Cross-border surrogacy: exploiting low income women as biological resources?

Our globalised economy responds voraciously to biotech advances, but lax regulation risks turning the poor into biological resources to be used for profit

"Look at us, here! We are creating the world of tomorrow!" exclaims Mike. His words bounce off the walls of the high-tech fertility clinic we are in. Outside, the sun is slowly sinking into the smog of New Delhi's skyline as the streets fill with commuters. The brutal socio-economic inequality between the haves and the have-nots of India's economic miracle is laid bare in rush hour traffic. Shiny luxury cars, taking wealthy businessmen from high-rise offices to palatial homes stop at the traffic lights outside. Beggars approach them, knocking on tinted windows to plead for a fraction of that economic wonder, a share of the spoils of India's integration into global neoliberal trade systems, so that they can feed their family for the day.

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