You would be cheering if it were rich white women in some upscale urban western city. So take your heads out of your asses for a moment and stop screeching about the poor brown women.

Don't forget that in Brazil, the government trades free abortions for votes too.

And for the record, I have personally arranged kidney transplants in South America for Americans who are barred by law in the US from purchasing organs. Generally speaking it runs about $300,000 of which the organ donor gets anywhere from a tenth to a fifth of that.

What happened to a woman's right to choose? A woman's right to do with her body whatever she pleases? So now a woman (a developing world woman, no less) only has the right to choose to do what is sanctioned by comfortable, smug, self-righteous women in the developed world?

And has anyone thought that if perhaps the laws of Israel were more flexible and accommodating, and the global adoption process less homophobic, these gentlemen wouldn't have had to resort to an Indian surrogate in the first place?

So they want to raise a child, and they want the child to have a genetic relationship to at least one of them. So what? Why is that so wrong? That's the choice made by millions of people around the world every year, and no one preaches to them except for the self-loathing misanthropes who pant to see their own species go into terminal decline or die out ASAP. If we're going to get so self-righteous about adopting the poor unwanted children of the whole world rather than produce our own, then I expect equal umbrage to be directed to ALL heterosexual parents in the developed world who are having children, pregnant, attempting to become pregnant, or contemplating pregnancy. If you aren't willing to do that, then kindly STFU.

There is nothing wrong with surrogacy in principle. Of course it can be abused, but that's where proper controls and regulations and protections come into play to protect everyone involved and make sure that no one is being exploited and all parties are participating of their own free will. And one shouldn't minimize or dismiss the inducements of several years' worth of income to a woman in the developing world. Such a financial boost can literally be a lifesaver or provide all sorts of additional benefits, such as education, housing, money to start a business, etc.

Comparing surrogacy to prostitution is misguided and merely an effort on the part of moralists on both the right and left to discredit it. It can't even accurately be compared to organ donation for obvious reasons (the person donating the organ is having a part of their body permanently and irreversibly removed.) Clearly there are some larger issues at stake in surrogacy than there are in egg or sperm donation, but those are the closest relevant comparisons. And the fact that there are much larger issues at stake means that surrogacy will always be far less frequent a practice, far more difficult, and far more legally entangling than either of those two reproductive options.

Look at it this way: Aside from the legal technicalities, surrogacy is little more than adoption in advance, or proactive adoption if you will. The meeting of minds, the contracts, the decisions to both give a child away and to adopt the child, the exchange of money--all these things are happening before the pregnancy rather than after. Of course there's the added kink that one of the adoptive parents in a surrogacy is usually a biological parent of the child in question, but don't let that blind you to the fact that surrogacy is in large part a proactive, reverse-order adoption process.

"What happened to a woman's right to choose? A woman's right to do with her body whatever she pleases?"

Well, this is my question. Once she becomes a surrogate, *does* she still have control over her body? Or do the adoptive parents? Remember, in the case mentioned in the article, the embryo is genetically linked to the father, and not the surrogate mom. "It's *my* baby in *your* uterus: you must accommodate *my* demands as an incubator" is not a far-fetched position, especially as "the incubator" is being paid.

"And has anyone thought that if perhaps the laws of Israel were more flexible and accommodating, and the global adoption process less homophobic, these gentlemen wouldn't have had to resort to an Indian surrogate in the first place?"

Well, duh, yeah. But is that the issue we're discussing today?

"So they want to raise a child, and they want the child to have a genetic relationship to at least one of them. So what? Why is that so wrong?"

There's nothing "wrong" with that desire. But a desire doesn't necessarily translate into a right.

"I expect equal umbrage to be directed to ALL heterosexual parents in the developed world who are having children, pregnant, attempting to become pregnant, or contemplating pregnancy. If you aren't willing to do that, then kindly STFU."

I have equal concerns with people who are so desperate to have a "genetic " baby that they will risk their health, the baby's (babies') health, and undergo expensive and ethically thorny procedures to have one. By and large, I think couples (and children!) would be better served by adoption, and I'd rather see money and energy put into making adoptions easier, faster, and more affordable. Surrogacy, IMHO, is even thornier than, say, IVF of half a dozen embryos, because it involves 2 families.

"There is nothing wrong with surrogacy in principle. Of course it can be abused, but that's where proper controls and regulations and protections come into play to protect everyone involved and make sure that no one is being exploited and all parties are participating of their own free will."

True. What controls and regulations are in lace in either Israel or India regarding the case in question?

"And one shouldn't minimize or dismiss the inducements of several years' worth of income to a woman in the developing world."

Agreed. And if women are healthy (eg have good prenatal, antenatal and post-partum care, including mental health services if they undergo post-partum depression) , autonomous, and respected, then everyone wins. BUT, if the woman is essentially an indentured servant, or worse, is this an acceptable transaction?

"Look at it this way: Aside from the legal technicalities, surrogacy is little more than adoption in advance, or proactive adoption if you will."

Except that in most cases, the adoptive parents in traditional adoptions do not have control over the birth mother, because they do not meet until the child already exists: is born, and living outside the mother's body. In the "womb for rent" scenarios, adoptive parents have the potential to exert much greater, minute, control over the surrogate mom. The parents "own" the baby at conception, instead of after birth. So, surrogacy is quite a bit more than "ptoactive adoption".