Outsourcing Embryos
When I was eleven years old, my mother gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby boy. Seconds after exiting the womb, he was handed to his parents—a gay couple who were long-time family friends of ours. It is only many years later that I have begun to understand the immense sacrifice my mother made so that another couple could raise a child of their own.
Two weeks ago, while indulging my addiction to the documentary TV show Vice, a particular episode caught my attention. Journalist Gianna Toboni went to India to investigate the growing industry of gestational surrogacy. In one popular facility, she discovered an eerily systematic process of birth. A surrogate mother gave birth by scheduled caesarian section, workers handed the baby off to the adoptive parents, and the next surrogate mother was wheeled into the room for her scheduled surgical delivery, with the next set of adoptive parents waiting nearby.
Surrogacy recruiters target women in poor communities, and they frequently do not pay them the full amount promised. However, many women continue to work for the clinics because they do not believe they can make the same amount money anywhere else..
As Toboni delved further into the baby trade, she encountered a far more disturbing reality—one far removed from the clean, efficient surrogacy clinics. Posing as a prospective client, Toboni met with a black market dealer who offered to provide her with a Caucasian baby in two to three months. Toward the end of their conversation, the dealer offered to sell her the infant who had been brought to the meeting.
A little more research revealed unethical insemination practices, including the implantation of multiple embryos, which often results in the abortion of one or more unplanned fetuses. Adoptive parents that failed to arrive and claim their baby effectively orphaned the newborn. Large billboards featuring smiling women and children paint an idealized version of the surrogacy industry, which thus far is completely unregulated in India.
I was stunned by this nightmare alternative to my family’s experience. My half brother and his fathers celebrate the holidays with us, my mother takes him to cello lessons and we joke that he is the boy version of me. I could not reconcile my family's experience with that of these hollow, exploited women and their exhaustive task of producing children for rich foreigners they never meet.
The surrogacy industry is a striking product of globalization, and its widespread effects are worthy of scrutiny. This is my attempt to join that conversation.