Category: Reproductive Rights

The infertility and surrogacy multi-billion-dollar industries, those who benefit from it, and others, too often attempt to out-shout any criticism of surrogacy by conflating surrogacy with LGBTQ+ rights and labeling all opposition to surrogacy as homophobic.

Defenders of surrogacy see it as a reproductive choice from a vast array of menu items ranging from IVF to adoption. However, these options are not available equally to all, but only to those who can afford them.

Anna Kerr, founder and Principal Solicitor of Feminist Legal Clinic Inc., Sydney, AU addresses the heart of the issue in regard to how much a of choice surrogacy is for the surrogates:

 … how often are these ‘choices’ being made under financial duress or in a context of social coercion?  …  Can we assume that women are truly acting of their own volition when in many cases their lives are so susceptible to the control of others? Or should we be skeptical of claims of ‘free choice’ and ‘consent’ in contexts that so clearly  … smack of abuse and shameless exploitation?

Kerr very accurately foresees surrogacy and other reproductive technologies creating “an Atwoodian dystopia that should provide the basis for litigation well into the future.  … international human rights provisions, do not adequately recognise and protect the natural and fundamental bond between a mother and the child she carries and must urgently be strengthened to prevent further development of a culture in which women’s reproductive capacities are commandeered and their offspring traded as mere commodities by wealthy men

Source: Why is Surrogacy Illegal in Most of the World? | Dissident Voice

In health news, Johnson & Johnson has been ordered to pay $2.1 billion to a group of women who developed ovarian cancer after using talcum products contaminated with asbestos. In its ruling, the Eastern District Missouri Court of Appeals said Johnson & Johnson had “engaged in conduct that was outrageous because of evil motive or reckless indifference.” But the appeals court did reduce the verdict amount, which had been $4.7 billion. Johnson & Johnson recently stopped selling its brand of talcum powder in the United States and Canada, but it is continuing to sell the products overseas.

Source: Johnson & Johnson Ordered to Pay $2.1B for Cancer-Causing Baby Powder | Democracy Now!

Lockdown exposed the scale of the commercial baby business in Ukraine, and now women hired for their wombs are speaking out.

The babies’ plight made headlines around the world, but a month on, some 50 babies remain in the hotel and the saga is casting a harsh spotlight on the ethics and scale of the booming commercial child-bearing industry in Ukraine.

Mykola Kuleba, Ukraine’s ombudsman for children, has now said reforming a system he described as a violation of children’s rights was not enough and that surrogacy services for foreign couples in Ukraine should be banned.

In a cash-strapped economy however, where the average wage is £300 a month and the war with Russia and its proxies continues, many impoverished women, especially in small towns and rural areas, are still lining up to carry babies for money, even if they are paying a heavy health and psychological price, as campaigners believe.

Source: The stranded babies of Kyiv and the women who give birth for money | World news | The Guardian

It’s an interesting idea, but we don’t think polyandry would necessarily be great for women. More husbands could mean more work – especially since globally, women do two-and-a-half times as much unpaid care and domestic work as men.

China’s gender imbalance is a serious problem. The country has 30 to 40 million “missing women,” a situation caused by gender inequality and a preference for boys and exacerbated by the “one-child policy” in place from 1979 to 2015 and ongoing restrictions on women’s reproductive rights. This gender gap has made it difficult for many Chinese men to find wives.

It has also fueled a demand for trafficked women from abroad. Human Rights Watch documented bride trafficking in Myanmar, where each year hundreds of women and girls are deceived through false promises of employment into traveling to China, only to be sold to Chinese families as brides for about US$3,000 to $13,000 and held in sexual slavery, often for years.

Source: Can Multiple Husbands Solve China’s Gender Imbalance? | Human Rights Watch