Womb for Rent


Book Description

When Demi Dowd advertised her womb for rent on the cafeteria bulletin board of the research center, Dr. John Trammell-Bragg discovered he had a daughter conceived the old-fashioned way, one man passing time with one woman in the back seat of a rental car. One-hundred-twenty-five years later, the world had survived apocolypse, embryos had rights, everyone was Chinese or Texan, and sex was everyone's pursuit of happiness. That night might have changed or saved the world.




Babies of Technology


Book Description

A powerful call to protect the unique needs and rights of children born today using assisted reproductive technology




Wombs in Labor


Book Description

Surrogacy is India's new form of outsourcing, as couples from all over the world hire Indian women to bear their children for a fraction of the cost of surrogacy elsewhere with little to no government oversight or regulation. In the first detailed ethnography of India's surrogacy industry, Amrita Pande visits clinics and hostels and speaks with surrogates and their families, clients, doctors, brokers, and hostel matrons in order to shed light on this burgeoning business and the experiences of the laborers within it. From recruitment to training to delivery, Pande's research focuses on how reproduction meets production in surrogacy and how this reflects characteristics of India's larger labor system. Pande's interviews prove surrogates are more than victims of disciplinary power, and she examines the strategies they deploy to retain control over their bodies and reproductive futures. While some women are coerced into the business by their families, others negotiate with clients and their clinics to gain access to technologies and networks otherwise closed to them. As surrogates, the women Pande meets get to know and make the most of advanced medical discoveries. They traverse borders and straddle relationships that test the boundaries of race, class, religion, and nationality. Those who focus on the inherent inequalities of India's surrogacy industry believe the practice should be either banned or strictly regulated. Pande instead advocates for a better understanding of this complex labor market, envisioning an international model of fair-trade surrogacy founded on openness and transparency in all business, medical, and emotional exchanges.




Outsourcing the Womb


Book Description

A quiet revolution has been taking place during the past three decades. The way that children enter families has changed radically among upper middle class families. In the 1980s infertility increasing became defined as a medical problem that could be solved with assisted reproductive technologies (ART) rather than through adoption. Asexual or ‘assisted conception’ involving medical technologies such as in vitro fertilization and embryo transfers began to replace sexual reproduction for infertile couples. Third parties, referred to as surrogates are hired to assist individuals and/or couples who wish to conceive and child with whom they share a genetic tie. This has resulted in a ‘surrogate baby boom.’ Outsourcing the Womb provides a critical introduction to the global surrogacy market. A comparative analysis of the assisted reproductive technology and surrogacy industry in Egypt, Israel, India and the United States disentangles the intersecting roles of race, religion, class inequality, religious law, and global capitalism. Gestational surrogacy challenges the idea of ‘natural’ reproduction and of the meaning of parenthood. What role should the state play in providing individuals and families with access to reproductive technologies? This book concludes with a discussion of ‘reproductive justice’. The goal of this new, unique series is to offer readable, teachable "thinking frames" on today’s social problems and social issues by leading scholars, all in short 60 page or shorter formats, and available for view on http://routledge.customgateway.com/routledge-social-issues.html For instructors teaching a wide range of courses in the social sciences, the Routledge Social Issues Collection now offers the best of both worlds: originally written short texts that provide "overviews" to important social issues as well as teachable excerpts from larger works previously published by Routledge and other presses.




'Womb for Rent'


Book Description

Infertility affects approximately 2-3 million married couples in the USA and a larger cohort of unmarried men and women. For those not inclined to adopt, science has provided another option, one based on assisted reproduction through artificial insemination, commonly known as in vitro fertilization (IVF). Under this framework a woman, designated as a “surrogate”, bears a baby on behalf of the intended parents with the objective of relinquishing her rights to the child after birth. The subcontract for the services of a “surrogate” or more specifically for the use of her “womb” can be viewed as part of the literature on outsourcing of production by a vertically integrated family. The lack of universal enforcement of “surrogacy” contracts in the USA creates a demand for outsourcing of surrogacy services. One beneficiary of this uncertainty in enforcement is India which provides gestational services to intended international parents.




Womb for Rent


Book Description

Twenty-eight-year-old Carrie Sansone has been losing hope that her streak of bad luck would ever turn around. She’s an alcoholic, she’s struggling financially, and—after a stint in rehab following a DUI that totaled her car—she’s desperate to prove to herself and to everyone in her life that she’s a good and worthwhile person. Then a job opportunity falls in her lap: a wealthy couple want her to serve as a surrogate and carry their baby for them. Despite the misgivings of her friends, family, and therapist, Carrie goes ahead with the surrogacy. But the pregnancy and the relationship with the intended mother don’t go as expected. As tension rises between her and the intended parents, Carrie’s world gets turned upside down, and she must face the truth about herself before she can take on the biggest challenge of her life. In this novel, a young woman who takes a job as a surrogate mother for a wealthy couple finds herself facing complications from multiple sources, including her own struggles with alcohol.




