Make Me a Baby As Fast As You Can
By Douglas Pet,
Slate
| 01. 09. 2012
How a California surrogacy operation streamlines baby production by implanting clients’ embryos in two Indian surrogates at the same time
The booming business in international surrogacy, whereby Westerners have begun hiring poor women in developing countries to carry their babies, has been the subject of plenty of media buzzing over the past few years. Much of the coverage regards the practice as a win-win for surrogates and those who hire them; couples receive the baby they have always wanted while surrogates from impoverished areas overseas earn more in one gestation than they would in many years of ordinary work. Heartening stories recount how infertile people, as well lesbian and gay couples who want to have children (and who often suffer the brunt of discriminatory adoption policies), have formed families by finding affordable surrogates abroad. The Oprah Winfrey Show has even portrayed the practice as a glowing example of “women helping women” across borders, celebrating the arrangements as a “confirmation of how close our countries can really be.”
But make no mistake: This is first and foremost a business. And the product this business sells—third-party pregnancy—is now being offered with all sorts of customizable options, guarantees, and legal protections for clients...
Related Articles
By Nick Paul Taylor, BioSpace | 03.14.2024
A U.K. watchdog balked at the cost-effectiveness of Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ CRISPR-based sickle cell disease therapy Thursday, recommending against funding the treatment unless uncertainties can be cleared up satisfactorily.
The U.K. became the first country to authorize Vertex’s Casgevy (exagamglogene...
By Anna Collinson, Maryam Ahmed and Bella McShane, BBC | 03.12.2024
Women who freeze their eggs are being misled by some UK clinics about their chances of having a baby, a fertility charity says.
The Fertility Network was reacting to BBC analysis that found 41% of clinics offering the service privately...
By Isabelle Bartram, Guest Contributor
| 03.13.2024
Note: This article was originally published in February 2024 in issue 268 of the German-language journal Der Gen-ethische Informationsdienst (GID). It is also part of an English-language dossier on Heritable Human Genome Editing published at the same time. Minor edits have been made.
Calls for German embryo research
Pressure on the German Embryo Protection Act is growing. The scientific community is launching a renewed attack on the controversial law and demands access to embryos for so-called high-ranking research objectives. "Germline therapies" are...
By Andrew Joseph, STAT | 02.22.2024
In the years leading up to Russia’s invasion, Ukraine had become a burgeoning hub of clinical trials, particularly in oncology. The war put a hold on the vast majority of those studies.
But as the country marks two years this...