Surrogacy Boom in Mexico Brings Tales of Missing Money and Stolen Eggs
By Jo Tuckman | The Guardian | Sept. 25, 2014
Excerpt:
Five days after her caesarean section, Nancy boarded a night bus in the southern Mexican city of Villahermosa and made the 10-hour journey back to her home in the capital. Instead of a baby, she nursed a wad of bills buried in a blue handbag she never let out of her sight.
The cash was the final instalment of her 150,000-peso (£7,000) fee to be a surrogate mother for a gay couple from San Francisco. After a traumatic year that included being all but abandoned by the agency supposedly looking after her, and being falsely accused of demanding additional cash to hand over the baby, Nancy was not so sure it had been worth it. “I just wanted to get my money, go home, rest and forget about it all,” said the 24-year-old, sitting in her tiny apartment in a poor barrio of Mexico City. “And now the money is all gone.”
Nancy’s story says much about the southern Mexican state of Tabasco’s emergence as the world’s most dynamic new centre of international surrogacy, fuelled by the tightening of restrictions in other countries such as India and Thailand.
This article follows gestational mothers and intended parents in Mexico, providing important insights into their lives, the contexts that frame their decisions, and their experiences within surrogacy arrangements and after. In light of closer scrutiny and tighter regulation, it also reveals the chameleon-like nature of the clinics and agencies in between. Mexico Surrogacy, one featured agency, for example, is reportedly set up like a charity that receives “donations” from intended parents which is then passed on to gestational mothers in the form of “aid.”
Stop Surrogacy Now is a global effort to oppose the “exploitation of women and the human trafficking of children through surrogacy.” According to the website, the group includes more than 100 individuals and 16 organizations from 18 countries, who believe all forms of surrogacy should be stopped because it is an abuse of women’s and children’s human rights.
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.”
This article challenges “leftists” (individuals with liberal or progressive political and social views) to oppose commercial surrogacy, arguing that the practice flies in the face of two of their most enduring principles: autonomy and equality. It draws a parallel between a sweatshop worker and a gestational mother, both of whom sign contracts out of “economic desperation.” It suggests that such contracts would be deemed “immoral” by “progressives” and, for equality to exist, it is the government’s role (and not that of the contracting parties) to ensure agreements are unenforceable.
Sama is a Delhi-based organization working on issues of women’s health and human rights. A key focus is assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) and international commercial surrogacy.