Social Mobility Or Biological Colonialism?

It is a typical morning in Anand, Gujarat. Prabha (name changed) smiles and rubs her seven-month pregnant belly affectionately. She points to a photograph of her three children, aged 3, 7 and 9, and fondly recollects their most recent visit to see her in the hospital. Her husband earns about a 100 rupees a day as a wage-labourer. When asked about her emotional connection to the baby she is carrying, Prabha realistically acknowledges that it isn’t hers. Being paid between Rs. 1.4 and 2.5 lakhs to be a surrogate, she says that the money will be used toward a loan her husband is finding difficult to repay on his meagre earnings.

India is amongst a handful of countries (Georgia, Russia, Thailand and Ukraine included) to have legalized commercial surrogacy. It is the preferred destination for “fertility tourists”, owing to the availability of skilled doctors, ineffective legal regulation and most importantly, availability of women willing to be surrogates for, relatively, a very low cost. There are over a thousand surrogacy centres in India, and the business is estimated at around $2.3 billion.

Many see nothing wrong with India’s booming baby market. Couples who are unable to conceive are able to experience the joy of a baby of their own, and surrogate mothers are paid the full amount at the end of the 9-month period once the baby/babies are safely delivered.

The stories of women like Premila Vaghila, who died after giving birth prematurely, are easily forgotten. After all, she had fulfilled her contractual obligations and delivered a healthy baby to a non-Indian couple. Wesley J. Smith, Fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center on Human Exceptionalism, refers to the commercialization of women’s uteruses as “biological colonialism,” where individuals exploit those who are destitute and powerless to enhance their own health and happiness.

Whilst it may be true that women who have agreed to be surrogates give their ‘consent’, the economic considerations involved necessitate a discourse on exploitation. Other examples of exploitative biological colonialism include the organ trade black-market, estimated by the World Health Organization to involve over 10,000 kidney transplants per year; and testing on human subjects in developing countries involving procedures and methods not approved for use in the West.

It is suggested that over 150,000 people in India are involved in over 1,600 clinical tests. Companies reduce their research costs by close to 60% by outsourcing their work. The case of thirteen year old Sarita Kudumula, whose parents only discovered that she was involved in a medical study funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to test the HPV (Human Papiloma Virus) Vaccine, is reflective of the lack of oversight and the potential for concern.

When seen in this light, India’s rent-a-womb industry raises troubling questions on exploitation. The Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Bill 2008 proposes to regulate the surrogacy industry by imposing an age bracket of 21-35 years for a surrogate mother, making the consent of the spouse for married women compulsory, and prohibiting implantation cycles of more than 3 times per couple, amongst other measures. However, larger questions seem to never have been asked. Can the rights of women be sold and purchased? What are the emotional and psychological costs of surrogacy? And most crucially, what does the prevalence of women who are willing to rent their wombs for a few lakh rupees say about an apparently rising global economy and its society?