Juliebird's anti-Semitic, First World elitism rings through loud and clear. By questioning the empowerment of the surrogates involved here, she implies the Israeli fathers of the child are exploiting Indian women. Enough with the anti-Jewish hatred, Juliebird! Enough!

Oh, and please let women in India make their own choices, Juliebird. They are empowered, enlightened and engaged in their own decisions - and they don't need an American to tell them what to do.

You raise some valid concerns, that should not be minimized by anyone who advocates legal, but regulated and non-exploitative, surrogacy. I think I made clear in my previous post that I'm only in favor of surrogacy in the best case scenarios that you outlined, and not in some wild, unregulated black market way that would throw the doors open to abuse or exploitation. I think we're more in agreement than perhaps you thought when you replied to my post. All I was arguing is that it's unfair to simply dismiss the idea out of hand as prima facie immoral or exploitative or creepy, as some other commenters seem to want to do. Context is everything.

One other thing, merely to nitpick (and please pardon me for doing so), but could we please back away from some of the loaded language used by critics of this practice? Language like "womb for rent" or "incubator" and the like. That language is not only dehumanizing to the women involved, but the connotations of such terminology skew the debate in a moralistic, negative way and also make blanket (and, in undoubtedly most cases, flagrantly unfair) assumptions about the thoughts and motivations of the adoptive parents-to-be in a surrogacy. It ignores the reality that in many (probably most) cases, surrogate mothers are volunteering willingly, for both financial benefit and to provide the gift of a child to others, and that the adoptive parents-to-be see her as a fellow human being who's providing a wonderful gift and who deserves to be richly compensated for it, and not as a machine or a piece of livestock. Are there exceptions to this? Of course--and those are the cases that should be condemned. But I don't think that's usually the case, and I think that the casual use of such loaded, biased terminology skews the debate over legitimate issues in an unfair way.

I'm sorry, but if this gay Israeli couple wasn't intending to exploit 2 poor women from a third-world country, then they would have taken their quest to someplace like liberal California, where surrogacy is legal. OH, but that would have cost A LOT MORE MONEY. Huh, it's amazing how often you can follow the money to find out what's really going on.

There is some surrogacy in the US and Europe, but not much, because it's pretty difficult to pay anyone educated and empowered and with other options, to give up 9 months of their life, endure extreme pain and risk their overall health and future fertility for a few thousand dollars. Americans and Europeans just are not that desperate. To find a willing population of surrogates, you need DESPERATION and you require EXTREME POVERTY.

And that my friends, is why it is exploitation. And not just some cool fertility alternative.

Having children, let alone biologically related children, is NOT an entitlement and it never has been. A consistent percentage of human couples has always been infertile -- about 15%. The alternative has always been adoption of ALREADY EXISTING needy children. It should not be a Frankenstein-like intervention into the natural process of conception and birth -- simply the fact that this Israeli couple required THREE particpants to create their baby is a serious sign something is morally wrong. They admitted they had a separate egg donor and gestational donor, even though this is vastly more costly, because they wanted to circumvent the normal bonding process between mother and child.

I have known several people who had to have kidney transplants (in the US and under US laws). Believe me, there are very good reasons that selling organs is illegal in the US, and the vast majority of transplant patients support these laws, even if they reduce the number of kidneys available -- without strict laws, kidneys would go to the richest patients and not the neediest. Children waiting for kidneys would die while rich old geezers would get kidney after kidney.

There would be a sickening "marketplace" for kidneys, with motivation (as in India) for people to steal kidneys or even murder to obtain kidneys from unwilling "donors". Monetary compensation would lead to "bidding wars" and kidneys would sell (to the rich old geezers of course) for hundreds of thousands of dollars (already the case in some 3rd world countries). Most middle class and all poor people would automatically be priced out of the transplant market...but HEALTHY poor and middle class people (as you lunkheads are suggesting be done with surrogacy) would be compelled to sell kidneys just to survive economically in the coming recession (or depression)...how could you morally refuse to sell a kidney for $150,000 when that could be the only way your child could go to college? or the only way you could retire? or pay for your parent's nursing home expenses? You couldn't, so you'd be compelled to sell a kidney even if it wasn't what you wanted, if it terrified you, if it put you at health risks yourself.

This kind of human trafficking starts out with all the right intentions (oh, the poor gay Israeli's who can't have a baby of their own because it's biologically impossible!) and end up with a world where the poorest people are little more than Soylent Green baby-and-kidney factories for the rich.

BTW: Brightstar, as usual you demonstrate your complete unfitness as a future parent, husband or even basic human being. To compare your high-paying architect's job -- which you can quit anytime you like, to look for another job you prefer -- to being used as a third-world Guinea pig for the rich, is disgusting and self-serving. The reason you can't have a baby is not simply that you don't have both testicles and ovaries (as I guess you feel entitled to, in your sexually confused, woman-hating way), but that you are a substandard, hateful elf of a human being.