because it's pretty obvious that this entire enterprise is extremely messed up.

Here in New York, surrogacy-for-hire is against public policy and is illegal. Contracts are void and repeat offenders can be jailed. I think that's a good thing.

Surrogacy is much worse than prostitution. Instead of buying a body for 30 minutes at a time, you are buying it for nine months, which will have a much greater impact on health, and whose emotional impact (bringing a pregnancy to term and then giving up the baby for cash) is certainly much greater than emotion-free sex.

The world is incredibly overpopulated. To go exploit impoverished women in one of the most impoverished and overpopulated countries in the world and renting a womb to bring another overprivileged, first-world baby into being is just indefensible. How about adopting an Indian baby instead? That goes for people who are not infertile, too (see the current Ask Pablo column).

I feel the same way about the human egg market. And let's stop calling it "donation," it's not "donation" when you're doing it for thousands of dollars.

Our enlightened Mr. Gher managed two exploit not one but TWO Indian women, because he wanted only the best eggs that money could buy and to increase the emotional distance from his second rented body. So he had one Indian woman all hormoned up and her ovary sliced open to have the eggs taken out, mixed with his sperm, and stuck up in a second Indian woman.

Great work, Mr. Gher. I guess you are really contributing to the "new economy."

And what does Mr. Gher do for a living? The article tells us that he is "a communications officer for the environmental group Greenpeace."

This is the face of Greenpeace, #1 international environmental activist group?

The world has gone mad.

The surrogate gets three years worth of pay for carrying a baby, which doesn't really interfere with her daily life. The parents get a baby to love.

the fact that we CAN, as humans, do certain things in no way makes them morally right.

Who's harmed by gestational surrogacy? The women aren't giving up their own biological children. In fact, they're making a better future for their own children. The woman in the article bought a house and is now building savings for her son.

What is immoral about gestational surrogacy?

I am really torn about this issue. On one hand, I think women should be allowed to decide what they can and cannot do with their bodies, and if pregnancy is "work" then I think $7,500-$15,000 for 9 months work is a fantastic wage for these women. That's a lot of money in India and will certainly help raise these women's standard of living significantly, possibly permanently.

On the other hand, pregnancy can be dangerous, even in clinics such as these where the women get (I assume) good medical care. What happens when the first surrogate dies from preeclampsia? When looked at in this light, surrogacy seems more like organ donation than anything else, and I am definitely creeped out by the idea of poor women selling kidneys to rich world customers.

In the end, I think this issue is too complex for black-and-white analysis. If there are going to be surrogates (and there will be), I think the best answer is to regulate the hell out of the industry to ensure good care and excellent wages for the surrogates.

As to the earlier poster's suggestion that these men should adopt an Indian baby instead: only people of Indian heritage are allowed to adopt healthy children from India. There may be allowances for special needs kids, but I am not sure-- at any rate, given the perception of homosexuality in India my guess is that no Indian agency would let a gay couple adopt a child at any level of need.

given the incredible number of people on Salon who think there is absolutely nothing wrong with buying a woman's body for the purpose of fucking it for an hour, you will have a hard row to hoe convincing anyone that it is wrong to buy a woman's body for nine months, no matter how logical and consistent you are.

As to the adoption of Indian babies, India is one of the top ten countries for international adoptions, so I don't think that poster can be right.

I too think that insisting on raising your biological children, no matter what it costs or who you have to use, is very poor ethics and huge waste of resources.

But for some people, money excuses everything.

"I too think that insisting on raising your biological children, no matter what it costs or who you have to use, is very poor ethics and huge waste of resources."

Sometimes we just have to accept that we can't always have everything we want and redirect our energies to other purposes.

The implication that we know more than these women do about what they should do with their bodies is, frankly, shocking. Poor and ignorant are not the same as "stupid". These women have few options and fewer opportunities. Let's at least acknowledge that what they choose is none of our business. I'll decide if I want to carry a surrogate for somebody else. I won't decide if somebody else can do it.

It is organ lending, not donation. That said, I don't have a problem with voluntary organ donation, either, even if it's for a fee. When you really think about the lives of the poorest among us, it seems a bit harsh to judge them for doing whatever they can to live a better life. We seem to think that it's better for a parent to let their child starve than for that parent to sell a kidney to ensure that their children are able to eat and grow and become healthy adults. Yes, it's wrong. So is the fact that millions of children are starving to death. Life is not fair. Why is it okay for a parent to die slowly working in an unregulated coal mine for a pittance, but not okay for that parent to give up an organ they don't need for a fortune?