Wombs for Rent?

So Oprah's show on Thursday discussed the journey to parenthood with couples involved in surrogacy. Couple Jennifer and Kendall opened up to correspondent Lisa Ling about their journey to have a child after unsuccessful attempts at conceiving. Enter the Akanksha Infertility and IVF Clinic in Anand, India. This clinic houses Indian women for the 9 month gestation period where they are artificially inseminated with the embryos of a couple. Most of the people these women service are American couples, as it costs roughly $12,000 in the country instead of upwards of $50,000 in the United States.

I have to admit, I sort of cringed during the segment...with "exploitation" and "objectification" being the two buzz words to describe this method of conceiving. The discourse around surrogacy can be pejorative, with some likening it to a baby brokering service. It can even escalate when these mothering incubators are women who are required to leave their homes and sometimes forced to keep their pregnancies a secret from their families due to societal values and norms in the culture. Though Oprah's program did include interviews with these Indian women, the slant of the segment was decidedly pro-America (read: pro-rich white couples), focusing on a holistic approach to the idea that women across borders can share a deep bond and as Lisa Ling comments, cultivate a sort of "transnational ambassador" role for the conceived child.

So both parties involved get what they want...American couples get the child they always wanted and the Indian women are able to provide for their own families with the $5000 they get for their services, akin to 10 years worth of working. But I still feel somewhat iffy about the whole process. What does it mean that we go to India to outsource customer service for technological products as well as people to have our children? Is this a new phase of globalization? What does this situation look like through a postcolonialist lens? How do we approach this as a trannsational feminist conversation? Hmmm...maybe more on this later.