Infertility, Adoption and Surrogacy: A Child at Any Cost

Across civilizations, cultures, history and geopolitics, the birth of a child represents the essential crowning of a union. Childbirth is celebrated, signifying the beginning of a new emotional and social institution. Conversely, the inability to have a child haunts couples, communities, and most of all, women. The burden of infertility is created, the stigma attached, and women bear the blame. Thus, the importance of having a baby has surpassed all emotional and human barriers. However, it has enabled an entire system of illegal means and unemotional connections. Therefore, hopeful couples, doctors and surrogates find themselves in the grey areas of law, ethics and norms. An amalgamation of exploitation, legal-socio-religious and cultural scrutiny by society and state to determine whether the new-age reproduction methods are “acceptable” acts as significant hindrances. Through independent research carried out in India and the US by way of South-East Asia, Infertility, Adoption, and Surrogacy: A child at any cost ventures behind the scenes of the emotional and financial suffering of surrogates and doctors in surrogacy, the alienation of infertile parents from society and the legal tyrannies in the adoption process. Relying on primary ethnographic methods and thorough secondary study, the book throws light on the darker side of childbirth and the historical journey of acceptance of infertility, adoption and surrogacy.