‘Outsourced pregnancy’: Surrogate narratives from Hyderabad

Abstract

Surrogacy has always been contested and much debated in India since its legalisation in 2002, and the recent Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016, has led to a renewed engagement with it. The advent of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) provided an opportunity for the medical establishment, market and infertile couples to come together in a mutually beneficial arrangement, which is made possible by a surrogate. ART, while medicalising the reproductive capacity of women, also calls for a redefining of the concepts of ‘motherhood’, family and reproductive choice. This article primarily documents the experiences of surrogates through their narratives about the continuous struggle with themselves, their families and the medical establishment. In this matrix of unequal power relations that surrogacy epitomises, the surrogate has a precarious voice. The article argues that while surrogacy extracts a physiological and emotional price that the surrogates pay, it is empowering in a limited way. It offers women economic opportunities of a scale otherwise denied to them, enabling them to fight a life of poverty.