Terms like 'womb on rent' censor commercial surrogacy: Anindita Majumdar

Anindita Majumdar, explores the world of commercial surrogacy and discusses her latest book on the subject in this interview with Aditi Phadnis

Your book is about the local-global politics of reproduction and talks of transnational surrogacy. Why is transnational so important in surrogacy?

The transnational forms an important setting to my book, Transnational Commercial Surrogacy and the (Un)Making of Kin in India — criss-crossing the spaces of the IVF clinic in Delhi, the Indian gestational commercial surrogate, and the foreign and Indian couples who commission the surrogacy arrangement. Since we heard of two German twins struggling to get back home from India in 2008, the ‘transnational’ has become an important and essential element of what we see and understand about commercial surrogacy in India today. 

The Balaz Twins were born to the German couple Suzanne Lohle and Jan Balaz, but were carried in the womb of the Indian surrogate Martha Christy in an IVF clinic in Gujarat. Because Germany does not recognise commercial surrogacy as a legal practice, the babies were not granted citizenship by the consulate, leading to an impasse that lasted two years, and went to the Supreme Court for adjudication. A few months before the Balaz Twins, the Japanese Baby Manji went through a similar process, thanks to the lack of recognition that surrogacy has in Japan. Cases similar to this form a major part of the conversations on commercial surrogacy in India. Along with ‘industry projections’ that position commercial surrogacy as a billion dollar reproductive tourism industry, the transnational is most evident in the process of citizenship.

The baby born to couples from foreign and Indian countries, through the Indian surrogate, and in-vitro fertilization must undergo rigorous crosschecks through DNA tests, and birth certificates that establish the country of its parents’ origin as the baby’s country, while at the same time establishing that the Indian surrogate does not stake any claim to the child through her legal relinquishment. This complicated narrative of birthing involves the transnational not only in borders and identity, but also in who gets to parent. The focus on foreign gay couples who were coming to India to have children through surrogacy, many of whom feature in my book, led to the stipulation that only married heterosexual foreign couples could commission a surrogacy arrangement in India, in 2013. This effectively meant that homosexual couples, single men and women, and unmarried heterosexual couples could not participate in the commercial surrogacy arrangement in India. This bracketing of the ‘suitable parent’ was seen only in case of the foreigner coming to India, serving as both a vision of Indians who opt for surrogacy as heterosexual and married, and negating the existence of,  and the desire for, Indian gay couples to have a family through surrogacy.

In India, after the latest legislation, surrogacy is permitted in certain conditions amid a swirling debate with such emotive terms being flung around as ‘baby farms’. So baby farms are okay for some categories of people and not in others?

The term ‘baby farms’ are often used in tandem with phrases like ‘wombs for rent’ to shock and censor. In my research and in the book, I have constantly maintained that commercial surrogacy is an emotive issue in India, and elsewhere, because it deals with families. Its intimate nature and links with kin means that commercial surrogacy will always be placed in the sphere of what American sociologist, Viviana Zelizer calls, ‘hostile worlds’. 

Commerce and kin do not intermingle, even though they do in many different ways, but they are always positioned as hostile to each other. This is why commercial surrogacy is difficult to accept: it involves the birth and relinquishment of children in exchange for compensation. It negates the sacredness of motherhood, and family. And even though it involves asexual reproduction through IVF, the stigma that surrogacy and surrogates face comes from its incorrect social association with sex work.  

You have an interesting chapter in your book about intention and parentage. What does this mean?

During my research on commercial surrogacy for over 5 years, the term ‘intended parents’ was often used, and preferred, by IVF clinics and surrogacy agents to refer to commissioning couples. The latter preferred this term as well as it positioned them with the possibility and ‘hope’ of future parentage. However, I found that the process of becoming an intended parent was fraught with doubt, conflict and uncertainty. 

Through case studies of an Indian woman seeking a commercial surrogate, an Indian domestic worker turned surrogate, and a foreign gay couple — I navigate the process of becoming intended parents. The chapter chronicles their difficulties and their choice of entering commercial surrogacy and highlights the social requirement of a family and children. The surrogate must enter the arrangement to care for her own children, and nurture their needs through the compensation she will get-just as the infertile married woman seeks a child to complete her marriage and familial life by hiring a surrogate. Here, an important conversation that we continue to seeks answers to is the privileging of ties of biology and genes. Because commercial surrogacy complicates the idea of genes and biology, while promising genetic links to the child the surrogate carries for you — the notion of who the intended parent is not so simple.

What are the implications of the state taking decisions that have to do with a woman’s body. One reason cited for the legislation to ban surrogacy is trafficking of babies. But don’t other laws exist for that?

One of the important absences in the draft law on surrogacy, brought out in 2016 to ban the commercial arrangement, is that of the ICMR draft law on regulation of assisted reproductive technologies. Earlier a part of the legislation on assisted reproductive technologies, the exclusive focus on surrogacy takes away important conversations on how medical technology facilitates the commercial gestational surrogacy arrangement, asexually. 

The focus of the current bill banning commercial surrogacy is on the use of women’s bodies, commercially-again resurrecting fears of sex work, and child trafficking. The suggestion of child trafficking has also led to a complete ban against foreigners coming to India to have children through surrogacy. In my research, I did not encounter a single case, or insinuation of child trafficking. However, the flip side to the focus on commercial surrogacy within a moralistic compass of a ban, means that women's bodies and choices are not properly evaluated. This means there is no or little regulation of the technology, and more regulation of women's bodies.

 What do your findings tell us about families that go through surrogacy - and women who give up the babies they have conceived? I imagine it is emotionally complicated...

The commercial surrogacy arrangement is a complicated arrangement involving multiple players, including not only the couple and the surrogate, but the latter's family, the IVF specialist, the surrogacy agents and lawyers, and embassy and consulate officials. It is emotionally fraught, and conflicted for everyone concerned. In my research I identify three stages that make up the commercial surrogacy arrangement. 

First, is that of identifying parentage: which reminds us that the process of becoming parents is very difficult. The presence of the surrogate is a constant reminder of her role in the birth of the child, even though she is positioned as the gestate with no genetic links to the child. This presence is further exacerbated in the second stage of the pregnancy which is ‘alien-like’ for both the couple and the surrogate. The surrogate cannot claim the foetus even though she is carrying it in her body, and the couple have to reconcile their connections to the child another woman is carrying. And finally, these conflicts come to a head in the final stage, during the citizenship process when the foreign couple have to prove their genetic links to the child, only by seeking the surrogate’s complete relinquishment, to take the baby back home. There is sadness and joy, as much as there is bonding and cutting-off of ties with the surrogate once the baby is born-but these form an essential part of the commercial surrogacy arrangement in India.