Every year my family goes to Seattle for Christmas and stays at my Grandmother’s beach house. My grandmother is no longer with us, but many of her old books, papers, and magazines still are. Christmas morning I was anxiously awaiting our family ritual of breakfast and presents when I flipped open a Marie Claire Magazine from August 2007. In it, I found an article titled “Womb for Rent,” which highlighted a growing fad of outsourcing pregnancy to India.

My initial reaction was that outsourcing had gone too far and that this is just one more way to exploit women in developing countries. However, after reading further, this does not appear to be the case. A Doctor by name Nanya Patel belonging to Anand, a town of 150,000 in India’s Western State of Gujarat, has single handedly set up a surrogacy clinic in this rural-dairy community. Want-to-be mothers from all over the world come to the clinic to have a local Indian woman carry their child for the bargain price of $25,000-$30,000. This covers a fee for the surrogate, all doctor’s bills, flights, and excellent prenatal care for the surrogate in her months of pregnancy. In America the surrogacy process costs upwards of $70,000.

At the time of the article, Dr. Patel has had 45 successful births and is very picky about both her clients and her carriers. She will only take couples that are married and have tried to have children themselves. The women are ovulating and producing eggs normally, but had problems with their uterus, so carrying a child is out of the question. The surrogates must have all had children before so they know what to expect, and be willing themselves to carry another (not pressured by their husbands or in-laws). The carriers receive a fee of $5,500 or more (more than many could earn in 10 years) for the use of their uterus, and that money is held for them until they are ready to put it towards whatever they choose for. Education for their children and a new home that won’t corrode during the monsoon season are among the most common uses of the surrogacy money.

It sounds ok right? - Women helping women conceive children and women helping women raise the standard of living for children. So far, at Dr. Patel’s clinic, it’s been ok; however there are very few governmental restrictions/regulations regarding surrogacy in India and Dr. Patel believes this is a problem. While she has harbored a safe and empowering environment for the mothers and carriers at her clinic, in a growing industry many other doctors may not. There could very well be clinics that will offer poor and unsafe conditions and take advantage of both parties involved.The New York Times also covered Dr. Patel’s clinic in a March 2008 article that discusses many of the same sentiments and concerns for the surrogates (Click Here).

With an increasing amount of surrogate pregnancies in India, should there be more regulation to ensure protection for the surrogates? Is it really exploiting Indian women or empowering them? If it continues to grow, is there a chance that it could exploit Indian women? Is this an abuse of power and money, or a way to create a mutually beneficial relationship?

-Lindsay Leaver