Going to Extremes? Where does it stop?

Last night, I watched the HBO documentary Google Baby. The gist of the show was to follow a gay Israeli man who paid $140K to hire a surrogate from Tennessee to have a baby for him and his partner. After he brought home his daughter home, he took a queue from his profession (information technology) and hatched a plan to outsource surrogacy - recruit egg donors from the US, fertilize the eggs in Israel and ship the embryos to India to implant in surrogates.

While I expected this show to be uplifting and celebrating the miracles of helping people start families, it left me angry and depressed because the Indian women were severely exploited. Yes, the surrogate made a little money, but the real winners were the Israeli guy and the doctor who owned the clinic.

At the beginning, a doctor bluntly explains to a potential surrogate that she as absolutely no rights - she is  simply a vessel and if there are complications (up to and including death), she has absolutely no recourse against the clinic or the adoptive family.  In the next scene, they show a woman forced to have a c-section who is on the verge of tears as the baby is pulled from her stomach, put on a tray and immediately carried away to the waiting parents.

In parts of the Indian society, surrogacy is seen as taboo - one step away from prostitution. Many of these women disappear for nine months and don't tell their family or friends what they are doing - for fear of shame. They are clearly desperate to create better lives for themselves and their families. Some surrogates were clearly "seasoned" - maybe as old as in their 50's? From the moment of transfer, they live in  dormitory-style rooms and are required to stay on bed rest all day as they fight boredom.

In another scene, the Israeli broker is on the phone with a 59-year-old woman who makes it clear she is financially comfortable and wants to buy donor eggs, donor sperm and hire a surrogate to have a baby. They quickly agree to work together and clearly don't care about the child and what life will be like with an older, single parent.

At the end, the Israeli "broker" was on the phone with the Indian clinic explaining that one of his clients clients wanted to implant embryos into two different surrogates at the same time. He tells the camera several times that he thinks this is wrong, yet he's talked to two different surrogacy clinics and they both think it's a wonderful idea. They don't make it clear if he went through with the plan, but my bet is that he did.

There is no question that wanting to start a family when you can't is heartbreaking. I realize that not everyone has an extra $140K sitting around, but on the other hand, after seeing this show, I do not think I that I could, in good concise, hire one of these surrogates after seeing the exploitation and heartbreak that takes place.

Hopefully, I will never have to make that decision.