Monday, February 05, 2007
The Exploitation of Mothers for Their Babies
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DISGUTINGLY BLATANT EXPLOITATION OF THE POOR
American couples head to India for cheaper fertility serhttp://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifvices
MUMBAI, India - Jyoti Dave is pregnant, but when the 30-year-old gives birth in March the baby will not be taken home to bond with her other child, but will instead be handed over to an American couple unable to conceive.
For her trouble, the Indian surrogate mother will be paid. She won’t say how much, but she says it’s money she desperately needs to feed her poor family after an industrial accident left the family’s only breadwinnner unable to work.
“My husband lost his limbs working in the factory,” Dave told Reuters. “We could not manage even a meal a day. That is when I decided to rent out my womb.”
Surrogate motherhood is among the latest in a long list of roles being outsourced to India, where rent-a-womb services are far cheaper than in the West.
“In the U.S. a childless couple would have to spend anything up to $50,000,” Gautam Allahbadia, a fertility specialist who helped a Singaporean couple obtain a child through an Indian surrogate last year, told Reuters.
“In India, it’s done for $10,000-$12,000.”
Fertility clinics usually charge $2,000-$3,000 for the procedure while a surrogate is paid anything between $3,000 and $6,000, a fortune in a country with an annual per capita income of around $500.
But the practice is not without its critics in India with some calling it the “commoditization of motherhood” and an exploitation of the poor by the rich.
“It’s true I’m doing this for money, but is it also not true that a childless couple is benefiting?” said Rituja, a surrogate mother in Mumbai, who declined to give her full name.
Money meets convenience
For the surrogates — usually lower middleclass housewives — money is the primary motivator.
For their clients it’s infertility or — some claim — educated working women turning to hired wombs to avoid a pregnancy affecting careers.
But there is also a social dimension to their service, an empathy with the childless in a society that views reproduction as a sacred obligation, and believes good deeds performed in this life are rewarded in the next one, experts say.
“Surrogate mothers are giving their (the eventual parents’) lives a new meaning. For them the money they pay is just a token gesture that by no way substitutes their gratefulness,” said Deepak Kabir, a Mumbai-based gynecologist.
While there are no official figures it’s estimated between 100-150 surrogate babies are born each year in India, though the number of failed attempts is likely to be far higher.
Yashodhara Mhatre, a fertility consultant at Mumbai’s Center for Human Reproduction, says that while there are no comprehensive figures available perhaps 500-600 surrogate babies are born each year throughout the world.
DISGUTINGLY BLATANT EXPLOITATION OF THE POOR
American couples head to India for cheaper fertility serhttp://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifvices
MUMBAI, India - Jyoti Dave is pregnant, but when the 30-year-old gives birth in March the baby will not be taken home to bond with her other child, but will instead be handed over to an American couple unable to conceive.
For her trouble, the Indian surrogate mother will be paid. She won’t say how much, but she says it’s money she desperately needs to feed her poor family after an industrial accident left the family’s only breadwinnner unable to work.
“My husband lost his limbs working in the factory,” Dave told Reuters. “We could not manage even a meal a day. That is when I decided to rent out my womb.”
Surrogate motherhood is among the latest in a long list of roles being outsourced to India, where rent-a-womb services are far cheaper than in the West.
“In the U.S. a childless couple would have to spend anything up to $50,000,” Gautam Allahbadia, a fertility specialist who helped a Singaporean couple obtain a child through an Indian surrogate last year, told Reuters.
“In India, it’s done for $10,000-$12,000.”
Fertility clinics usually charge $2,000-$3,000 for the procedure while a surrogate is paid anything between $3,000 and $6,000, a fortune in a country with an annual per capita income of around $500.
But the practice is not without its critics in India with some calling it the “commoditization of motherhood” and an exploitation of the poor by the rich.
“It’s true I’m doing this for money, but is it also not true that a childless couple is benefiting?” said Rituja, a surrogate mother in Mumbai, who declined to give her full name.
Money meets convenience
For the surrogates — usually lower middleclass housewives — money is the primary motivator.
For their clients it’s infertility or — some claim — educated working women turning to hired wombs to avoid a pregnancy affecting careers.
But there is also a social dimension to their service, an empathy with the childless in a society that views reproduction as a sacred obligation, and believes good deeds performed in this life are rewarded in the next one, experts say.
“Surrogate mothers are giving their (the eventual parents’) lives a new meaning. For them the money they pay is just a token gesture that by no way substitutes their gratefulness,” said Deepak Kabir, a Mumbai-based gynecologist.
While there are no official figures it’s estimated between 100-150 surrogate babies are born each year in India, though the number of failed attempts is likely to be far higher.
Yashodhara Mhatre, a fertility consultant at Mumbai’s Center for Human Reproduction, says that while there are no comprehensive figures available perhaps 500-600 surrogate babies are born each year throughout the world.
# posted by Senior Mom @ 4:04 PM 
