Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Surrogacy Industry Poses Threats To Women’s Health; Does Anyone Care?
Surrogacy Industry Poses Threats To Women’s Health; Does Anyone Care?
Jul 8, 2025 7:12 AM

India has a huge and still-growing medical tourism industry. A $2 billion part of this industry is the surrogacy business. India has few laws regulating surrogacy, and it is a popular place for people from the U.S. and the EU to head to for a baby. But the lack of regulations also means very little help, support and care for the women producing these children. The women literally e cogs in a giant machine. If one cog breaks, it’s simply replaced with another.

Sushma Pandey was a 17 year old scrap worker in 2010. She was lured into the surrogacy industry to produce eggs via hyperstimulation, which causes the woman to over-produce eggs via chemical inducement. She donated eggs three times in 18 months, and then she died.

The Mumbai High Court asked the police to investigate the role of the hospital, but so far no one has been held responsible. Pandey is India’s first known case of death from egg harvesting; she suffered “brain hemorrhage and pulmonary hemorrhages due to ovarian hyper stimulation,” according to news reports quoting her autopsy results.

For each session she had earned a little over $400.

Then there is Yuma Sherpa. She, too, died after surgery to harvest eggs after undergoing hyperstimulation. Sudha Sundararaman, vice president of the All India Democratic Women’s Association, blames the lack of laws regarding surrogacy, and says the industry preys on the poor.

The concept is promoted as a way of easy e generation for women,” said Sundararaman. “Health professionals in the western state of Gujarat have openly accepted they were helping unemployed women stand on their feet. It is no wonder why the private sector is balking at the regulation of assisted reproductive technology.”

“The business volume of this trade is rising with the number of surrogacy cases increasing at a galloping rate,” said Ranjana Kumari, director of the Delhi-based Center for Social Research, in a phone interview. “The lack of regulation also poses a problem for government agencies to initiate legal provisions and take substantive action against those found guilty.”

Pradeep [the attorney representing Sherpa’s family] says Sherpa’s family had turned down the clinic’s offer of about $500 for the eggs it had already harvested. “Many cases of negligence go unreported because families are unable to pursue cases against the medical clinics even when there is disability arising from such procedures, mainly because they are economically disadvantaged and simply accept the money,” said Pradeep.

Viewing the surrogacy industry through the lens of Christian anthropology, there is no doubt that humans are being treated as objects. Given that, the dangers of surrogacy are not just the ones posed to the health of the surrogate mothers, but the children and all of culture. Instead of science being used to serve people, people are being used to serve science…and the es can be tragic. A death need not occur for surrogacy to be considered tragic. Any time a person is “used” as an object for an end, rather than being treated as a “being” in the image and likeness of God, a tragedy occurs.

The medical and parental stakeholders are not loving, but using, the surrogate woman. The reproductive munity and missioning parents know full well that for the surrogate carrier to contractually agree to transfer her maternal rights does not annul but only conceals the existing parental bonds between the gestational mother and her child. So, when missioning parents enter into such a contract, they reduce the surrogate mother and her child to a mere means to their end of getting a baby. When the munity facilitates this contractual agreement, they reduce the surrogate mother to a mere object, a human incubator, who can be manipulated at will.

The questions of ethics surrounding surrogacy are not limited to places like India. Jessica Kern, a woman in Virginia, found out as an adult that she had been conceived via surrogacy. She believes that children borne of surrogacy live a special pain.

Our voice isn’t out there, because the industry has captured the story,” said Kern. She said she wished people had more balanced information about surrogacy.

“[There] are price tags that hang over our heads,” said Kern. “I wouldn’t be here if $10K [hadn’t been exchanged]. [There] is something inherently wrong about turning children modities.”

Alana Newman, founder of The Anonymous Us Project, sums up the surrogacy experience: “If it is illegal to buy and sell a person, it should be illegal to pre-buy a person.”

