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…
Rudy Rupak, co-founder and president of PlanetHospital, a U.S. medical tourism agency, said he expects 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…
For many, like Lisa Switzer, a 40-year-old medical technician from Texas whose twin babies are being carried by a surrogate mother from the 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. Unless we go to India,” she said.
Detailed article. The kind of piece the IHT does well. Even when it ain’t an easy topic.
Is this a sign of a market top in the Indian outsourcing frenzy?
That’s just sick.
Heaven forbid that people adopt a kid rather than have a child with their own dna…
That is a _literal_ WTF!
So what’s the problem? All I see are voluntary contractual agreements between 2 parties.
There is widespread paranoia in India about organ and baby stealing by rich westerners.
Maybe it’s not paranoia!
So if a couple who are U.S. citizens invitro fertilize a surrogate Indian woman, is the created child a U.S. citizen if it is not born on U.S. soil? It is legally their child or do the DNA parents to adopt it? What happens if the child is born with a birth defect traced to bad prenatal care or a genetic predisposition? Looks like the lawyers will be making more money.
#7
You raise a really interesting point!
My guess is that the birth-mother is a legal parent but who knows?
Here is another issue in the article:
Dr. Naina Patel, who runs the Anand clinic, said that even Americans who could afford the cost of surrogacy at home were coming to her, because Indian women “were free of vices, like alcohol, smoking and drugs.”
This, of course, is pure propaganda.
It brings up the legal issue, though. This is effectively an outlaw procedure. American parents should proceed assuming they have absolutely no legal recourse should anything go wrong.
For example, if the baby has fetal alcohol syndrome, (despite Dr. Patel’s claims) there will be no legal recourse. The couple will be just stuck. But that’s how outsourcing is.
India’s paranoia regarding organ stealing seems well placed, considering the recent kidney stealing ring uncovered.
Also, there was a story about 30 years ago about someone kidnapping children, killing them, and selling their skeletons on the international market. Notice how small the skeletons are in the colleges and doctor’s offices?
It is so nice to know that when you have exhausted all options, even adoption. There is a place where older couples can go to have the child (children) they could otherwise not have.
Test!
My best friend is the woman in this article. The forty year old woman who will be getting her twins in the summer. It is quite easy to sit and say things like, “That’s sick” and “God forbid they adopt.”
Speaking from ignorance is never a good thing. There is nothing sick about it. Nothing at all. The child is biologically theirs and the process is no different than if they had the child with an america surrogate. The difference is mostly cost.
This is not some 3rd world slave trade like many make is sound. These women are being paid better than their American counterparts and are well taken care of. I believe american surrogates make about 20k, hardly life changing money. In a country were most people make 70 dollars a month, 8k is LIFE CHANGING money.
As to the issue of adoption. You even know what is involved in that? The money is huge. The heartache is often and intense. Waiting for years. At 40 you do not have that option. There is a point where you are too OLD to adopt. Add that to the horror stories of women coming back and wanting their babies or the right to see them. Even with no legal standing the trauma, the money, the grief of dealing with it.
Foster care can often get you children to adopt quicker, but more often than not these children spend years being loved and bonded to a foster mother/father and then some relative pops up and wants the kid or his crack head mom gets him back. Not something I would want to go through, sorry.
All i have to say really is grow the hell up. Until you spent a chunk of your life being denied the one thing you want more than anything you can sit in judgment. Until then, quit spouting off at the mouth.