India: The Baby Makers

In Launceston, Tasmania, Kate and Paul Torney yearn for another child. The arrival for their son Ptolemy was a dramatic and damaging event that almost killed Kate and certainly ended her natural capacity to bear another child. In suburban Melbourne, Victoria, Kali and Bill Gerakas have endured a devastating procession of failed pregnancies and miscarriages. “We tried IVF for four and a half years - we did something close to 24 cycles. We fell pregnant four times ourselves and lost all four babies. It was the most devastating time in our lives.” KALI GERAKAS Both couples – like hundreds of other Australians – have decided to start or extend their families using a commercial surrogate and for that India has become a hot global destination. There are now an estimated 1500 surrogacy centres across the country. In the space of a decade or so the surrogacy industry has grown to what one industry observer has estimated to be a billion dollar industry. But it’s exploded in a place where regulation has been lagging well behind the boom. So there are pitfalls for aspiring parents and perils for surrogates as well. Many surrogates are from very poor backgrounds, have little or no education and certainly limited or non-existent financial literacy. There are concerns that some are pressed into the industry by their husbands and families as a quick way to make an otherwise unimaginable $7000AU per birth. Supporters of the industry say the money is vaulting them out of poverty and into their own homes, an education and the prospect of a much brighter future. “If you are just a critic who feels a childless person should live a life of misery and stay childless throughout their life, or a poor person is meant to remain poor all throughout their life then you’ll consider this as something wrong, as something immoral. A farm. A baby-making factory..” - Dr NANYA PATEL One of the pioneers of the commercial surrogacy business, Dr Nanya Patel grants