The Lure of Hope : On the Transnational Surrogacy Trail from Australia to India

India was the first among a trail of “pop up” third-party reproductive destinations including Thailand, Nepal, Mexico, and now Cambodia. Alongside the detailed ethnographic account of the experiences of parents and surrogate mothers the author offers a careful analysis of regulatory systems governing surrogacy and embryo use in Australia and India.

The Lure of Hope portrays a snap shot of the rise and fall of commercial surrogacy in India. By chance, the author’s fieldwork began around the same time NSW legislation in Australia extended its ban on commercial surrogacy to include overseas arrangements. Not long after returning from fieldwork in India, the Home Ministry of India changed the conditions of entry for intending parents (IPs) traveling to India for a surrogacy arrangement. From November 2013 IPs would have to apply for a medical visa, and could only obtain a medical visa for surrogacy if they had been married for at least two years. In 2016 the Indian Surrogacy (regulation) Act was introduced, commercial surrogacy was banned and foreigners were no longer able to enter into surrogacy arrangements in India. India was the first among a trail of ‘pop up’ reproductive destinations including Thailand, Nepal, Mexico, Cambodia and Laos. This book captures a moment in the recent history of the emerging global ‘surroscape’. Alongside the detailed account of the experiences of parents and surrogate mothers the author offers a careful analysis of regulatory systems governing surrogacy and embryo use in Australia and India. With the authors archival research in the UK she further analyses the regulation of surrogacy with cross cultural comparison of the relatively longer history of surrogacy regulation in the UK. Reproductive technologies and the many options these create are ahead of the law and while the law struggles to keep up we have a rich field of investigation. What do different regulatory systems tell us about how we see society, children, women’s bodies, reproduction and fecundity, kinship and family formation?