Sun
Nov 18 2007
12:16 pm

While everyone feels heartbroken for couples who desperately want a baby and can't have one, there has to be some oversight on the lengths people will go to find babies. Lately there has been a lot of controversy over children from econmically disadvantaged countries, like Guatemala, being put up for adoption by parents who were never exactly aware of what that meant. Corrupt Guatemalan adoptions have put the spotlight on corrupt practices, so now there are far fewer children coming out of there. Now it is India, and it's recent growth in surrogate motherhood that is being scrutinized.

(link...)

"Dr. Mohanlal Swarankar, chairman of the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences in Jaipur and one of the leading fertility experts in India, is firmly opposed to the practice of surrogacy and wants what he called the "commercial sale of wombs and babies" to be outlawed."

"Surrogacy affects the whole moral fabric of a society and could trigger complex psychological and ethical dilemmas with no easy answers," he said.

"Swarankar said he worried that in a country where women are often forced into submission, "Who could tell if a woman hadn't been pressured to be a surrogate mother for the sake of big money?"

I have really mixed feelings about this. I know wonderful adoptive parents who have found adoption to be bliss. I've also known parents who regretted adopting babies with problems they have spent a lifetime trying to overcome. Babies who never did feel a bond to them, regardless of their devotion.

I can only imagine how tempting it might be for poor women to consider being a surrogate to someone from a foriegn country. But are the rules fair?

"While a couple in the U.S. will generally pay tens of thousands of dollars to a surrogate mother and affiliated agencies, in India the cost could be around $5,000, plus medical and attendant costs."

In this day and age, out-sourcing seems to be a popular route for people to get things they couldn't afford any other way. But should babies be incuded in this international trade?

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