Seeking Surrogates in India

Growing and giving away children is becoming a "respectable" business in some places, it seems. Could this perhaps be called "exploitation," or is it merely another legitimate free-enterprise way of making money and escaping poverty? Are Western couples preying on poor Indian women, or are they giving them a way out of their misery? As with many questions, it all depends who you ask.

Sarah J. Flashing, MA, says it very well in her new essay at the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity:

"The problem with commercial surrogacy...is that at its very foundation it rejects human dignity, the inherent aspect of what it means to be human, having been made in the image of God. ...Her dignity is violated by exploiting her financial vulnerabilities. Her dignity is violated by viewing her womb as a piece of factory equipment that can be utilized over and over again for the production of a product, or fixed when it breaks down from continued use. Her body is not a piece of property that can be monopolized for nine months by a child she may grow to love but cannot be held. She is a human being created in the image of God, and to treat her as such would mean to be generous to her without consideration of her procreative capacity, not to use this capacity as a means for her survival."