16 November 2006
When it comes to providing new possibilities for the outsourcing and offshoring of services, no one can beat us Indians. The proof of this comes from the latest form of such offshoring that is increasingly using India as the preferred location: the phenomenon of surrogate motherhood.
Surrogate motherhood is the process whereby a woman agrees to carry a child for a childless couple and then to deliver the baby for them nine months later, usually in return for some monetary compensation. There are several forms of this, all made possible by advances in human fertility technology, mostly notably in vitro fertilisation (IVF). Typically, the egg from the biological ''mother'' is fertilised by the father's sperm in a test tube, and the resulting embryo is then transferred to the womb of the surrogate mother.
It is still very much a grey area in ethical terms. Different societies have responded to this possibility in different ways. Several countries, such as Sweden, Spain, France, and Germany, have banned the possibility of surrogate motherhood after it was rejected by voter referendum. Even in countries where it is allowed, there are restrictions. In Canada, payments are banned in surrogacy cases, to prevent commercialisation, and in the United Kingdom only some costs can be provided for. In developing countries that do allow it, such as Argentina and South Africa, there are stringent norms mandated for the process, including case-by-case reviews and monitoring by independent ethics committees.
http://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/142538/1/~snip~ Already, there has been a spurt in ''medical tourism'' in India, as five-star hospitals staffed by qualified doctors and nurses (many of whom have been trained through a highly subsidised public education system) provide much cheaper and equally efficient services to visitors from abroad. This same much less expensive system of privileged health facilities, combined with a large number of available women of reproductive age, are a potent combination effectively pushing for the emergence of ''reproductive tourism''.
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