Christian Bioethicist Denounces Outsourcing Wombs to India
A leading Christian bioethicist compares the emerging trend of renting out the womb of poor Indian women to unethical baby-selling and slavery.
Indian women, usually lower middleclass housewives, are increasingly signing contracts to serve as surrogate mothers, carrying the child of American and international couples at a lower rate than it would cost the pair to have the child carried in their own country.
On average, service charge for an Indian surrogate mother is about $10,000-$12,000 - far less than the up to $50,000 that a U.S.-based couple will spend to obtain a child through a surrogate mother, reported Reuters.
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However, a leading American bioethicist criticizes outsourcing positions of surrogate mothers to India, saying that the Indian women are being economically “forced” to carry the baby.
“The primary ethical problems here are the commercial surrogacy itself – which is baby-selling – and going overseas to use women for a price that women in this country wouldn’t accept. [It] is simply augmenting one of several ethical problems with this practice,” says Dr. John Kilner, senior scholar of The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity and director of the Bioethics program at Trinity International University.
Twenty-five percent of India’s 1 billion people live below the poverty line, according to the CIA World Factbook.
Proponents of Indian surrogate mothers say that although money is the primary motivation, the payment is simply a token of appreciation for the gift of helping a childless couple.
Kilner, however, argues, “If it is such a wonderful gift to an infertile couple to enable them to have their own child, then a surrogate should be willing to provide the service without a fee.”
The CBHD senior scholar points out that the contracts used during surrogate programs say that if a surrogate does not deliver the child, for instance because the child dies, then the couple expecting to receive the child is typically not required to pay the entire price for the service.
“In commercial surrogacy, admirable gift-giving is replaced with demeaning baby-selling,” Kilner emphasizes. “It is not just the use of the surrogate’s womb that is the reason for payment; it is actually obtaining the child.”
He compares the practice to slavery where the ends does not justify the means; just because a purchaser plans to be nice to the one purchased does not justify purchasing a slave.
“Turning human beings into things to be bought is inherently demeaning,” says Kilner, who pointed to philosophical, political, and religious reasons why the act is unethical.
“Christian faith tends toward a more theological grounding of the same human concern: People are made in the image of God and should not be reduced to ‘things’ to be bought, sold, or otherwise ‘used.’”
Indian surrogate mothers interviewed by Reuters say they would not have rented out their womb for any other reasons aside from money - which some desperately needed to feed their existing children.
“It focuses on women who are in extremely difficult and even inhumane circumstances of poverty,” highlights Kilner. “Rather than helping them with a gift or an opportunity to do humane work, it makes them put their bodies at risk and often to do something considered immoral in their culture in order to survive. It preys upon their suffering.”
In addition to the physical risks involved with pregnancy, cultural attitude, especially in the countryside, consider it immoral to carry someone else’s baby.
Most women are forced to lie that they are carrying their husband’s child and then say the baby died after they deliver the child, while others go to another town with the excuse of visiting relatives until the baby is delivered.
It is estimated that between 100-150 surrogate babies are born each year in India and 500-600 surrogate babies worldwide, according to Reuters.
