Global reproductive inequalities, neo-eugenics and commercial surrogacy in India

Abstract

India’s commercial surrogacy market literally produces humans and human relationships while sustaining global racial reproductive hierarchies. The post-colonial state’s aggressive anti-natalism echoes the broader global population control agenda framing the global South’s high fertility rates as a ‘global danger’ to be controlled at whatever cost, but is at odds with the neoliberal imperative of unrestrained global fertility tourism. Womb mothers (surrogates) subvert hegemonic discourses by taking control over their bodies and using their fertile bodies ‘productively’. But in controlling their own reproduction through decisions about fertility, sterilization and abortion in order to (re)produce children of higher classes and privileged nations, they ultimately conform to global neo-eugenic imperatives to reduce the fertility of lower class women in the global South. Surrogates creatively construct cross-class, -caste, -religion, -race and -nation kinship ties with the baby and the intended mother, disrupting hegemonic genetic and patriarchal bases of kinship, but fundamentally reify structural inequality.

“The Miracle Mothers and Marvelous Babies”: Psychosocial aspects of surrogacy – A narrative review

“…Literature from the Indian context on the psychosocial outcomes of surrogacy practice mainly exists in the form of cross-sectional studies, qualitative investigations, case-series, commentaries, review-articles primarily been conducted by Sociologists, Anthropologists and Public health experts. [ 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 ] Evidences in the form of clinical investigations, randomized controlled trials, systematic and meta-analytical studies are scarce.…”

“Wealthy Gay Couples Buying Babies Produced in India by Poor Womb-Women: Audience Interpretations of Transnational Surrogacy in TV News

“…For them, wombs for hire pose a real risk of people trafficking, similar to sexual exploitation or organ trafficking (Pande, 2010a;Wilkinson, 2003). From this perspective, they also warn that this practice is laced with the eugenic notions of genetic belonging and the genetic selection of the perfect offspring (Pande, 2016;Qadeer, 2009). In this regard, it might be understood that the commodification argument is rooted in the debate about the reasons behind surrogacy.…”

On the coloniality of work: Commercial surrogacy in India

“…Tanderup, Reddy, Patel, & Nielsen, ). Indeed, critics of commercial surrogacy note the persistence of global economic inequalities as enabling the commodification of women and children that underlies the practice of surrogacy (Bailey, ; Majumdar, ; Pande, , ; Vora, , ). Consequently, the proposal of the Indian government is consistent with laws in many parts of the world wherein concerns about the ethics of commodification have rendered commercial surrogacy illegal (‘India Introduces Legislation to Ban Surrogacy Tourism’, ).…”

“…The preceding outline of fertility control practices in India reveals how the state uses moral interventions to discipline the economically dispossessed. As such, sterilization and surrogacy are two sides of the same coin (see Pande, for a discussion of commercial surrogacy as ‘neo‐eugenics’). In the context of surrogacy, the problematic fertility — imagined as the cause and consequence of the poverty trap — is harnessed and made productive.…”