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Western babies - made in India

Published on : 15 January 2010 - 12:43pm | By RNW English section
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More and more Westerners are hiring women in India as surrogate mothers. It's a highly lucrative industry whose worth is rising rapidly. Western couples are flocking to India because the costs are lower and legislation regarding commercial surrogacy is not as strict as in many other countries.

At an infertility clinic in the state of Gujarat, there are over 50 active surrogates. The surrogacy team has an average of three babies a month. The surrogates are implanted with the client's embryo. They carry under contract until delivery. The surrogate mothers rent out their wombs for around 5000 euros, the equivalent of 10 years of wages in India.

Dr Nayna Patel started the clinic five years ago. She requires surrogates to already have their own children and limits each to three tries. She cringes at anyone who calls this exploitative. "As soon as you come to a poor country," she says, "you say that it's exploitation. But I know what it means to be a surrogate and how the compensation changes these women's lives".

The subtitles in this video were made to be viewed in full-screen mode.

 

Discussion

Blue Planet 18 January 2010 - 11:32pm / Milkyway

All the young born babies should have a mixed white/brown color and beautiful black Indian hear. Blue eyes and blond hair is already used.

Pardesi 15 January 2010 - 6:07pm / Suriname

Jasmin. I do understand that you care a lot for the Indian poor women. You are also right about the exploitation. In case you have to survive everything is allowed. To make a choice between 2 wrong item/themes for the survival is very difficult but make a choice. Kill or be killed is the question. The reach childless parents should also take care of the balanced diet. Is there another choice at the moment for the poor Indian women? The reach Indian women are educated and they know what to do. The poor uneducated Indian women are once again the victims. In what a hell of the world are we living in?

jasmin 15 January 2010 - 5:32pm / India

Pardesi, be realistic, Indian women who offer themselves for surrogacy are hardly healthy. Average Indian woman is anaemic and her body resources get depleted by repeated pregnancies and miscarriages. Their diet is hardly balanced, their menfolk shirk responsibility, so they have to work hard. Being surrogate mother means another way to make them less healthy. Ideally, a woman should have next child after three years. It is not about making the childless couples happy but it's about reducing poor women to baby-producing machines, which is exploitation.

Hiram 15 January 2010 - 6:17pm / USA

"It is not about making the childless couples happy but it's about reducing poor women to baby-producing machines, which is exploitation.".......Jasmin is correct. It is exploitation and the exploitation is harming the surrogate mother. The only loser is the surrogate mother. But, this is normal for a humanistic society that places very little value on the lives of babies and women. If society has no qualms about the lives of babies, why would it have any qualms about the welfare of poor women who are looked at as pets in a puppy-mill. They, women, are being exploited for greed and the loser, as said before, will be the losers.

Pardesi 15 January 2010 - 5:11pm / Suriname

The healthy but poor Indian women are helping the reach childless parents. Which of those two groups is the furtunate&happy one? In my opinion there is nothing wrong with the surrogate mothers because to give birth is a gift of the higher intelligence/GOD. In this case India is offering the world life. In the future India has a lot to offer as she always did. Be happy and enjoy.

jasmin 15 January 2010 - 4:23pm / India

It sounds like helping the childless parents and the poor Indian women, but it's not clear what Dr Patel earns out of the deal and is she repeating the wombs? If she is, then that's exploitation of human body for her own profit rather than alleviating the poverty of the surrogate mothers.

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