New Cannibal Markets


Book Description

Thanks to recent progress in biotechnology, surrogacy, transplantation of organs and tissues, blood products or stem-cell and gamete banks are now widely used throughout the world. These techniques improve the health and well-being of some human beings using products or functions that come from the body of others. Growth in demand and absence of an appropriate international legal framework have led to the development of a lucrative global trade in which victims are often people living in insecure conditions who have no other ways to survive than to rent or sell part of their body. This growing market, in which parts of the human body are bought and sold with little respect for the human person, displays a kind of dehumanization that looks like a new form of slavery. This book is the result of a collective and multidisciplinary reflection organized by a group of international researchers working in the field of medicine and social sciences. It helps better understand how the emergence of new health industries may contribute to the development of a global medical tourism. It opens new avenues for reflection on technologies that are based on appropriation of parts of the body of others for health purposes, a type of practice that can be metaphorically compared to cannibalism. Are these the fi rst steps towards a proletariat of men- and women-objects considered as a reservoir of products of human origin needed to improve the health or well-being of the better-off? The book raises the issue of the uncontrolled use of medical advances that can sometimes reach the anticipations of dystopian literature and science fiction.




Womb for Rent: Surrogative Mothers


Book Description

Surrogacy is becoming a trend in many developing countries in the West as well as in India. The trend may be introduced in Malaysia due to many influential factors such as the mass media and celebrities namely Nicole Kidman and Shah Rukh Khan. Therefore, it is vital for us to understand the basic knowledge of Malaysian with regard to religious and ethical views on surrogacy because these determine the growth of trend with respect to surrogacy. If surrogacy is to be made commercialised in Malaysia, it is also important to take into account the different criterion needed in making the pregnancy healthy up to child birth and hence reduce the mortality and morbidity rate. Lastly, the outcome of this research also supports the need of legislation improvement on surrogacy because there are many repercussion of surrogacy that may arise due to the many debates that may arise throughout or after the service of surrogacy. There is no clear indication or law against surrogacy in Malaysia. However, it is stated in Fatwa whereby the act of surrogacy is forbidden among Muslims. Majority of medical practitioners are oblivious to the law enforced against surrogacy as it is not known to be a major issue. Ethical views regarding surrogacy shows that majority of the medical practitioners believe that the act of surrogacy is unethical. Hence, from the finding of religious and ethical perspectives on surrogacy shows that these aspects contribute to the low acceptance of surrogacy in Malaysia.




Laws and Policies on Surrogacy


Book Description

This book is an essential guide on surrogacy, discussing various legal issues that arise in surrogacy cases. It provides a comprehensive coverage to various issues pertaining to surrogacy arrangements due to failure to meet the needs of those involved in surrogacy, be it the intended parents or the surrogate mother, with special emphasis on the most vulnerable party -- the surrogate child. In the wake of this existing imbalance, the call to reform the practice of surrogacy has also increased. The book provides a comprehensive coverage to various laws and policy regulations in existence dealing with surrogacy, and unravels the latest trends and developments happening around the world as surrogacy gains importance. The international perspectives highlight policies and practices being adopted and followed by various nations with regard to surrogacy regulation and associated parenthood rules. This book also analyses some of the significant cross-border disputes revolving around surrogacy, and explores briefly the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights on matters of parentage and citizenship for children born of trans-national surrogacy with special reference to the prospects of a convention on international surrogacy currently being studied by The Hague Conference on Private International Law. Further, it highlights the issues and questions relating to surrogacy arrangements that are so far unresolved and unanswered and suggests measures for improvements to the existing proposed surrogacy legislation in India and need for uniform international regulation. The book is a great resource for legal practitioners, academics, students, policy-makers, infertility clinics, and charitable organizations working on this issue.




Baby Makers


Book Description

The baby makers are many. The couples who supply the genetic material, the embryologists who create test-tube babies, the gynaecologists who insert embryos into wombs and deliver the babies and, most importantly, the surrogates themselves. Thenthere are the agents who source the surrogates, organize fertility tourism packages and even arrange for babies to be ordered over the Internet using frozen genetic material supplied by the intending parents. Eggs, sperm and viable embryos can be bought and sold like any commodity. The terrain is complex, there are thorny ethical issues involved and very delicate emotional ones too.This is a book about surrogacy in India and how it transformed itself from a marginalized and socially unacceptable procedure into a multimillion-dollar industry. It is a non-judgemental, open-minded enquiry into surrogacy laws (rather, the lack of them) and the many cogs in the process. Baby Makers uses rigorous journalistic research and compelling personal narratives to paint a picture that is as fascinating as it is frightening.