'Commercialism' Of International Surrogacy Ethically 'Troubling,' Opinion Piece Says

Main Category: Women's Health / Gynecology
Also Included In: Pregnancy / Obstetrics;  Pediatrics / Children's Health
Article Date: 14 Apr 2008 - 8:00 PDT

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The "commercialism" associated with a "new coterie of international workers who are gestating for a living" is "troubling," columnist Ellen Goodman writes in a Boston Globe opinion piece. Goodman writes that the "globalization" of surrogate pregnancies began in India, where surrogates can earn between $5,000 and $7,000, which is a "decade's worth of women's wages" in some rural parts of the country. The practice has spread to the U.S., where some women "are supplementing their income by contracting out their wombs" to "wealthy couples from European countries that ban the practice," she adds.

According to Goodman, there are several unresolved questions associated with regulation of the practice -- including the "obligation" a family has to the surrogate, how much "control" families should have over surrogates during pregnancy and what children born through surrogacy should be told "of this international trade."

Goodman writes that she does not "make light of infertility" and the "primal desire to have a child." However, "there is, and should be, something uncomfortable about a free-market approach" to pregnancy, she says. It is "easier to accept surrogacy when it's a gift from one woman to another," but "we rarely see a rich woman become a surrogate for a poor family," Goodman writes. Surrogacy "comes perilously close" to "things we cannot sell no matter how good the deal," and global surrogacy "tips the scales," Goodman says (Goodman, Boston Globe, 4/11).

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