Rental Womb

The morals and ethics of being a surrogate mother are enormously complex. One perspective is that of a generous woman who is willing to pay the emotional and physical toll of pregnancy on behalf of another who is unable to bear her own child. The act of handing this child over to its biological parents after carrying in for nine months is a great sacrifice and a gift beyond compare.

And there is the other view of a woman who is bartering her womb and her childbearing years for money, being no more than a sterile petri dish emotionally to the fetus growing inside her. The loving bond between the mother and her unborn child either does not exist or is killed early. She must bear and deliver the child mechanistically so she is not traumatized from having to part with the child.

The emotional state of a pregnant mother supposedly has a lot to do with the physical and mental well being of the child. It seems in the surrogate arrangement, this would tend to be a casualty. The birth of the child signals the time to collect the paycheck and not the happy culmination of many dreams. Such commoditization of motherhood is its ultimate travesty.

As with technology outsourcing, there is the pattern of cheap and willing labor in India leading the way in the womb rental business.