Brave New World: Inside India's First Bonafide Baby Factory

ANAND — Maanasi is ready. The 34-year-old is lying on the examination table, her feet in stirrups, waiting for Dr. Patel to arrive. Two nurse’s aides point a lamp at her belly. Maanasi barely lets out a sigh when the doctor implants two embryos inside of her, before leaving without a single word. The operation didn’t even last 10 minutes. The clients, an American couple, had sent six frozen embryos by plane. Another attempt will still be possible, should this one fail.

With her small sack on her shoulder, the young woman will be taken to the “house of surrogates,” a few hundred meters from the clinic, where she will be staying until the baby is born. That is also when Maanasi will meet the clients for the first time, just after the birth. She will then be able to go back home to her village, to her husband and her two children, aged seven and nine. And in her bank account, which will have been opened for the occasion, there will be $4,000 for her trouble.

How could she refuse such a deal, when she normally earns under a dollar a day? The nine months and labor amount to the equivalent of 20 years’ wages.  (more...)

Brave New World: Inside India's First Bonafide Baby Factory

Analysis:

"World Crunch" exposé on India's baby factory