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BANGALORE, India — The couple was particular: the egg donor had to be under 25, fair, beautiful and educated. But most of all, she had to belong to their caste.
In India, cutting-edge medical treatments for infertility are colliding against age-old biases about the social order.
Welcome to designer babies, with an Indian twist.
In this developing country of more than 1.3 billion, fertility treatments are a flourishing business.
According to the Mumbai-based Indian Society of Assisted Reproduction, its member clinics across India conducted an estimated 18,000 cycles of IVF treatments last year, averaging a 30 percent rate of pregnancy. But the group said that only half of India’s fertility centers count themselves among its members, making the total number of IVF treatments sought last year much higher.
What makes IVF treatments particular to India, though, is that many infertile couples demand egg donors and surrogate mothers of a particular caste and sub-caste when they seek in vitro fertilization treatments or surrogacy services.
“Couples are very particular about the caste hierarchy of the prospective mother or even the surrogate carrier,”...