Outsourcing Wombs in IndiaNew Delhi - In a new twist to the outsourcing for which India has become renowned, poor Indian women are renting out their wombs to foreigners.
Surrogate motherhood -- carrying to term and giving birth to another woman's baby - once was limited in India to helping close relatives who couldn't complete a pregnancy due to medical difficulties.
But leading gynecologist Dr. Kamla Selvaraj says it's now becoming a regular "profession" in India, with more and more women willing to carry babies for foreign women and homosexual couples, for a fee.India has for years been providing foreigners with in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment at a cheaper rate than the equivalent services in Western countries.
Surrogacy comes in when the biological mother is unable to carry the child or for homosexuals who cannot reproduce naturaly. Alternatively, a surrogate also provides eggs when the woman wanting a child is unable to do so herself.
Apart from low-cost IVF treatment, India also is offering surrogate mothers at a considerably lower price than couples would pay in the U.S. or Europe.
Women's counselor Harleen Ahluwalia says surrogacy cases are estimated to have nearly doubled in the past three years.
"Foreigners and homosexuals find Indian legal procedures easy and less exploitative, unlike the U.S., where any complication could cost a fortune," she said.
Although surrogacy cases have been reported from various regions, one area that appears to be over-represented is Anand district in the western state of Gujarat, where more than 50 economically deprived women are reported to be presently carrying babies for foreigners and non-resident Indians.
17 comments:
Shaking my head while I let the full implications of this sickening shit sink in...
God forbid they adopt one of the millions of kids in foster care or orphanages, here in the USA and think about the burden of overpopulation.
I saw something on this on 60 Min. (I think) about a month ago. It's definitely exploitation. Of course they also tried to present the other side, giving an example of a woman going from living in a shack w/ no electricity to living in this decent house due to her $5,000 payment. On one hand I feel for woman (not homosexuals, who give up their gift of children by being homosexual) that can't have children for whatever reason and this gives them a way to have a child. On the other hand these Indian surrogate mothers are so ashamed they hide this from their family and friends (e.g. I'll be away for a year working a job). Definitely not a medical necessity, but the last hope for some woman. Has science gone to far?
you know, this doesnt bother me.
"On one hand I feel for woman (not homosexuals, who give up their gift of children by being homosexual)"
So people choose to be homosexual? You really think so? You must not know many gay people.
strippers choose to strip.
doctors chose to care for patients.
these women choose to carry these children.
god allows this.
choice.
Drug addicts choose to shoot heroin...
Prostitutes choose to sell sex ...
Poor Indian women, victims of foreign colonialism and economic exploitation, do not "choose" to rent their wombs to foreign homosexuals - in a vacuum.
God does not allow this ...
Scientists with test tubes, drugs and hypodermic needles allows this ...
If one thinks about it, this is the anti-thesis of God.
DV
"God does not allow this ..."
Does God allow some newborns to die from medical complications? Or is it the newborns fault?
this is disgusting to me.
it's capitalistic exploitation at its lowest.
i am not opposed to the idea of surrogate motherhood, shoot, i may even consider it for someone i love, but selling children?
this capitalistic exploitation extends to the sale of internal organs ( especially kidneys) by poor indian people. there exist whole villages in india where a good number of the adults have only one kidney.
unbelievable!
“I am not opposed to the idea of surrogate motherhood, shoot; I may even consider it for someone I love, but selling children?”
This is the same. Knowing the recipient parents, even loving them does not make it any more "natural" what's good for the goose....
If we are judging this in any way having not experienced the desperation present on either side, we are simply speaking out of turn. If they could not rent their wombs because Americans in bel aire that it was immoral, that would not change their plights and they would simply rent or have something else taken from them.
And DV, to suggest that the powers of oppression that make these foreign women such victims is not the same as those that exist for 17-year-old American prostitutes is disingenuous. Clearly you are more inclined to have sympathy for women who are "distant" than the women who are near.
"If we are judging this in any way having not experienced the desperation present on either side, we are simply speaking out of turn."
You're absolutely right.
I wouldn't be honest though if i said i thought this practice was not exploitative.
I do not think it is okay for American people, on a 'desperate' quest to obtain all that is desired, to exploit the true desperation of people of color all over the world.
Something about that is very disgusting to me, from where i'm sitting today.
Tomorrow, perhaps I'll agree with you in theory AND practice.
"And DV, to suggest that the powers of oppression that make these foreign women such victims is not the same as those that exist for 17-year-old American prostitutes is disingenuous. Clearly you are more inclined to have sympathy for women who are "distant" than the women who are near." Jasai
My beloved sister Jasai,
Just as you have confused the rejection of gay politics with a “hatred of homosexuals”, you appear to confuse the condemnation of a culture that engineers prostitution, with an attack on 17 year-old prostitutes.
People who claim to wish to "liberate" Arab women who wear Burkhas should do something about the American girls performing in "Barely 18 Anal Gang Bang" pornos first.
I am not expressing “sympathy” for Indian women. This is not about emotions. I am expressing stunned revulsion at the commoditization of something as precious and God given as a mother’s womb.
What’s next, growing and harvesting babies for their internal organs?
Is nothing sacred?
that which individuals make scared in their lives from moment to moment.
That's what's sacred.
Where’s the shock? Americans and American homosexuals live in a country where the government pays citizens to temporarily rent children a la the foster care system…...this is merely an extension of that. On a side note, with the current trend of wanting for lack of a better term “ a child of blended appearances”, I wonder how many of these womb-renting “Americans” are black…….
The only difference i see between this in vitro fertilization of surrogate mothers and the story of sara giving abram hagar is how the sperm got to the womb. According to the story, god wasn't angry that abram committed adultery, or that sara treated hagar as her personal property (ok, maybe she was a slave), but that they doubted god's word.
The biggest difference i see is that in the bible story, god punished hagar and ismael for something that wasn't even their fault! Driven off into the desert and left to die, and what fault is it of the child's, or even of hagar's? Sounds like a stepfather who would beat the stepkid for his mother's offense. Definitely not the kind of god i want to serve.
It's funny to me how people accuse medicine of 'playing god' in abortion and in vitro fertilization, and assisted self-euthanasia, but see absolutely no problem with keeping people artificially alive (schiavo), kidney transplants, chemotherapy (using an known carcinogin to cure cancer?!), aspirin, antibiotics, and breast implants.
My problem with the story isn't even the exploitation of these women, they have to eat, too, and they aren't spreading communicable diseases to do it. They certainly aren't as bad as women who marry for money, and they and prostitutes are more honest about shagging for money than women who 'stay inside god's plan of marriage' to support a child or three from other men. No, my problem is that they have to do this in the first place, and that people would rather pay someone to have a child of their genepool born into an already over-crowded world, while leaving millions of children with no home, no hope for a bright future, homeless and hopeless, still.
It's egocentricity at it's finest.
Whew ...
Passionate and thoughtful response Nut.
Big Ups.
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