Labor of Care and Contracts: A Study of Surrogacy after the Transnational Ban in India

Ruby Bhardwaj

doi:10.18778/1733-8077.21.3.02

Authors

Ruby Bhardwaj Janki Devi Memorial College, University of Delhi, India https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9312-6523

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.21.3.02

Keywords:

Commercial Surrogacy, Ethics of Care, Mothers, Contracts, Stigma, Secrecy

Abstract

Characterized by the interplay of care and contracts, surrogacy is an exclusive form of gendered work. The paper is based on a micro-level ethnographic study exploring the lived and embodied challenges of commercial gestational surrogates in Gujarat, India, who were undertaking surrogacy work after the ban on transnational surrogacy. The experiential accounts collected through in-depth, face-to-face interviews bear the challenges, stigma, and shame involved in surrogacy work. Not only is surrogacy work devalued, deprived of dignity, and shrouded in secrecy, but it is also corrupted by contracts, complicated by alienation and relinquishment of the gestated child. Surrogates disguise their work and stay in surrogacy hostels. Poverty in India compels many women to engage in surrogacy to eke out a living and improve their living conditions. Surrogate mothers are poorly paid, deprived of health benefits and legal security, they receive only twenty percent of the total cost of the surrogacy arrangement, and are also treated as fungible and disposable. The paper adopts the ethics of care perspective to analyze surrogacy arrangements. Such a perspective is directed toward promoting a responsible and humane attitude toward commercial surrogates. It is motivated by the need to uphold the dignity of the surrogates, their legal rights, and the social recognition of their work. The application of care ethics can alleviate the neglect and oppression of surrogates.

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Author Biography

Ruby Bhardwaj, Janki Devi Memorial College, University of Delhi, India

Ruby Bhardwaj has been teaching in the Department of Sociology, Janki Devi Memorial College, University of Delhi, for over three decades. Having specialized in the sociology of health and medicine, she has researched alternative and complementary therapies and has published research articles on medical pluralism, drugless therapies such as naturopathy and yoga, and their interface with Biomedicine. Her research interests in the sociology of gender, sociology of medicine, and sociology of the body find expression in her published works on assisted reproductive technologies such as ova donation, IVF, and surrogacy arrangements in India. Her interest in the sociology of health has led her to study the impact of climate change on the health of women from marginalized communities.

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