Outsourced "Wombs-For-Rent" In India

Rising Trend Of Indian Surrogates Carrying Babies For Infertile Women In U.S., Taiwan, Britain

(AP)  Every night in this quiet western Indian city, 15 pregnant women prepare for sleep in the spacious house they share, ascending the stairs in a procession of ballooned bellies, to bedrooms that become a landscape of soft hills.

A team of maids, cooks and doctors looks after the women, whose pregnancies would be unusual anywhere else but are common here. The young mothers of Anand, a place famous for its milk, are pregnant with the children of infertile couples from around the world.

The small clinic at Kaival Hospital matches infertile couples with local women, cares for the women during pregnancy and delivery, and counsels them afterward. Anand's surrogate mothers, pioneers in the growing field of outsourced pregnancies, have given birth to roughly 40 babies.

More than 50 women in this city are now pregnant with the children of couples from the United States, Taiwan, Britain and beyond. The women earn more than many would make in 15 years. But the program raises a host of uncomfortable questions that touch on morals and modern science, exploitation and globalization, and that most natural of desires: to have a family.

Dr. Nayna Patel, the woman behind Anand's baby boom, defends her work as meaningful for everyone involved.

"There is this one woman who desperately needs a baby and cannot have her own child without the help of a surrogate. And at the other end there is this woman who badly wants to help her (own) family," Patel said. "If this female wants to help the other one ... why not allow that? ... It's not for any bad cause. They're helping one another to have a new life in this world."

Experts say commercial surrogacy - or what has been called "wombs for rent" - is growing in India. While no reliable numbers track such pregnancies nationwide, doctors work with surrogates in virtually every major city. The women are impregnated in-vitro with the egg and sperm of couples unable to conceive on their own.

Commercial surrogacy has been legal in India since 2002, as it is in many other countries, including the United States. But India is the leader in making it a viable industry rather than a rare fertility treatment. Experts say it could take off for the same reasons outsourcing in other industries has been successful: a wide labor pool working for relatively low rates.

Critics say the couples are exploiting poor women in India - a country with an alarmingly high maternal death rate - by hiring them at a cut-rate cost to undergo the hardship, pain and risks of labor.

"It raises the factor of baby farms in developing countries," said Dr. John Lantos of the Center for Practical Bioethics in Kansas City, Mo. "It comes down to questions of voluntariness and risk."

Patel's surrogates are aware of the risks because they've watched others go through them. Many of the mothers know one another, or are even related. Three sisters have all borne strangers' children, and their sister-in-law is pregnant with a second surrogate baby. Nearly half the babies have been born to foreign couples while the rest have gone to Indians.

Ritu Sodhi, a furniture importer from Los Angeles who was born in India, spent $200,000 trying to get pregnant through in-vitro fertilization, and was considering spending another $80,000 to hire a surrogate mother in the United States.

"We were so desperate," she said. "It was emotionally and financially exhausting."

Then, on the Internet, Sodhi found Patel's clinic.

After spending about $20,000 - more than many couples because it took the surrogate mother several cycles to conceive - Sodhi and her husband are now back home with their 4-month-old baby, Neel. They plan to return to Anand for a second child.

"Even if it cost $1 million, the joy that they had delivered to me is so much more than any money that I have given them," said Sodhi. "They're godsends to deliver something so special."

Patel's center is believed to be unique in offering one-stop service. Other clinics may request that the couple bring in their own surrogate, often a family member or friend, and some place classified ads. But in Anand the couple just provides the egg and sperm and the clinic does the rest, drawing from a waiting list of tested and ready surrogates.

Young women are flocking to the clinic to sign up for the list.

Suman Dodia, a pregnant, baby-faced 26-year-old, said she will buy a house with the $4,500 she receives from the British couple whose child she's carrying. It would have taken her 15 years to earn that on her maid's monthly salary of $25.

Dodia's own three children were delivered at home and she said she never visited a doctor during those pregnancies.

"It's very different with medicine," Dodia said, resting her hands on her hugely pregnant belly. "I'm being more careful now than I was with my own pregnancy."

