Outsourcing takes so many forms. Foreigners rent wombs in India in order to save money.
Commercial surrogacy, which is banned in some states and some European countries, was legalized in India in 2002. The cost comes to about $25,000, roughly a third of the typical price in the United States. That includes the medical procedures; payment to the surrogate mother, which is often, but not always, done through the clinic; plus air tickets and hotels for two trips to India (one for the fertilization and a second to collect the baby).
I'm sure you all can see the next logical step: parenting surrogacy. Hire the surrogate mother to keep taking care of the kid even after birth. Get to claim the kid is yours without having to interrupt your drive to success by actually taking the time to raise it. You could fly into India (or have the baby flown to your home country) once a year to get a series of pictures taken with the kid. That way the pictures at your office desk or in your wallet stay up to date with your age and your co-workers do not have to suspect you rarely see the kid. You can even fake authentic child raising problems. Occasionally (but not as often as in real life child raising) when the kid gets the flu in India you could even stay home from work for a couple of days and pretend to take care of Johnnie or Jill.
A deluxe parenting surrogacy service would include a web cam accessible only by you and some camera monitoring personnel in India. When an important moment happens (e.g. your baby's first step) a camera monitoring worker could notify you and email you the video clip showing those first steps. The baby would be kept in a US-looking living room which could be made to look like your own. With the Indian surrogates care in staying away from the camera you could even show your baby's first steps to people in the office.
The problem with parenting surrogacy of course are the invitations where you are supposed to bring Junior. This is where surrogacy in Mexico might be able to compete with surrogacy in India. If the little tyke is only a short airplane hop away from where you live then the baby can be brought in just for baby birthday parties and the like.
Medical tourism surrogacy is rapidly growing.
Rudy Rupak, co-founder and president of PlanetHospital, a medical tourism agency with headquarters in California, said he expected to send at least 100 couples to India this year for surrogacy, up from 25 in 2007, the first year he offered the service.
Lower prices in India make surrogacy affordable by middle class Americans.
Under guidelines issued by the Indian Council of Medical Research, surrogate mothers sign away their rights to any children. A surrogate’s name is not even on the birth certificate.
This eases the process of taking the baby out of the country. But for many, like Lisa Switzer, 40, a medical technician from San Antonio whose twins are being carried by a surrogate mother from the Rotunda clinic, the overwhelming attraction is the price. “Doctors, lawyers, accountants, they can afford it, but the rest of us — the teachers, the nurses, the secretaries — we can’t,” she said. “Unless we go to India.”
Outsourcing isn't just for corporations. Outsourcing is for mothers too.
By Randall Parker at 2008 March 15 10:11 PM Bioethics Reproduction | TrackBackInteresting. Think it's possible embryos can benefit to some degree from a more genetically similar womb environment?
Just think of all the homosexual men we will have from serial surrogates. Parents need to start asking how many children the surrogate has had in the past. They should pay a premium and get a first time mom.
Bob,
Excellent point. The risk for homosexuality goes up by the number of pregnancies. Surrogates should deliver males for their first couple of pregnancies and then switch to females.
The bio-conservatives are all hung up on this, and for a good reason. I think surrogacy is creepy. The idea that a woman puts her body through all of the contortions of pregnancy for another couple is quite repulsive to me, from an aesthetics point of view. Much like organ transplantation and the like. However, the bio-conservatives go off the cliff with their demands that somehow this should be "regulated" or banned" forgetting that anytime you ban something where there is a market for it, you simply create a black market, like our silly war on drugs.
I propose that, like anything else, technology will deliver the positive sum solution to this dilemma. Development of the exowomb is ongoing and will probably reach fruition within 10 years. This will eliminate surrogacy far more effectively than any kind of ban. Of course I forgot, the social conservatives (much like the liberal left) don't actually want to solve any problems in a positive sum manner. Because it they do then they have no further reason to exist and to be able have lots of political power to boss people around. So, you see, there is not such thing as a political solution to any particular problem. There are only technological ones.
Actually, from an aesthetic point of view, I'd kinda like to have kids and a hot looking wife without stretch marks, scars or sags.
We live to reproduce. Simply that. Nothing is comparable to a man a woman creating and rearing a child. Absolutely nothing. To disrupt that love triangle is to subvert one's very purpose in this transient, autophagic universe. All else is mere solipsism.
To heck with that. I am 100% pure unadulterated soma, and I am here to enjoy it while it lasts.
Consider as well that there's increased testosterone in the womb that carries over from previous male fetuses. In the study I saw on the subject (ca. 1998) they found this to be consistent with increased average body mass in younger brothers, including penis size. I assume females are affected by the increased testosterone in the womb as well, and in my observations they tend to be larger-boned than females born after older sisters.
Bob Badour said at March 16, 2008 04:07 PM:To heck with that. I am 100% pure unadulterated soma, and I am here to enjoy it while it lasts.
At least a man could arrange to father a child and raise it without having to worry about getting screwed over in a divorce and losing his children. I like it.
Don't believe the idea notion that birth order affect sexual orientation. I'm the third son and enjoy women. In my experience at college it seemed more likely that the oldest son was the gay one ... but I never conducted a study of it! lol
Though Surrogacy sounds like a solution for serious infertility problems, continuing the bond for baby care is despicable. The Mother already lost the biological tie-up, and by allowing the baby to live in India is worsening their emotional tie-up too. I think the parents have to be really concerned because it’s a gift after the entire struggle made by the childless couple. However the decision is individualized, it is encouraging exploitation of baby care centers in highly populated India.
M.Maheswari.RN