Medical Tourism & Open Thread

What do y’all think about this?  Judith Warner discusses surrogacy arrangements in foreign countries and states,

Because what’s going on in India – where surrogacy is estimated now to be a $445-million-a-year business — feels like a step toward the kind of insane dehumanization that filled the dystopic fantasies of Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” and Margaret Atwood’s “Handmaid’s Tale.” (One “medical tourism” website, PlanetHospital.com, refers to the Indian surrogate mother as a mere “host.”) Images of pregnant women lying in rows, or sitting lined up, belly after belly, for medical exams look like industrial outsourcing pushed to a nightmarish extreme.

A few thoughts: there is a difference between selling your body via prostitution, which almost always involves illegality, exploitation, and violence, and selling it when both you and the buyer have a vested interest in your own health.

Ms. Warner makes short work of the idea that surrogates should be monitored; however, she completely ignores the fact that a surrogate who smokes, drinks, or acquires diseases is not just harming the couple who enlisted her help, but may cause permanent damage to a child. Is there really something wrong in protecting your child’s health before it is born?

The United States has some screwy laws, which prohibit the payment of a surrogate for her trouble beyond her medical expenses.  While this does ensure that no one will exploit herself for the money, it has other perverse results.  After handing over thousands of dollars for medical treatment, a couple may be left without a child and without their money: essentially, they gave another person money for having a child, without the charitable intention of giving money away.