"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast" -Oscar Wilde |
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"The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth, shall be watered also himself." -- Proverbs 11:25 |
An enterprise known as reproductive outsourcing is a new but rapidly expanding business in India. Clinics that provide surrogate mothers for foreigners say they have recently been inundated with requests from the United States and Europe, as word spreads of India’s mix of skilled medical professionals, relatively liberal laws and low prices.
Commercial surrogacy, which is banned in some states and some European countries, was legalized in India in 2002. The cost comes to about $25,000, roughly a third of the typical price in the United States. That includes the medical procedures; payment to the surrogate mother, which is often, but not always, done through the clinic; plus air tickets and hotels for two trips to India (one for the fertilization and a second to collect the baby).
“People are increasingly exposed to the idea of surrogacy in India; Oprah Winfrey talked about it on her show,” said Dr. Kaushal Kadam at the Rotunda clinic in Mumbai. Just an hour earlier she had created an embryo for Mr. Gher and his partner with sperm from one of them (they would not say which) and an egg removed from a donor just minutes before in another part of the clinic.
The clinic, known more formally as Rotunda — The Center for Human Reproduction, does not permit contact between egg donor, surrogate mother or future parents. The donor and surrogate are always different women; doctors say surrogates are less likely to bond with the babies if there is no genetic connection.
There are no firm statistics on how many surrogacies are being arranged in India for foreigners, but anecdotal evidence suggests a sharp increase.
Rudy Rupak, co-founder and president of PlanetHospital, a medical tourism agency with headquarters in California, said he expected to send at least 100 couples to India this year for surrogacy, up from 25 in 2007, the first year he offered the service.
“Every time there is a success story, hundreds of inquiries follow,” he said.
In Anand, a city in the eastern state of Gujarat where the practice was pioneered in India, more than 50 surrogate mothers are pregnant with the children of couples from the United States, Britain and elsewhere. Fifteen of them live together in a hostel attached to the clinic there.
Dr. Naina Patel, who runs the Anand clinic, said that even Americans who could afford to hire surrogates at home were coming to her for women “free of vices like alcohol, smoking and drugs.” She said she gets about 10 e-mailed inquiries a day from couples abroad.
Under guidelines issued by the Indian Council of Medical Research, surrogate mothers sign away their rights to any children. A surrogate’s name is not even on the birth certificate.
This eases the process of taking the baby out of the country. But for many, like Lisa Switzer, 40, a medical technician from San Antonio whose twins are being carried by a surrogate mother from the Rotunda clinic, the overwhelming attraction is the price. “Doctors, lawyers, accountants, they can afford it, but the rest of us — the teachers, the nurses, the secretaries — we can’t,” she said. “Unless we go to India.”
Labels: outsourcing, Women's bodies
How could you go with a surrogate you never get to meet? Don't people realize that the environment of the womb is not a sterile incubator, and that their child will be affected by everything from the surrogate's stress hormones to the geometry of the surrogate mother's pelvis?
I'm not saying that we should exploit these women further by measuring them before choosing a surrogate, but the whole no-contact policy indicates that the surrogate is just a vessel, both to the parents and to the clinic. No one thinks it matters in the slightest who the surrogate is, and there's no acknowledgement that nurture in utero has a profound impact, particularly on brain development.
I agree that exploitation is exploitation, and I don't think people are talking enough about the fact that a lot of outsourcing businesses or businesses which exploit people in foreign countries get away with it by saying that they pay more than local employers, but still don't pay a living wage. Which means they're giving a little bit more of an incentive to keep people working there, but not actually solving their problems.
I also wouldn't necessarily trust a service where the sperm and egg to make my baby have to be shipped to another country. I'd like them to stay in the same clinic, actually, just to avoid any "mixups".
Something similar happens in Argentina, and probably in other countries as well, but I'm living here and I see it on the local news: There is no lack of demand for illegally adopted children. The mothers are desperate for money, and sign up to give up their babies in exchange for a little money or even household appliances or a television. They are then locked up in a baby production prison, just in case they change their minds. When the babies are born, they are sent to the U.S. and Europe.
I understand that some people have an ethical issue with surrogacy. That doesn't bother me. However, I think you are doing the infertile women of the world an injustice by suggesting that women consider surrogacy primarily to save their figure.
Anyway the real reason for my post is to request that you to reconsider your comment regarding the fees.
Look again at what the listed amount covers. It approximates the costs of Air Fare, Hotel, Medical Care and the fee for the surrogate. The Air Fare is for two trips.
My goal in pointing this out is to emphasize that the majority is not going to some surrogate mother pimp, but covers legitimate costs.
BTW, shortcircuitnewswire is concerned about sending sperm/eggs to India. The entire process happens in the clinic in India. Sperm and eggs are not shipped anywhere. Our research has shown that clinics don't even like to ship across state lines.