The Ethical Optimist

Yesterday, I was flipping through my local paper, The Asbury Park Press, when I saw an advertisement for “Surrogacy in India.”  It stopped me cold.  I’ve heard of outsourcing call centers and other functions, but outsourcing birth?

My first reaction was one of horror because it struck me that this was just another way to exploit women in poor countries.  I was compelled to look online and do a bit of research because my curiosity was now aroused.

I found a great article in Marie Claire.  What I found, however, was disturbing:

Another example of third-world exploitation? Globalization gone mad? The system certainly lends itself to the criticism that foreign women unwilling or unable to pay high Western fees happily exploit poor women at a 10th of the price it would cost back home. The system also avoids the legal red tape and ill-defined surrogacy laws women face in the U.S. (Not to mention that India, unlike some developing countries, has a fairly advanced medical system and doctors who speak English.) Or is it a mutually beneficial relationship? By some estimates, Indian surrogacy is already a $445-million-a-year business.

The Wall Street Journal also did a great story on this new wave of outsourcing, noting that :

According to Hrishikesh Pai, a Mumbai-based in-vitro fertilization specialist and vice-president of the Indian Society for Assisted Reproduction, India now has about 350 facilities that offer surrogacy as a part of a broader array of infertility-treatment services, triple the number in 2005. Last year, Dr. Pai says, about 1,000 pregnancy attempts using surrogates were made at these clinics. This year, he estimates the figure will jump to 1,500, with about a third of those made on behalf of parents from outside India who hired surrogates.

Now a second business has sprung up…sourcing Caucasian eggs.  One entrepreneur in the story now flies women in from Russia to “farm” their eggs; once again, exploiting women who have few choices for education and employment in their home country.

A package that includes an Indian egg donor costs $32,500, excluding transportation and hotel expenses for the intended parent or parents to travel to India. A package with eggs from a Georgian donor costs an extra $5,000.

Some say it is a form of prostitution in that women are forced to sell their bodies in order to survive.  One example in the Journal illustrates:

Still, it’s a way to raise money in sometimes desperate circumstances. Take Sudha, a 25-year-old mother of two who now works as a maid in Chennai earning $20 a month. She owes moneylenders about $2,700, borrowed to pay bribes to secure a government job as a streetsweeper, which never materialized. A neighbor told her she could earn about $2,000 at a local clinic by bearing a child for an infertile couple. She gave birth in July 2008 — and is haunted by the memory. “Whenever I have free time and I lie down, I think about the child. I pray that the child is safe and happy and is taken care of well.”

Sudha, who like other surrogates asked that only her first name be used, has reduced her debt to about $600, but the family still struggles to eat. One solution, her husband Umat says, is for Sudha to act as a surrogate again. But he adds that he “won’t force her if she says no.”

I cannot help but wonder about the ethics of a medical community that builds its profit model on exploitation or the buyers who are helping it grow without thought to the physical and emotional well being of the women they are using.

Some would argue that these women now have a way to earn several years’ worth of income with a single deed.  This, however, avoids the issue of why women in India – a country that seeks recognition as an economic powerhouse – still have to sell their bodies to survive.  It doesn’t address the root cause of the practice, which is the fact that women still lack the education and support necessary to make their own way in the world.

I personally find the practice abhorrent.  While some may argue that it is cheaper to outsource, I would counter that surrogates in America are paid more because they have more choices than those in third-world countries.

This is just another form of sexual slavery and it is both sickening and sad that it has become a marketable business here in America.