[gaye5]

Kaelinda, prostitution it totally different to renting a womb.. as I said in one of my last posts that with prostitution comes disease that although these girls are monitored that disease is rife amongst many prostitutes. They are only safe until then next unportected *** that they have and even then some diseases get through condoms, perhaps this is why they are called con doms..
Why do you think that there is a horrific rise in cervical cancers, simply because of free ***. Women who have had many partners are more likely to get cervical cancer and their men are more likely to get cancer of the *** and prostate.

And GrammaWhamma isn''t it wonderful that God has given us the brains to work out that we can fly, cut out cancers, heal the sick, have medical miracle etc,, and now so that women who desperately want a baby can do so, and at the same time give a family a chance to live properly...

[perrycbs1]

A follow-up on my previous post: Private US sperm donation has also resulted in problems for the sperm donor.

Should the mother of the child, or couple, need government assistance at some point the first thing that the welfare agencies do is garnish the wages of the biological father for child support if it was a privately arranged sperm donation, and not using sperm from a legally recognized sperm bank.

I understand that there are several lawsuits in the US court system at this time; but, even if the sperm donors win they will never get their garnished wages back nor their legal fees (which could bankrupt some of them).

Bottom line: within the US only the birth mother can decide to allow their baby to be adopted by another (even if she is not the biological mother - and was just a surrogate mother), and the biological father can be held responsible for child support regardless of private surrogate or private sperm donation contracts and any moneys spent by the couple in fees, health care, and birth cost. The birth mother virtually always wins custody of a baby.

That is why India and other foreign arrangements are in such demand.

[perrycbs1]

For those who wonder why this isn''t done in the USA. It is, but with limited success for the parents who want children and enough problems to create notice.

Within the US, the mom, or surrogate mom, is allowed to keep the child if she desires after birth. Thus, a couple with fertility problems can spend a good sum of $$$$$$ providing fees, care, and other things and end up with nothing. It has happened often enough to be noticed.

Add the fact that the biological father can then be held responsible for the next 18 years, with wage garnishment, for the cost of raising the child (with little if any visitation rights) and you do not have a great situation.

A similar problem has developed with the programs to help pregnant teens who initially would like to put their child up for adoption. The expectant couple can pay substantial cost - and even house the young lady for the duration of the pregnancy; only to have the young lady decide to keep her healthy baby. Some couples have gone through this, complete with housing the pregnant lady several times %u2013 without getting a baby to adopt.

Bottom line, the US legal system and courts has not yet been willing to enforce such contracts or provide a ballance. All the risk and responsibility is on the couple looking for a child, and no repercussions whatsoever for the surrogate mom or expectant teen if they decide to keep the child.

The India system looks really good from that perspective.

[jetranger7]

2008- is the year we''ll be OUTSOURCING something else we need to get rid of very fast,, its a BUSH,,We''ll be outsourcing this Bush TO ANYBODY WHO wants him, he ain''t worth a diddly F***,,But were getting rid of him anyway,, Can''t wait either !!!!

[beehive21-2009]

Cloning is next,give me a Blond,redhead and a brown hair girl.Mail order kids at its best.Outsourcing has taken a giant leap.

[keithle1]

The people & businesses in richer countries will always take advantage of the people in poorer countries.

When stupid, silly teenage American girls get pregnant, they should sell their baby to a couple that can''t have one. Probably make a decent chunk of change. $50-75,000 for a baby. Trick is to let the barren mother hold the baby & bond with it then let her cry & get emotional. That''s the cue for her rich husband to pull out his checkbook.

[grammawhamma]

I don''t see being a surrogate mother as playing God. I do, however, think adoption would be a better solution. Why do these people feel the need to have their own "blood" run in their baby''s veins...arrogance? Could they not find love in their hearts for an adopted baby?

[kaelinda]

Since a woman has a "right," according to the Supreme Court, to control her own body, and both abortion and surrogate pregnancies are legal, why is prostitution still illegal? If it were legalized, wouldn''t a lot of crime drop off? Women wouldn''t have to sneak around bad neighborhoods to make the money they need to buy their drugs or support their kids or whatever. Sounds to me like three shades of hypocrisy here...

[incog-nito]

Keithle1: You sound like one bitter, frustrated dude.

[mcv57]

berniepeders, you are comdemned to HE*LL, and no I am not idiot, just laszy to correct spelling.