By MELISSA WELLHAM
You can rent or hire almost anything in life. Cars. Houses. Cleaners. Dates.
And you can also rent wombs.
BBC ran a documentary last week, in which they investigated a ‘house of surrogates’ in India: a venture where poverty-stricken women are paid to carry babies for the wealthy foreigners.
So-called ‘commercial surrogacy’ is an industry worth over 1 billion pounds each year in India alone. But the practice isn’t popular with everyone, and these set-ups have been condemned as ‘baby-making factories’ by those who oppose them.
Top Comments
Unless you have been through this and have seen these clinics for yourself, it is very easy to judge and assume incorrectly. I have been to India twice to undertake ivf and use a surrogate and the negative comments below could not be further from the truth.
the women are very well looked after and willing and able, and are not young or forced into it. They all have children. They are wonderful women who are giving an amazing gift. The doctors are also professional and open and honest.
as for the lovely people here who believe that infertile people and gay people just should move on and forget about children, how terribly sad and unkind of you for thinking like that. I actually pity you. Perhaps we should all be a little more positive with our comments.
The fact that women are paid $8000 out of a total $28,000 received by the clinic is very reasonable.
In businesses where profit is the main goal, the usual ratio of working out how much an employee should be paid is a third of the total amount they bring in to the business. Every profit-making business I've worked for - whether I've been paid $30k a year or $100k a year - has paid me around a third (give or take a few grand) of the total capacity of income I should have been bringing to the business.
So I disagree that the amount payable to women who are surrogates in this particular clinic is in any way ethically questionable.
Also, consider the fact that the women are given lodgings, medical treatment, food and care and taught new skills during the nine months of their 'confinement'. These things do not come free, and in fact add further value for the women than if they'd done nothing.
I agree the emotional toll would be very difficult for many women, however I imagine the clinic either would or should be paying for counselling as well, and that is a further expense.
In all, companies like this in India are filling a market that the Western world is clearly not filling, and if the story about this 'baby making factory' is how this industry is run throughout India, then people involved in this business can hardly have mud thrown at them.
Great article.