The gestational carrier fuels baby lust

The gestational carrier fuels baby lust

What's more unpalatable - the term barren or the phrase gestational carrier? In the 21st century, no woman ever need infertility stand in her way of becoming a mother when she can rent someone else's womb at very little cost.

Enter the gestational carrier. She is the fuel for baby lust, the answer to a barren woman's prayers.

Nicole Kidman recently brought the term to the headlines when her carrier came to term successfully with little Faith. We are told Faith is the product of 43-year-old Kidman's egg and husband Keith Urban's sperm. All in return for the $150,000 they paid a Los Angeles based surrogacy firm. (Herald Sun, Jan 25)

Now, Kidman already has a biological child with her husband. She also has two teenage children as well, from her first marriage. She has experienced all of the joys and trials of motherhood. She just wanted more – baby lust in action. And she couldn't do it herself.

Hence the gestational carrier: these two words neatly take out the "mother" from the act of pregnancy and birth. As social commentator Melinda Tankard Reist noted, "In those last two words, the woman whose body nurtured this child for nine months is stripped of humanity." (The Australian Jan19)

Indeed, hidden behind the term "gestational carrier" are the risks one woman takes for another – all because a woman with money desires a biological baby from a woman who only has her womb to sell.

Pregnancy and childbirth has always been – and remains – a risky business physically and emotionally, no matter what detached term we give to the woman undergoing the journey.

Yet in the western world, we expect women to give birth to their children relatively easily and safely. This is reinforced by the media, who will choose a story of a struggling, premature baby over reason it was born too early in the first place. As readers, we prefer the heart wrenching baby photo and accompanying hero story of the medical team trying to save its life. In the shadows is the woman whose pregnancy was compromised. We don’t want to read about that.

While there are no accurate figures on the actual numbers of high-risk pregnancies in Australia because of discrepancy in categorizing, medical experts believe there are more coming through the system, both in public and private hospitals.

And let us not fool ourselves into believing that just because a woman is healthy, has no underlying medical conditions and has a functioning reproductive system that pregnancy and childbirth will be smooth sailing. The Age online journalist Michelle Johnson died unexpectedly in 2010 at the age of 31 due to a medical emergency in pregnancy. (theage.com.au, Mar 24, 2010)
It is important to remember that some pregnancies begin normally but problems develop later. Even the fittest, healthiest woman can suddenly discover her pregnancy falls into the high-risk category when she develops a problem. According to the South Australian clinical research program SCOPE, one in five (19 per cent) of all first pregnancies encounter major problems in late pregnancy such as pre-eclampsia, spontaneous preterm birth and fetal growth retardation, and these problems are life threatening in three per cent of pregnancies.
The media has been saturated with opinion articles, mostly by female journalists and commentators, who dare you to challenge the fact that little Faith should not exist. Michelle Higgins wrote "As a mother of four children, I have no patience with those who dismiss the real pain of the infertile with the attitude that they should just get over it and find another way to realise their human potential." (Sydney Morning Herald, Jan 21)

Susie O'Brien agrees; "As someone who was lucky enough to have my three kids without any fertility problems, I would never, ever, attack the choices other couples make in a bid to have a family." (Herald Sun, Jan 19)

I, too, am extremely grateful that I have two children - despite a medical condition which made both of my pregnancies high risk and affected my long term health. I know about baby lust, having been willing to undertake a long, hard and risky journey to get to motherland. Like Kidman, if I wanted another baby, the most sensible thing for me would be to go to Rudy Rupak, CEO of medical tourism agency Planet Hospital. Rupak offers the “India Bundle,” an "affordable" package deal that provides a "concierge service" that takes care of all aspects of the process – from finding a donor egg or sperm if needed, to a surrogate. All you have to do is collect the resulting baby – and pay the bill. (Wall Street Journal, Dec 10, 2010)

Renowned ethicist Margaret Somerville, in her book The Ethical Imagination, says that some of the most deeply troubling ethical issues we face involve reproductive tourism in countries such as India. She writes; "Ironically the fertility industry often uses the concept of generosity, under the guise of being generous to infertile people, as a recruitment and marketing tool, probably because the cloak of altruism the presence of generosity provides is ethically reassuring and dulls troubling moral intuitions."

Margaret Atwood's 1987 novel The Handmaid's Tale is a prescient and chilling story of a world of forced gestational carriers, sanctioned by the state to be wombs for to fuel a dying population and the desires of barren, older women. Atwood writes: "You wanted a women's culture. Well, now there is one. It isn't what you meant, but it exists. Be thankful for small mercies."

Evelyn Tsitas is the co-author of the parenting book Handle With Care. She is a PhD student at RMIT University.

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