Sunday 13 October 2013

India’s “Baby Factories”: Exploitation?

By Shayne Martinez

Some people may take this as exploitation, but for infertile women and surrogate mothers, surrogacy clinics or the ‘baby factory’ as some may call it, benefits them in both ways. Infertile women could have a chance of being a mother to her own child, while surrogate mothers could help their own families with the money they receive.

Dr. Nayra Patel in India decided to build a hospital that will accommodate surrogate mothers and clients from different countries in the world, especially those from nations where surrogacy is illegal. The hospital will have self-catering apartments, offices, delivery rooms, gift shops, and an IVF or the In Vitro Fertilization department where potential parents will send their sperm and embryos for the process.

Earlier this year, Matt Rudge from BBC Four created a documentary called ‘House of Surrogates’ that tackles the complexities of surrogacy. The documentary touches on the challenges when rich couples use the womb of a woman having a poor background, in exchange for financial compensation.

Last month, Rekha Patel, a 42-year old British restaurateur gazed in disbelief when her newborn baby girl was born through the surrogacy process. “I can’t believe we have our own child at last,” she said with joy. The baby girl was born at the Akanksha clinic, Northwest India. “We are really grateful to our surrogate mother who managed to get pregnant and kept our little daughter healthy. She gave nine months of her life to give us a child,” she added.

Each surrogate mother will receive $8000 for carrying a child until birth. It might sound like selling babies unethically, but the doctor behind this project strongly believe that she isn’t doing this for profit, but only to innovate the surrogacy process and provide a gift of life to parents.

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