Abstract
As India replaces the United States as the “mother destination” (p. 5) for fertility services, Sharmila Rudrappa examines the lives of women underpinning the supply chain of transnational surrogacy. Participant observation for 2 months in 2009 at an infertility clinic and interviews with 70 surrogates, 31 egg donors, and 25 garment workers in 2011 in Bangalore (India) reveal the circumstances under which women choose to engage in this intimate form of labor. While each one has a unique story, the unifying theme is a desire to gain financial independence. Their lives are characterized by economic instability often due to the untimely death of a spouse, debt, and the need to support extended family as well as the global business cycle of the textile industry.
The book distinguishes itself by placing these women’s decision to provide surrogacy services in the larger context of the textile industry. While Bangalore is known around the world as India’s Silicon Valley, this global hub of textile manufacturing can also be called “garment galli” (alley; p. 89). Contractors for prominent international brands force women to work unpaid overtime hours and subject them to verbal and sexual harassment. High rates of workplace injuries also shorten their working lives. It is not surprising then that these women derive greater meaning from selling their eggs and renting their wombs than from making clothes under abusive conditions. The considerable financial gains increase their bele or social worth in their families and communities, which tends to be diminished due to their gender. The surrogates also view their participation in the process as a deeply moral act, which fulfills infertile couples’ desire to be parents.
The description of surrogacy is evocative of a modern farm or factory, where a process is broken down into its component parts to maximize productivity. From what they eat, the hormonal treatment they are subject to, and the monitoring of their bodies both through invasive transvaginal ultrasounds and camera surveillance in their temporary housing to the final delivery by caesarean section on a predetermined date, the surrogates cede control of their bodies to the medical teams and the middlemen. The social work agencies that are meant to protect the women by serving as intermediaries with clients and doctors instead take advantage of the surrogates’ lack of knowledge of their rights and need for money to dictate terms of the transaction.
Rudrappa’s account deftly weaves together the fertility-related struggles of the intended parents (IPs) and their experiences in dealing with surrogates who are both geographically and culturally distant. Interviews with 20 heterosexual and gay IPs from Australia and the United States reveal that they believe that they too are providing a gift, albeit one of money. Rudrappa correctly points out that the “intended parent gained considerably more, but they had nothing in their possession that could fundamentally alter the surrogate mothers’ world in contrast to what the mothers had given them” (p. 148). While Rudrappa attempts to portray IPs sympathetically, the IPs’ behavior and attitudes paint them as customers for babies in a global marketplace. The IPs humanize the fetus and form a relationship with it, while the biological mother is rendered invisible. Most IPs wanted to ensure distance between the child and the surrogate almost immediately after delivery and prefer to deal with middlemen rather than the surrogate directly. Similar to a calf in a modern feedlot, the baby is separated from the mother almost immediately after birth. What emerges then is an ambiguous experience of surrogacy, which both empowers and exploits the birth mothers.
In addition to gender scholars, Discounted Life will be useful for scholars of labor and globalization, especially as two global industries (textile and surrogacy) intersect in Bangalore. The book also raises legal questions with respect to the rights of surrogates. Hidden physical and emotional costs such as missed days of work, “himse” or violence that women experience due to invasive procedures, and separation from families during the gestation period highlight the need for laws that represent the interests of the surrogates and egg donors. While the author calls for greater rights for women during all stages of the surrogacy, the relative powerlessness of these women makes it hard to be optimistic for a regulatory framework that prioritizes their needs.