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CUSTOM MADE
- ERIN NICHOLS "And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister, and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die. And Jacob’s anger was kindled against Rachel, and he SAID, am I in God’s stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb? And she said, Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her, and she shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her" -- Genesis 30: 1-3 The stock ticker on your PC desktop whizzes by with the latest rates. IBM stocks have risen 3 points...Georgia Pacific is down...Sony’s stock is steady. An unfamiliar name flies across your screen: W.O.M.B. Curiosity gets the best of you. What is W.O.M.B? Hastily glancing over your shoulder to make sure your boss is out of site you discretely type in the acronym at the Yahoo search engine. Your query leads to a web site and you scan the text of the page in fascination. W.O.M.B is a multinational corporation which seeks to pair childless couples with appropriate healthy, responsible, and discrete women willing to offer their child bearing services at fixed rates. The development of in-vitro fertilization (The process by which eggs are removed from the ovary with ultrasound guidance just prior to ovulation and are then fertilized outside the body and re-implanted in the uterus to achieve pregnancy.) childless couples now have new ways to conceive. With this improved technology they may now also choose to hire a woman to carry their child to term for them. "Today, surrogacy arrangements introduce a new "custom made" market for children. Fees are paid not just to obtain someone else’s baby but to produce a brand new one" (Zelizer 542). When viewed from an economic standpoint it is interesting to note that some economists condone this pecuniary treatment of children. The exchange of funds involved in surrogacy are an added complication which turn the "giver into a salaried agent, and the baby into commercial chattel" (Zelizer 542). Zelizer also cites two advocates for the complete legalization of baby selling, Posner and Landes, as stating that an "outright legalization of baby-selling would be the best solution to the baby shortage," and also dismiss "moral outrage" or "symbolic" objections against baby sales as antiquated and impractical. Just as the role and significance of children grew and diversified at the turn of the 20th century, so has the concept of reproductive rights at the close of the new millennia. "Before the 1970s, the emphasis was on the right of women not to reproduce; in the 1980s, the emphasis shifted to the right to have children and, as a result of improved technological capabilities and increased knowledge, the right of the fetus (and the born child) to have a sound mind and body (Blank & Merrick 220). Serious consideration for the child’s well being was not taken into account before the last few decades. What has problematized the issue even further is the rate which technology is able to produce new techniques to aid in the conception and reproductive processes. With so many couples facing infertility problems (an estimated 1 in 6 couples to be exact) often times willing to spend a small fortune to conceive, and with simple desperation fueling the process much more quickly than mankind can adequately conceptualize the possible outcomes and future implications that these acts will have. Take for instance some of the following newspaper stories: "Brain dead mother has her baby" -- Marie Odette Henderson had died fifty three days earlier from a brain tumor; by court order, her baby was kept functioning until the respiratory system of the fetus she carried had sufficiently matured to enable independent life (Hartouni 27). New York Times writer Carey Goldburg reported the following story in October of 1999: "Selling Fashion Models' Eggs Online Raises Ethics Issues" - To the horror and disgust of mainstream infertility groups, a longtime fashion photographer has begun offering up models as egg donors to the highest bidders, auctioning their ova via the Internet to would-be parents willing to pay up to $150,000 in hopes of having a beautiful child. And more recently, headlines across the country have brandished stories pertaining to human embryo research and the political controversy that appears to be working itself up into a huge ethical issue. Robert Blank and Janna C. Merrick note in their book Human Reproduction, Emerging Technologies, and Conflicting Rights that "the technology is underway, but how we as a species chose to use it, where we allow it to be used, and when we draw limits are critical issues for all of us, but especially for women (225). The rise of reproductive technologies has effectively dichotomized women into "haves" and have nots." Those who have the financial means to participate in reproductive procedures are a lucky few - while women who are able to bring healthy children to term are viewed as superior to those women who are unable to carry children. These ideals reduce women to the category of walking uteruses, and should you desire children and are one of the unfortunate women with a malfunctioning reproductive system you better have deep pockets and a rather determined, one-track mind. What this means, according to Merrick, is that "the right to have children will likely be considered at best a negative right. To do so, however, means that many fertile individuals, as well as those who cannot afford reproductive services or who do not have adequate third-party coverage, will be denied the means to exercise that right." Such a policy discriminates against the poor and the members of minority groups who wish to have children. Unfortunately, this approach to reproduction as a commercial venture threatens to increase social inequalities in the population, while also taking away from efforts to regulate the standards in evaluation, both technologically and individually, those who are involved in these procedures. This new trend which appears intent on forcing women to be labeled with a biological role rather than as a human being with their own thoughts and feelings decidedly "others" women, enabling our technologically driven society to commodify pregnancy. The reduction of a woman to a womb, a carrier for fertilized eggs, allows the hiring of a surrogate mother to take on the same tone, contracts, and exchange of funds as you might draw up between yourself and a plumber. Current trends in reproductive technology are even predicting the development of an artificial womb after a woman in New Zealand gave birth successfully without one (Merrick 88). Social construction of ideas has had a huge impact on reproductive technologies. Childless couples have become obsessed with being able to produce children even at great risk to the mother’s health, huge financial obligations, and high strain on their relationship. Childless couples are viewed as abnormal. If you can’t bake, you can buy a cake from the local bakery, if you need a maid you can hire a service you found in the yellow pages to clean your house, and if you need a baby - you can buy one of those as well. Sperm and eggs are purchasable, for the procedures you need only bring your checkbook, and wombs are rentable in nine month increments. Works Cited Blank, Robert and Janna C. Merrick. Human Reproduction, Emerging Technologies, and Conflicting Rights. Washington: CQ Press, 1995. Goldburg, Carey. "Selling Fashion Models' Eggs Online Raises Ethics Issues." New York Times. 23 Oct. 1999. Hartouni, Valerie. Cultural Conceptions: On Reproductive Technologies and the Remaking of Life. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1997. Zelizer, Viviana A. "From Baby Farms to Baby M." The Family Experience: A Reader in Cultural Diversity. Ed. