The surrogacy market

Harvard University law professor Michael Sandel, who created a global sensation with his bestselling book “Justice: What Is the Right Thing to Do,” often cites the true story of a surrogate mother when speaking on justice and ethics. William Stern and his wife in New Jersey could not have a baby on their own because she had multiple sclerosis. The couple was introduced to a surrogate mother at a fertility clinic. The surrogate mother agreed to carry a child for the couple by implanting her egg fertilized with William’s sperm in her womb. The Sterns paid her and even named the baby. When the surrogate mother gave birth, however, she ran away with the baby due to her instinctive love for her child as a mother. This is the famous incident of “Baby M.”

Had this incident happened now, the Sterns would have traveled to India without hesitation. India is the world’s largest market for surrogacy. Women in rural India who have had one or two children lend their wombs to infertile couples for money and even provide human eggs. They prepare themselves for birth by staying in good facilities and a nice environment during pregnancy, consuming the proper level of nutrition and doing moderate exercise. They can also see their relatives on a regular basis, and their families also welcome surrogacy because of the financial rewards. In certain cases, Indian husbands even force their wives to serve as surrogate mothers.

In the U.S., a growing number of well-heeled single men generate fertilized eggs bought from female students attending prestigious schools such as Harvard, and implant the eggs in the wombs of women in India. It is difficult to marry a woman who graduates from Harvard, but this way, they can borrow excellent DNA just like using the best fabric in making a custom-tailored suit. But since humans are creatures shaped by the integration of genes and post-birth education, a good child cannot necessarily be produced as the result of outstanding genes and without proper care from his or her mother.

Who should be considered the parent of a baby born to a surrogate mother is a sensitive issue. Is it the child of the sperm provider, egg provider or the surrogate mother? The Korean Civil Law judges that the mother-child relationship is formed through pregnancy and birth, and hence the parental right to a baby born to a surrogate mother is reserved for the latter. Dozens of websites have been opened in Korea to broker surrogacy but are largely untrustworthy. The situation is different in India. Under Indian law, a child born to a surrogate mother belongs to the person who requested the surrogacy. Due to this legal endorsement, the value of the surrogacy industry in India has grown to 2.6 trillion won (2.28 billion U.S. dollars) per year. For this reason, more Koreans are also flocking to the Indian surrogacy market.

Editorial Writer Chung Sung-hee (shchung@donga.com)