Why I hate "fertility tourism"

Here is a suggestion for NBC--a follow-up to the planned sitcom "Outsourced": a soap opera/drama/reality-show on the agonies and ecstasies of foreign couples going to India to outsource pregnancy and childbirth.  I can guarantee that this will be one hell of a hit. 

Outsourcing pregnancy, which used to be one of my standard jokes in discussions on globalization and outsourcing stopped being funny when it became true.

The reason for this outsourcing is obvious.  For starters, most people are surprised when they find out that the world's second test tube baby was in India.  For some reason, India's medical and scientific community latched on to fertility issues, even though the country has had no problems with population growth.

Surrogacy in India is, like any other outsourcing operation, about a tenth of the costs in America.  It is a labor-intensive process, and India is full of poor labor--female, in this activity--many of whom would gladly rent out their wombs for money. Commercial surrogacy, aka fertility tourism or reproductive tourism, is a fast growing industry in India.  How big is this?  About $500 million a year ... and growing.

The country’s low cost of treatments, lax regulations governing IVF (In-vitro fertilisation) and ART (assisted reproductive techniques) and women who rent out wombs for a modest fee have spawned a US$445mil (RM1.5bil) fertility tourism business. The industry figures are projected to ratchet up to US$6bil by 2012.
According to the private Indian Society for Assisted Reproduction (ISAR), there are over 500 IVF clinics in the country

I hate this economic activity not because it is highly unregulated, or because of how poor women get could, and do, get exploited, or because of the many different legal complications that are inter-national--such as the first ever "surrogate orphan":

In 2007 the Japanese couple Ikufumi and Yuki Yamada came to visit India's "Surrogacy Queen," Dr. Nayna Patel, founder of the Akanksha Infertility Clinic. A donor egg and surrogate mother was found and the embryo was implanted in the surrogate's womb. Before the child was born, however, the Yamadas divorced and Mrs. Yamada no longer wanted the child, which was not biologically hers. Mr. Yamada wanted the baby but could not adopt it due to an Indian colonial-era law that forbids single men from adopting girls. The absence of regulation meant that Baby Manji became India's first "surrogate orphan" until the father was finally able to adopt her several months, after the Supreme Court intervened.  

 All these are serious issues and deserve our undivided attention.  And, as the writer puts it,

These problems are hardly going to stop the phenomena of surrogacy in India from spreading, though. In fact, one might even suggest that India is moving towards a surrogacy-based economy, in which Indians—in call centers and fertility clinics alike—specialize in substituting Westerners in a cheaper, more efficient way.

I hate it because of how much life is then reduced to the crude material aspects.  The factory-like production of life ... I wonder if those children will have on their bottoms a sticker of sorts that says "Made in India" ... I fear we have already rushed too far and too fast without pausing to think about various ethical issues.   

Now, it might seem crazy and contradictory to the atheist in me.  Yes, aren't we all a bundle of contradictions!

And, soon after the product, er, child, is delivered, the parents begin their search to outsource child-rearing.  More on this from America's Finest News Source:

Report: Many U.S. Parents Outsourcing Child Care Overseas