Surrogate Mother Agencies in India; Outsourcing Pregnancy

Surrogate mothers in India are woman who get paid to become pregnant with children of couples who cannot conceive on their own.

While commercial surrogacy (or Outsourcing Pregnancy) is a growing industry in India where the embryo is transferred to the womb of the surrogate woman via in vitro fertilization or IVF method, an NPR report has expressed certain concerns.

“You have no idea if your surrogate mother is smoking, drinking alcohol, doing drugs. You don’t know what she’s doing. You have a third-party surrogate mother agency as a mediator between the two of you, but there’s no one policing her in the sense that you don’t know what’s going on.”

Another fear is that rich American couples, who for lack of time, will come here looking for surrogate mothers and will simply outsource their pregnancy jobs to Indian girls at a price that is a fraction of what they have to pay in their own countries.

Few other questions that remain unresolved – Is is legal in India to become surrogate mothers? Will the child born to an Indian surrogate mother be a citizen of this country? Who arranges for the birth certificate and passport that will be required by the foreign couple at the time of immigration ?

The above picture shows Indian surrogate mothers waiting for a medical check-up outside an hospital clinic in Anand, Gujarat – a city that is now considered to the be hub of surrogate mother agencies and IVF clinics in India.

References: Oprah, NYT, ABC and AP