Marriage leads to children - gay marriage leads to surrogacy
 |
| Gay Couple with child (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
"She's just like an easy-bake oven except with no legal rights to the cupcake," the surrogate-mother broker tells Bryan and David. This is a hard-nosed description of the woman's role in gay marriage and child-rearing, but it sums it up accurately.
In heterosexual relationships, the birth rate rises when couples are married. One would expect similar dynamics to apply to same-sex couples. For lesbian couples, this is not a huge problem; all they need is a sperm donor. But male couples need surrogate mothers.
Where will these women come from? Unless the law of supply and demand is repealed, the answer is: where wombs are cheapest. At the moment, this is India, where surrogate motherhood has become a $2.3 billion industry, with the enthusiastic encouragement of some state governments.
A recent investigation by the London Sunday Telegraph found there were only 100 surrogacies in Britain last year, but 1000 in India for British clients. The proportion in Australia is likely to be the same.
There are no official statistics, but it appears gay couples account for a substantial chunk of the overseas market. So will the legalisation of same-sex marriage lead to even more surrogate mothers in India?
BioEdge, the bioethics newsletter I edit, emailed IVF clinics in India and the US asking whether they were preparing for a rising demand for surrogate mothers.The answer was a resounding yes. Our survey is far from scientific, let alone comprehensive, but it suggests that poor women in developing or economically depressed countries will be recruited to service gay couples.
"The main reason patients travel from abroad to India is for excellent personal care, expertise and a lot of savings on the treatment costs," says Dr Samundi Sankari, of Srushti Fertility Research Centre in Chennai.
"The costs that they pay here is almost one-fifth the costs they pay for surrogacy in US and Europe."He gets a lot of inquiries from gay couples in the US and Israel. Is he preparing for an increase in demand?
"Definitely, yes."
