Business Ethics Group 4 Nilesh Bhagat 01 Dhruv Damania 04 Samidha Kashettiwar 19 Mallika Palande 26 Aditya Todankar 45 Pritam Vaity 49
Sep 13, 2014
Business Ethics
Group 4Nilesh Bhagat 01Dhruv Damania 04Samidha Kashettiwar 19Mallika Palande 26
Aditya Todankar 45Pritam Vaity 49
Outsourcing Pregnancy to India
Surrogacy-an arrangement in which a woman carries and delivers a child for another couple or person
• Traditional Surrogacy
• Gestational surrogacy
There’s money to be had, it’s for a short-term period and there is the satisfaction of bringing happiness to someone’s life
A right
A hopeful future
Upliftment of women
Medical Tourism
Remuneration leads to independence
Better living conditions
Trend toward “increasingly personal” global service work
• Facilitates contact with overseas doctors & hospitals and present their credentials to prospective clients
• India has the best IVF services in the world and the fact that English is widely spoken makes it easier for foreigners to avail of medical services
• At an approximate growth of 30% each year, medical tourism could bring between $1 billion and $2 billion US into India by 2012
• According to Indian Council of Medical Research commercial surrogacy will grow from being a $445 million-a-year business
Medical Tourism
IVF clinics in India
• Akanksha Infertility Clinic, Anand, Gujarat
• Dr Sada Centre For Reproduction & Assisted Conception Mothercare Hospital, Pune
• Diksha Test Tube Baby Centre, Hyderabad
• Nadkarni Hospital & Test Tube Baby Centre, Surat
• Deccan Fertility Clinic & Keyhole Surgery Centre, Mumbai
• A.H Ivf & Infertility Research Centre, Kolkatta and more …
To secure a ‘better life’ for themselves and their families
• Surrogates in India earns up to Rs. 2,00,000- 4,00,000
• For the surrogates -- usually lower middleclass housewives -- money is the primary motivator
• Money to buy a better home or even provide an education for their children
• Fulfillment of distant dreams
Financial
Empowerment
The act of becoming a mother (surrogate mother), is not only a self-sacrificing but truly a brave decision
• The act of giving life, a reason to live, making dreams possible for childless couples
• Gift of compassion, patience and love from one woman to another
Act of Kindness
Aamir-Kiran Baby Spotlights Surrogacy Issues in India
• Amir Khan and Kiran Rao’s seven-day-old baby boy born through IVF (In Vitro Fertilization) surrogacy.
• Aamir has done a great job bringing the procedure into the mainstream.
• The couple is also getting a thumbs up from the film fraternity
What is wrong in Surrogacy??...
Lack of legal protection
Dark Future
Unregulated
Exploitative
Shifting Focus
Health Issues
A Human incubator on Hire
• The surrogate mother is treated as a biological commodity, as a place to gestate a child for money
•The surrogates are recruited from rural villages, with most recruits being poor and illiterate
• Practice of “selective reduction” - killing of one or more multiple foetuses in the womb
• Some surrogates are pressured into it by their families
• Quality control of the woman and her uterus
Exploitation
The Unbalancing Act• Surrogate mothers are first and foremost mothers to their own children
• Leave home for the duration of the pregnancy and live in a hostel run by the surrogacy agency.
• No good reason for the surrogate mother to have to abandon her family and move far away from her family for almost 9 months.
• No balance between a surrogate mother as a mother and a surrogate mother helping another couple
• Rights of their own children to the society of their mother compromised.
Business in reproductive tourism is thriving in India, growing at some 7% annually
• Surrogate mothers need to sign a “contract” with the childless couple. There are no stipulations as to what will happen if this “contract’ is violated
•While an American surrogate would get 50-75% of the total fees, and Indian surrogate receives only 25%
• Young vulnerable girls from orphanages were ‘hired out’ for surrogacy and the surrogate mothers themselves never got any money
• Over 1000 clinics offering fertility services to couples from all over the world traveling to India
Unregulated
• Who will take the responsibility of the child if the commissioning parents refuse to take the former due to abnormalities?
• What happens if the surrogate mother changes her mind & refuses to hand over the baby or blackmails for custody?
•Will the child born to an Indian mother be a citizen of this country?
Baby Manji: A stateless surrogate baby
• Japanese baby Manji Yamada, born to an Indian surrogate mother
• The Japanese embassy in Delhi refused to issue a passport
• The father, accompanied by his mother Emiko, travelled to Ahmadabad and took custody of the child
• Jaipur-based NGO, Satya, moved Rajasthan High Court on August 12 claiming the grandmother’s custody of the baby was illegal
India accounted for 19% of the estimated 287,000 women who died in pregnancy and childbirth in 2010, according to the United Nations
• Forced to deliver by C-section even though C-sections carry a double to quadruple risk of death during childbirth
• Repeated pregnancies can even affect cardiovascular health
• Short-term effects - fatigue and vomiting to the swelling of joints
• Long term effects - from scarring, varicose veins to loose skin
• Psychological distress
Health Issues
Biological Colonialism Kills
• Renting out her womb to a US couple cost Amraiwadi resident Premila Vaghela her life
• Premila Vaghela died in the eighth month of her pregnancy
• Doctors conducted an emergency Caesarean and saved the baby boy
• There was almost no coverage of Premila’s death in the United States
Government’s initiatives
• 2002- Commercial surrogacy in India legalized
• 2005 –Introduction and implementation of National Guidelines for Accreditation, Supervision and Regulation of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Clinic in India by the ICMR, MoHFW, Government of India
• June25,2008–Meeting-cum-workshop called by the MoWCD, Government of India
• December 2010-Introduction of Draft ART Bill
• However, till date there is no such laws to protect the rights and interests of the surrogate mother, the child or the commissioning parents
Recommendations
• Right-based legal framework for the surrogate mothers, ICMR guidelines not enough
• The surrogate mother should not undergo more than 3 trials and it has to be monitored
• Surrogate mother left without any medical support- should be a provision of intensive care and medical check-ups of their reproductive organs during the 3 months after pregnancy
• The citizenship right of the surrogate baby- Indian government needs to take a stand in terms of conferring the surrogate baby Indian citizenship
• The government needs to monitor the surrogacy clinics, which generally charge arbitrary prices for surrogacy arrangements