate mothers for foreigners say they have been inundated with requests from the United States and Europe in recent months, as word spreads of India's combination of skilled medical professionals, relatively liberal laws and low prices.
"Commercial surrogacy, which is banned in some European countries and subject to a wide spectrum of regulation in U.S. states, was legalized in India in 2002. The cost of the medical procedures, air tickets and hotels for two trips to India (one for the fertilization and a second to collect the baby) comes to around $25,000, roughly a third of the typical price in the United States."
"Under guidelines issued by the Indian Medical Council, surrogate mothers sign away all their rights to the child. In cases where the surrogate provides a womb for an embryo formed from the sperm and egg of the prospective parents, it is only the names of these genetic parents that appear on the birth certificate. If an egg donor is involved, her name does not appear on the document, either; only that of the father."
India, widely known for the destination of a variety of outsourced jobs is now fielding a corps of housewives available for artificial insemination - at bargain prices!
"Reproductive outsourcing is a new but rapidly expanding enterprise in India. Clinics that provide surrogate mothers for foreigners say they have been inundated with requests from the United States and Europe in recent months, as word spreads of India's combination of skilled medical professionals, relatively liberal laws and low prices.
"Commercial surrogacy, which is banned in some European countries and subject to a wide spectrum of regulation in U.S. states, was legalized in India in 2002. The cost of the medical procedures, air tickets and hotels for two trips to India (one for the fertilization and a second to collect the baby) comes to around $25,000, roughly a third of the typical price in the United States."
"Under guidelines issued by the Indian Medical Council, surrogate mothers sign away all their rights to the child. In cases where the surrogate provides a womb for an embryo formed from the sperm and egg of the prospective parents, it is only the names of these genetic parents that appear on the birth certificate. If an egg donor is involved, her name does not appear on the document, either; only that of the father."
There are so many moral and ethical issues that leap out from this and they'll never, ever come up for serious consideration. Yes, your own baby and for less than the price of a Volkswagen!
Disgusting....totally disgusting!! Cheers
ReplyDeleteI'm not making this up. Based on the professionals I knew during our "breeding days" I'm sure there were plenty who would happily have mom's ovum mixed with dad's sperm, shaken gently and frozen, and then shipped to India to be baked.
ReplyDeleteNeither one loses a day of work, mom keeps her figure and, voila, 9-months and a mere 25-grand later, they have their very own, biologically correct kid.
Think about that. Two top professionals, big wage earners, able to conceive a kid and have it baked by the hired help. Awesome!
Disgusting, but awesome.
Apologies in advance to all those offended by my crudeness and vulgarity.
I dunno about this one Mound. It's like you said, the whole thing raises so many moral issues that I don't know where to start!
ReplyDeleteI think I'll begin with a woman's right to choose what she does with her body. Indian women have a natural right to choose how their bodies are used, but if the women being used as surrogates come from impoverished and/or desperate situations, one really has to wonder what kind of choice she is really being offered, or if any choice exists at all.
The next thing that comes to mind is more of a sentimental argument than anything else. I like to think that the whole "baking" process is something that, at least in an ideal situation, both parents should go through together. All of the visits to the doctors office, seeing an ultra sound together, hearing the baby's heartbeat for the first time, us guys having to get up at 2AM because she has a craving for a dill pickle and banana sandwich and won't let us sleep until she satisfies that craving, etc.
Even the hard parts. like holding your partner's hair back while she suffers through morning sickness, the mind numbing stress that comes from dealing with a crabby hormonal partner, it's all a part of life that prepares us for parenthood. To quote a line from favourite movie of mine "before you do it, you must go through it!".
Then again, that's coming from a guy with no kids who hasn't been through the whole pregnancy process, so maybe I'll feel differently once I have a little more experience under my belt.
The last thing that comes to mind right now is that I can remember talking to a friend of mine recently who was given reason to beleive she might be sterile. The poor girl was nowhere near a point in her life where she would be thinking about having babies, but was nonetheless devastated because more than anything she wanted to0 know the feeling of carrying another life. Obviously not everyone will feel the same way, so it's each to his own taste. But that's the way I see it.
I guess that's not much of a legal opinion, but I hope it suffices.
Thanks Fish. I agree with you on the wholesomeness issues but I'm troubled about this on a societal level. It strikes me that we ought to consider whether this practice should be proscribed somehow? I guess that would have to be done by pressuring the nation, in this case India, that permits it.
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