I could not really figure out a more polite caption than this. Though several terms crossed my mind including "reproductive tourism", "Outsourcing mothers", "reproduction re-defined", but in some way or the other, all sounded more offensive than this one.
Recently, I saw a NDTV talk show hosted by Barkha Dutt (don't remember if it was "Big Story" or "We the people" or something else). Among the panelists were several stakeholders including Doctors, Socialites and legal professionals.
It was nothing different than the usual talk show of Barkha Dutt where she sounds more important than the story itself and number of words she speaks are always greater than at least twice the sum of entire words spoken by all. This "all" includes the panelist, audience and guests over video conference.
Having said that, time and again, people like Barkha gives me confidence that there are thousands of people who speak more than I do. Oops, I again started. Well, actually you know, I don't write, I speak on papers too.
Before, I say anything on this; I offer my sincere apology, if it hurts your feeling in any manner. I want to offer apology not because I am afraid of taking the accountability of the words written, but for the simple reason, THE most respected relationship in this Universe remains the relationship between Mother and her child and I am trying to question this TRUST which are being diluted through a medical term - surrogacy.
Coming back to the caption, I started searching Google and read many articles on "Surrogacy, an Ethical/Moral dilemma", "Surrogacy, a substitute for parenthood", "Surrogacy in India..."
More I read, more I got exposed to disgusting facts. According to a site (http://www.marieclaire.com/world-reports/news/international/surrogate-mothers-india), Indian surrogacy is already a $445-million-a-year business. Some lines from this site:
"Surrogacy costs about $12,000 in India, including all medical expenses and the surrogate's fee. In the U.S., the same procedure can cost up to $70,000.
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?"
Further the site mention the history of Surrogacy as:
"How surrogacy came to be so popular in the choking backwater of Anand, a dairy community with a population of 150,000 in India's western state of Gujarat, is a long story. The short answer is Dr. Nayna Patel, 47, the clinic's director. A charismatic woman with flowing hair and a toothpaste-commercial smile, Patel single-handedly put Anand on the map when, in 2003, she orchestrated the surrogacy of a local woman who wanted to "lend" her womb to her U.K. based daughter.
The woman gave birth to test-tube twins, her own genetic grandchildren, and the event made headlines worldwide. Afterward, Patel was inundated with requests for surrogacy. She now has 45 surrogate mothers on her books, mostly impoverished women from nearby villages. Twenty-seven of them are currently pregnant, and each will be paid between $5000 and $7000, the equivalent to upwards of 10 years' salary for rural Indians. More than 50 babies have been born at the clinic in the past three years, half to Westerners or Indians living overseas."
Such topic always becomes contagious with thought process. It spawns more threads that further raise hundreds of moral and ethical questions. There are miles of lag in pragmatism while dealing with topic like surrogacy especially in country like ours, where infertility is considered more of a curse than anything else. And, emotional biasing only complicates the definition of terms like Need and Choice.
Commercial surrogacy is definitely not an answer for in-fertility or any other genuine cause, rather an easy and cheap way for economically rich parents to go for this option.
Just wondering is there any term called altruism surrogacy? How many real needy women get to use this bliss of medical science?
Practically, most of the beneficiaries are economically reach couple who want to enjoy the so called technical happiness of parenthood without going into the pain and responsibility of entire child-birth process?
Or is it path-breaking medical invention for gays and lesbians to continue their generations (I don't intend to hurt any kind of relationship, rather advocating for the most trusted relationship of Mother-child)?
I remember from the same article, where Patel admits there are dangers if the surrogacy business continues to grow in India. "There is little regulation by the Indian Medical Council, the body that oversees such practices," she says. "Rules need to be tighter to ensure women are not exploited."
Even if there comes some half boiled regulations, resulted child do not have any say on whether he/she want to come to this world as a hybrid product with different technical and biological parents.
There are thousands of debate and legal offering to protect the interest of the surrogate mother and beneficiary parents but what about the resulted child?
What about the trauma that child would go through? After all, parenthood is not a fundamental human right. This "fundamental human right" may sound weird, but I am sure, still it is more ethical then the entire commercialised concept of surrogacy.
There are people in the world who remains unmarried, some gets married but don't go for child, some want to have kids but have some real biological constraint so they can't help it any further.
From these kinds of people, I only understand one thing - "parenthood is not the fundamental rights of people" it remains a personal preference for "whatever..." reason it may be."
Why not adoption? Why can’t adoption be the answer for surrogacy?
Why don’t desire to help an orphaned child prevails over giving importance of a genetic relationship to the child.
Is not handing over a child after delivery for a fee “baby-selling”?
Parents should not put their own desire to be parents over the possible damage it might cause to the baby.
How come a women be granted the mother status who did not even bear the pain for 9 minutes; If $12000 is what it takes to be parents, then, possibly, all the rules of the Mother Nature need to be re-defined as per human needs; the-fucking-human-NEEDS.
On the other hand there is some logic to support the surrogacy. This is from same site,
"Vohra has no job but helps her husband in his scrap-metal business, for which they earn 50 to 60 rupees ($1.20 to $1.45) a day. If her pregnancy is successful, the $5500 she receives will, as she puts it, "give my children a future. This is not exploitation. Crushing glass for 15 hours a day is exploitation."
One of the beneficiary bristles at those who suggest that she chose India because it was hassle-free. "Some people made it out like we went grocery shopping and came back with a baby," she says. "But being in India was tough, the heat, the mosquitoes, worrying about biological mother and the baby's health. You have to want a baby real bad to deal with this kind of arrangement."
Well, can this be considered as a new way of giving employment to rural women? My apology to sound over board here, but can not understand the difference between a sex worker and commercial surrogates. Both use parts of her body to earn the livings. Or even for that matter why not organ selling is made legal. After all no one sale the organ for fun. They do so to fulfill the needs, even if it is drinking alcohols out of that. The same fucking-human-NEEDs.
The question is Need. Who is there to say what is morally right or wrong. For some, being parent is NEED for some drinking alcohols to survive is NEED.
Sometimes, it goes beyond the safe cocoon of understanding as to why, few times, capabilities of science only complicate the human NEEDs?
Thinking it in a little orthodox way now, these days science has literally made anything possible and medically enabling human to do everything their way. If there was any exception, then, undoubtedly it was entire birth process of a child.
If that too can be accomplished by hired womb, I can just pray for such parents that science invent some respect hormones too that can be put into the child’s brain, because in no theory of existence, any rented item can be excluded from commodity based thinking; respect is too far away a word.
With the historical records of the legal system in this country, surrogacy will eventually and inevitably become commercialized, with mothers “hiring out” their wombs to the highest bidder. Even if charges are standardized, the high level of such a fee will still enable that the rich are more likely to benefit than the poor, as they are more likely to be able to afford the cost. Parenthood would simply be decided by financial factors.
To my understanding, commercial surrogacy is bad for both the mother and the child, and is beset by emotional problems for all concerned. Parents should not put their own interests above their child.
