India takes outsourcing to a new level as women rent out wombs to foreigners
Daily Mail (UK)
By IAN LEECH
Last updated at 17:10pm on 9th November 2007
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 - was once 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 others, for a fee.
India has for years provided 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. Alternatively, a surrogate also
provide 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.
She said foreigners find Indian legal procedures easy and less exploitative, unlike in the west, where any
complication could cost a fortune.
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.
While a couple in the west would generally pay tens of thousands of pounds to a surrogate mother and
affiliated agencies, in India the cost could be around £2,500, plus medical and attendant costs.
Leading advocate of surrogacy, Dr. Naina Patel of the Akanksha Fertility Clinic in Anand, contends that it is
a positive service. "Infertility is a global problem and we have its global solution," she said.
Responding to criticism that poor Indians are being exploited, Patel insisted that surrogate mothers were
extremely well looked after by those paying for their services. They were housed comfortably and were
under expert medical supervision to ensure healthy children for their clients, she said.
But not all share Patel's enthusiasm and many believe surrogacy carries a huge physical and emotional cost
for the women.
Dr. Mohanlal Swarankar, chairman of the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences in Jaipur and one
of the leading fertility experts in India, is firmly opposed to the practice of surrogacy and wants what he
called the "commercial sale of wombs and babies" to be outlawed.
"Surrogacy affects the whole moral fabric of a society and could trigger complex psychological and ethical
dilemmas with no easy answers," he said.
Swarankar said he worried that in a country where women are often forced into submission, "Who could tell
if a woman hadn't been pressured to be a surrogate mother for the sake of big money?" He also warned that
"the social stigma attached to carrying the child of another man" could traumatize women and their
relationships with their husbands.
Swarankar said he offers IVF treatment only to legally married couples, as he believes "providing a child to
an infertile couple is a service to God."
He said he was also distressed at the increasing number of young healthy, married working women unwilling
to put their careers on hold to have a baby, and thus paying someone else to do so on their behalf.
This was nothing short of sacrilege, he said.
1. What is a surrogate mother? Is India the only place where surrogacy is available?
2. What is exploitation? In what way do critics say surrogacy exploits poor Indians?
3. Who is Dr. Patel? How does she respond to these criticisms?
4. Dr. Patel's clinic provides a service for biological parents who are otherwise unable to have a child of their
own, and does so at a lower cost than in the U.S. and Europe. Is this a mutually beneficial arrangement for
both the biological parents and the surrogate mother, or is it exploitation? Are there moral and cultural
considerations that outweigh the benefits? What do you think?