Stratified Reproduction

In a slim new volume, Outsourcing the Womb: Race, Class, and Gestational Surrogacy in a Global Market (Routledge, 2011), France Winddance Twine provides multiple accounts of the ways in which racism, classism, and colorism permeate the international market for wombs and gametes. For example, Twine cites the story of a Japanese woman who backs out of a surrogacy arrangement when she learns that the gestational mother, whom she had selected on the basis of her profile and skin color, is Korean. And there is the case of the black woman seeking IVF services who is "policed" in her choices by white doctors who insist it would be "inappropriate" for her to use "white" sperm if "black" sperm were available in the bank. Or the admission of the white, would-be surrogate who tells a researcher that she would carry "a Japanese baby or a Chinese baby because they are white to me," but says that "to give birth to a Black child would add one more controversial aspect to my life and I'm not ready to be on the front...