The rise of surrogacy in India over the last decade has helped individuals across the world to realize their parenting aspirations. In the macro-context of poverty in India and the hierarchical and patriarchal family set-up, concerns are expressed about coercion of women to participate in surrogacy. While the ethical issues engulfing surrogacy are widely discussed, not much is known about the role women play in the decision-making to participate in surrogacy. The paper aims to addresses this gap and is based (...) on a part of a larger ethnographic study conducted at a surrogacy clinic in Anand, Gujarat, India. We explored experiences of forty-one surrogate mothers using in-depth interviews and analysed the narratives to identify women’s own perceived role in the decision-making to participate in surrogacy. Narratives describing the decision-making process were identified and treated as a preliminary unit of analysis. We examined the use of singular and plural pronouns like “I,” “me,” and “mine” versus “we,” “us,” and “our,” along with the use of active and passive voice to determine whether women assumed responsibility for the decision to participate in surrogacy or they attributed the decision to others. Findings unravelled the complexities of the decision-making process and indicated that eighty-five percent of the women played an active role in the decision-making to participate in surrogacy, albeit with new avenues of exploitation in the commercial market space and raised serious bioethical concerns. (shrink)

Reproductive technologies are increasingly used not just to detect the presence of fetal “abnormalities” but also to “correct” or eliminate them before birth. This is done with the aim to enable the birth of “healthy” and “normal” children who can contribute better to the nation’s productivity. Although these processes are common to most women, the situation is further aggravated for surrogates within developing country contexts, who already work in precarious conditions and occupy the lower end of the hierarchy within the (...) surrogacy arrangement. Highlighting the Indian surrogacy context, I discuss and analyze some of these biopolitical challenges and complexities. (shrink)