Womb Racket

China Newsweek February 20

Since surrogate technology appeared, many hospitals have seen it as a big commercial opportunity and have wanted to embark on this business. However, it is widely seen as challenging China’s traditional childbirth norms and also morality and ethics. For this reason, the health authorities have stipulated that assisted reproduction technology (ART) should be applied only by medical agencies for medical purposes. Any commercial transaction in gametes, zygotes and fetuses is banned.

However, with rising infertility, private surrogate agencies have begun to emerge, which means things banned in formal medical agencies and hospitals are flourishing underground and attracting more and more practitioners. Surrogate agencies have gradually begun to face fierce competition among themselves. ART is a sophisticated medical technology but in the grey zone outside legal supervision, underground employment of ART knows no regulation. Some of the places where it is practiced are just like rundown manual workshops.

Families in straitened economic conditions will choose cheap surrogate agencies but appalling facilities often lead to failures and then disputes. Many surrogate businesses disappear after frequent failures, only to repackage themselves and reappear.

This is a very lucrative business, with profit margins ranging from 30-60 percent.