As I previously blogged that how everything of ours, tangible or intangible, is up for sale, this story fits right in. Everything of ours has been commoditized & ready to be sold. These women are not doing it for the fun of it, but these Thai, Vietnamese, & even Indian (not in this story) women are put into such a dire position, financially, that they are ready to lease out their wombs.
Now, women, most likely from developed countries, who can't conceive child due to health reasons, or won't conceive child due to vanity (don't want to "destroy" their figure or can't take the pain of childbirth) can outsource this function to a poor woman in a developing country. It seems nothing is sacred enough to not outsource.
Similar to how outsourcing of manufacturing & clerical jobs to developing countries raised multiple ethical issues in regards to working conditions in those developing countries, this "womb-for-rent" program also raised several complicated & ethical issues.
Can a country effectively control this process & make it better through laws & regulations or simply shut it down? I think not. The process was already sort of running underground with some people abusing this program. Now, the laws will essentially further make this go underground & more women will be abused more severely, & the abusers will most likely won't be punished.
Why this process can't be improved through laws? Because, these poor women are especially sought out for these tasks & since, they need money desperately, they will be willing to do anything at any cost.
Also, this process won't grow much love & won't grow the bond stronger between a mother & her child. Why? Because, it's simply unnatural. The love between a child & a mother starts & grows stronger during those 9 months of pregnancy. Any mother will testify to it. Heck, the women in this story had a hard time giving those kids, for whom they were merely surrogates, to their biological parents. How can a mother who didn't endure those 9 months of pregnancy hardships can ever truly love a child, who is still her own flesh & blood, like a mother who goes through the pregnancy & has a spiritual, & flesh & blood link with that little fetus in her womb?
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When a surrogate baby scandal erupted in Thailand last year, many in the country did not know what to expect next.
First there was the young boy, apparently abandoned by the Australian couple who had commissioned a Thai surrogate mother to carry him.
The boy had Down's syndrome, but the couple had taken his twin sister back to Australia with them.
Then there were the 12 babies found living in a single apartment with nannies, all fathered by the same, mysterious young Japanese man.
Many more babies had already been spirited out of Thailand.
Today the Australian boy - named Gammy - lives with the woman who was paid to give birth to him, seemingly a loved member of his adopted family.
"I don't regret anything about the surrogacy", Pattaramon Chanbua told me. "I don't blame anyone. To me, Gammy is a blessing."
Mitsutoki Shigeta, the mystery Japanese man, is still fighting to get custody of the 12 babies he sired through various Thai surrogates.
Now, 5 years after it was first drafted, the Thai parliament has passed a law which it hopes will shut down the "wombs-for-rent" business for good.
Foreigners are banned from seeking surrogates in Thailand. Thai couples can find surrogate parents, but not through agents, or on any kind of commercial basis.
At the heart of the business are hard-up Thai women, who see 9 months carrying someone else's child as a relatively easy way to make good money.
Daeng, a factory worker living outside Bangkok, is another. A single mother in her 30s, she agreed to carry twins for Mr. Shigeta.
When the time came to hand them over, she admitted it was hard.
"I carried them for 9 months, & I loved them," she said. But she went through with the contract, & "would do it again - so would anybody - because of the money".
Daeng says she was paid the equivalent of 10 years' salary.
Other women have had unhappier surrogacy experiences.
4 years ago, 15 Vietnamese women were found in a Bangkok apartment, seven of them pregnant.
Some of them said they had been lured there with the promise of well-paid jobs; 2 said they had been raped.
A Taiwanese company called Babe-101 was accused by anti-trafficking groups of being behind the operation, but the police never pressed charges, & the doctor who supervised the conceptions & the births is still practising at a well-known Bangkok hospital.
Like much of Thailand's medical industry, the surrogacy business is profit-driven & poorly regulated.
The surrogate business in Thailand has often been a shadowy, unaccountable one. Now the practice has been more or less outlawed, there are justified fears that, with so much money on offer, it will simply be driven underground.
"We have no law enforcement", admits Dr Somsak Lolekha of the Thai Medical Council. "Just like drinking & driving. We have the law. But they never enforce it."
Now, women, most likely from developed countries, who can't conceive child due to health reasons, or won't conceive child due to vanity (don't want to "destroy" their figure or can't take the pain of childbirth) can outsource this function to a poor woman in a developing country. It seems nothing is sacred enough to not outsource.
Similar to how outsourcing of manufacturing & clerical jobs to developing countries raised multiple ethical issues in regards to working conditions in those developing countries, this "womb-for-rent" program also raised several complicated & ethical issues.
Can a country effectively control this process & make it better through laws & regulations or simply shut it down? I think not. The process was already sort of running underground with some people abusing this program. Now, the laws will essentially further make this go underground & more women will be abused more severely, & the abusers will most likely won't be punished.
Why this process can't be improved through laws? Because, these poor women are especially sought out for these tasks & since, they need money desperately, they will be willing to do anything at any cost.
Also, this process won't grow much love & won't grow the bond stronger between a mother & her child. Why? Because, it's simply unnatural. The love between a child & a mother starts & grows stronger during those 9 months of pregnancy. Any mother will testify to it. Heck, the women in this story had a hard time giving those kids, for whom they were merely surrogates, to their biological parents. How can a mother who didn't endure those 9 months of pregnancy hardships can ever truly love a child, who is still her own flesh & blood, like a mother who goes through the pregnancy & has a spiritual, & flesh & blood link with that little fetus in her womb?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
When a surrogate baby scandal erupted in Thailand last year, many in the country did not know what to expect next.
First there was the young boy, apparently abandoned by the Australian couple who had commissioned a Thai surrogate mother to carry him.
The boy had Down's syndrome, but the couple had taken his twin sister back to Australia with them.
Then there were the 12 babies found living in a single apartment with nannies, all fathered by the same, mysterious young Japanese man.
Many more babies had already been spirited out of Thailand.
Today the Australian boy - named Gammy - lives with the woman who was paid to give birth to him, seemingly a loved member of his adopted family.
"I don't regret anything about the surrogacy", Pattaramon Chanbua told me. "I don't blame anyone. To me, Gammy is a blessing."
Mitsutoki Shigeta, the mystery Japanese man, is still fighting to get custody of the 12 babies he sired through various Thai surrogates.
Now, 5 years after it was first drafted, the Thai parliament has passed a law which it hopes will shut down the "wombs-for-rent" business for good.
Foreigners are banned from seeking surrogates in Thailand. Thai couples can find surrogate parents, but not through agents, or on any kind of commercial basis.
At the heart of the business are hard-up Thai women, who see 9 months carrying someone else's child as a relatively easy way to make good money.
Daeng, a factory worker living outside Bangkok, is another. A single mother in her 30s, she agreed to carry twins for Mr. Shigeta.
When the time came to hand them over, she admitted it was hard.
"I carried them for 9 months, & I loved them," she said. But she went through with the contract, & "would do it again - so would anybody - because of the money".
Daeng says she was paid the equivalent of 10 years' salary.
Other women have had unhappier surrogacy experiences.
4 years ago, 15 Vietnamese women were found in a Bangkok apartment, seven of them pregnant.
Some of them said they had been lured there with the promise of well-paid jobs; 2 said they had been raped.
A Taiwanese company called Babe-101 was accused by anti-trafficking groups of being behind the operation, but the police never pressed charges, & the doctor who supervised the conceptions & the births is still practising at a well-known Bangkok hospital.
Like much of Thailand's medical industry, the surrogacy business is profit-driven & poorly regulated.
The surrogate business in Thailand has often been a shadowy, unaccountable one. Now the practice has been more or less outlawed, there are justified fears that, with so much money on offer, it will simply be driven underground.
"We have no law enforcement", admits Dr Somsak Lolekha of the Thai Medical Council. "Just like drinking & driving. We have the law. But they never enforce it."
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