India's new outsourcing business -
wombs By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - It is a new dimension to
outsourcing. An increasing number of couples are
coming to India in search of cheaper fertility
treatments, donor eggs and surrogate mothers.
After turning to Indians to answer
customer-service calls, the West, it seems, is now
turning to them to carry their babies.
For
couples looking for fertility treatment, India is
an attractive destination. They can avail
themselves of treatment at a relatively low cost.
Besides, it is easier finding a surrogate mother
here, and the cost of renting her womb to carry
the fertilized egg is a fraction of what it would
be back home.
In-vitro fertilization
treatment involves the fertilization of the egg
and sperm in a test tube. Once fertilized, the
embryo is
transferred into the uterus
of the biological mother. In some cases, where the
biological mother's medical condition does not
permit her to carry the fetus, a surrogate mother
does the job. In the United States, a couple would
have to fork out about US$15,000 to the surrogate
mother and another $30,000 to agencies involved.
In India, they can do this on a smaller budget -
the entire cost ranges between $2,500 and $5,000.
"Reproductive tourism" - as this trade is
being referred to - is a booming business. Valued
at more than $450 million in India, the industry
is growing at a rapid pace. While exact figures
are hard to come by, it is said that the number of
cases of surrogacy has doubled over the past three
years.
As in the case of the outsourcing
industry in general, the low cost of the service
provided by an Indian surrogate mother is the
reason for India's emergence at the forefront of
the reproductive tourism business. But there are
other factors that make India attractive. One is
the high-quality health care available in private
hospitals, which provide Westerners with excellent
health facilities at a fraction of the cost back
home. This has in fact turned India into a place
where foreigners come for medical treatment.
There are other placees such as Eastern
Europe, Russia and China that offer these
benefits, but India scores on another point as
well - the availability of English-speaking
doctors.
India's laws favor reproductive
tourists. Unlike in Britain, for instance, where a
surrogate mother who has contributed the egg can
claim the baby she has delivered as her own at any
time during the first two years of the child's
life, in India the surrogate mother signs away her
rights to the baby as soon as she has delivered
it. Furthermore, in India implanting of five
embryos into the womb of the surrogate mother is
permissible. In Britain, a maximum of two is
allowed.
It is mainly women from the lower
middle class who are offering to be surrogate
mothers. They earn about $2,500, which is big
money in a country where the per capita annual
income is just $500 and where about 35% of the
population lives on less than $1 a day.
On
the face of it, everyone - the doctors in the
business, the middlemen who arrange the deals and
the surrogate mothers - are smiling. "It's a
win-win situation," said a doctor in Mumbai.
Doctors in the reproductive-tourism
business bristle when they are accused of engaging
in unethical practice or when their trade is
compared to another booming business - the trade
in kidneys. After all, both are exploitative,
feeding off the poverty of the donor/surrogate
mother. But they insist that there is no
exploitation, that the surrogate mother is well
looked after by the couple paying for her
services. The latter apparently ensure that she
eats well when she is carrying the baby. The
doctors claim they ensure that the surrogate
mothers don't bond with the baby by constantly
reminding them that the fetus in their womb is not
theirs.
When asked about their feelings
about having to give up the child they have
carried for so many months, surrogate mothers say
they are happy that their service has brought
happiness to another couple. They say the money
they earned will enable them to ensure a better
future for their own children.
But dig
deeper and their emotional anguish becomes
evident.
What is more, in countries like
India where women are often forced to do as
ordered by husbands and in-laws, the possibility
of family pressure on her to become a surrogate
mother for the sake of big money cannot be ruled
out. And then there is the social stigma attached
to carrying the child of a man who is not her
husband.
But these issues do not seem to
trouble those profiting from the business. Dr
Nayana Patel, director of the Akanksha Infertility
Clinic in Anand (a small town in the western state
of Gujarat), is at the forefront of the surrogacy
business. India has the potential to become the
world center for reproductive outsourcing, she
says.
The "rent-a-womb business" has added
a whole new dimension to India's outsourcing
industry.
Sudha Ramachandran is
an independent journalist/researcher based in
Bangalore.
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