Outsourcing the Womb

Race, Class and Gestational Surrogacy in a Global Market

France Winddance Twine

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781317518013
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Through case studies, Outsourcing the Womb, Second Edition provides a critical analysis and global tour of the international surrogacy landscape in Egypt, India, China, Japan, Israel, Ukraine, the European Union and the United States. By providing a comparative analysis of countries that have very different policies, this book disentangles the complex role that race, religion, class inequality, legal regimes, and global capitalism play in the gestational surrogacy market. This book provides an intersectional frame of analysis in which multiple forms of social inequality and power differences become institutionalized and restrict the access of some individuals and families while privileging others, and concludes with a discussion of "reproductive justice" and "reproductive liberty." It is an ideal addition to courses on social problems, race, gender, and inequality.

Glossary/Index

A

• Adoption 6, 11, 12, 14, 48, 55, 65, 71, 75–6
• Advertisements 24–8, 36
• Agencies, surrogate 2, 24, 33, 36
• Allen, Anita 17–18
• Almeling, Rene Lynn 38
• Aloni Commission Report: In 1991, the Aloni Commission was established in Israel by the ministers of health and justice. They were asked to study assisted reproductive technologies including in vitro fertilization and to propose legislation to regulate assisted reproductive technologies. In 1994 they submitted their report to the ministers of health and justice. This report established a national committee to regulate state funded surrogacy contracts and unlimited IVF trials up to the birth of two children 30, 50, 52
• Altruistic surrogacy: A form of surrogacy in which no third party payment or commercial transaction is involved. A woman agrees to be implanted with the embryo that may or may not be genetically related to her because she is “helping” another individual or couple (often related or a friend) but is not motivated by a profit motive. The surrogate is not engaged in a commercial pregnancy contract and is not expected to receive any money except for pregnancy related expenses may be paid, but it is assumed that no additional fees are paid. Altruistic surrogacy is allowed in many European countries that ban commercial surrogacy. This form of surrogacy may allow loopholes because unless a country sets a limit on the amount of the fees paid (for pregnancy related expenses), a surrogate could be paid fees that are much higher than their actual pregnancy related expenses 5, 13, 27, 70, 72–4
• Assisted reproductive technologies (ART): This term generally refers to asexual reproduction i.e. achieving pregnancy and birth without sexual intercourse. The Center for Disease Control defines ART as “all fertility treatments in which both eggs and sperm are handled. In general ART procedures involve surgically removing eggs form a woman’s ovaries, combining them with sperm in the laboratory, and returning them to the woman’s body or donating them to another woman” (2006: 3). ART includes the following techniques: 1) intrauterine insemination, 2) donation of eggs, 3) donation of sperm, 4) in vitro fertilization and the transfer of embryos, and 5) intracytoplasmic sperm injection 2, 6–7, 13, 15, 26–7, 30, 47, 49, 78–82
• Atwood, Margaret 1

B

• The Baby Business 9, 10, 16
• Baby Manji Case, India 55, 68, 75
• Baby M Trial (New Jersey, United States): This trial was a custody battle over a child born on March 2, 1986. Her genetic mother, Mary Beth Whitehead, who had entered into a commercial pregnancy contract to be a gestational surrogate and hand over the baby to the “commissioning parents” in exchange for $10,000 violated the contract. The battle over Melissa Elizabeth Stern, who became known as “BabyM”, brought the bioethical issues raised by commercial surrogacy to national attention and generated a debate around the morality and legality of surrogacy. After giving birth to Melissa, and breastfeeding her for 40 days, Mary Beth Whitehead, a 28-year-old married mother, refused to relinquish her and terminated her surrogacy contract. This led to the State of New Jersey to conclude that surrogacy contracts were ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• I. The Global Womb
• II. Racism, Capitalism, and Reproductive Labor
• III. Becoming a Gestational Surrogate
• IV. Google Babies: The Global Market in Eggs and Sperm
• V. Egypt and Israel: Religious Law and Regulatory Regimes
• VI. India: A Global Baby Factory
• VII. Asian Surrogacy Markets: China, Japan, and South Korea
• VIII. The European Union: Bioethics, Family Law and Surrogate Orphans
• IX. Reproductive Justice and Reproductive Liberty
• References
• Glossary/Index