Read “Donor Deaths in India Highlight Surrogacy Perils” at Womensenews.org.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Rev. Sirico: Respect others’ rights, but also their values
A new column by Rev. Robert A. Sirico, president and co-founder of the Acton Institute, was published today in the Detroit News. This column will also be linked in tomorrow’s Acton News & Commentary. Sign up for the free weekly Acton newsletter here. +++++++++ Faith and policy: Respect others’ rights, but also their values FATHER ROBERT SIRICO If such an award were to be given for the Most Contentious Religious Story of 2010, the two main contenders would undoubtedly be...
Samuel Gregg: Benedict’s Creative Minority
This week’s mentary from Research Director Samuel Gregg. Sign up for Acton News & Commentary here. +++++++++ Benedict’s Creative Minority By Samuel Gregg In the wake of Benedict XVI’s recent trip to Britain, we have witnessed—yet again—most journalists’ inability to read this pontificate accurately. Whether it was Queen Elizabeth’s gracious ing address, Prime Minister David Cameron’s sensible reflections, or the tens of thousands of happy faces of all ages and colors who came to see Benedict in Scotland and England...
Radio Free Acton: The Stewardship of Art, Part 2
Last week, we posted part 1 of our podcast on the proper Christian stewardship of art; for those who have been waiting for the conclusion, we’re happy to present part 2. David Michael Phelps continues to lead the discussion between Professors Nathan Jacobs and Calvin Seerveld, who previously debated this topic in the Controversy section of our Journal of Markets & Morality. The first portion of that exchange is available at the link for part 1; the remainder of the...
The Daily Show Takes on a Union
The Daily Show exposes some union hypocrisy (HT). In the words of the union local head, es down to greed”: ...
Work as if It Mattered
The conversations over the last few weeks here on work have raised a couple of questions. In the context of criticisms on the perspectives on work articulated by Lester DeKoster and defended by menter John E. asks, “…what is it that you hope readers will change in their lives, and why?” I want to change people’s view of their work. I want them to see how it has value not simply as a means to some other end, but in...
Public Accountability for Public Officials
Via TechDirt: …a judge has tossed out the wiretapping claims pointing out that there was no expectation of privacy out in public. “Those of us who are public officials and are entrusted with the power of the state are ultimately accountable to the public,” the judge wrote. “When we exercise that power in public fora, we should not expect our actions to be shielded from public observation.” There’s more here and here on the question of law enforcement and ‘citizen...
Questions on Work and Intellectual Development
Carl Trueman has a lengthy reflection and asks some pertinent and pressing questions on the nature of work and human intellectual development. Recalling his job at a factory as a young man in the 1980s, Trueman writes concerning those who were still at their positions on the line when he had moved on: Their work possessed no intrinsic dignity: it was unskilled, repetitive, poorly paid, and provided no sense of achievement. Yes, it gave them a wage; but not a...
Mandating Monolithic Medicine
Among the warnings sounded as the Democratic health care reform bill was being debated was that the federal insurance mandate included in the bill—even though not national health care per se—would essentially give the federal government control of the insurance industry. The reason: If everyone is forced to buy insurance, then the government must deem what sort of insurance qualifies as adequate to meet the mandate. This piece of Obamacare promises to turn every medical procedure into a major political...
Trailer: Doing the Right Thing
The Colson Center for Christian Worldview is preparing to release a new study DVD this fall titled, Doing the Right Thing: A Six-Part Exploration of Ethics. The DVD is designed as a resource for small-group studies and features leading thinkers who explore the need for ethical behavior in the marketplace, public square, political life and other areas. Hosts Brit Hume, Chuck Colson, Dr. Robert George and a distinguished panel — including Acton’s Rev. Robert Sirico and Michael Miller — undertake...
Acton On Tap: Art, Patrimony, and Cultural Investment
If you couldn’t make it to Derby Station in East Grand Rapids last night, there are a couple of things you should know. First of all, you missed a great event and some good conversation. Secondly, you need not worry: we recorded it, and you can listen to David Michael Phelps’ presentation on Art, Patrimony, and Cultural Investment via the audio player below. The bad news is that I was planning to post a little video clip for your enjoyment,...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved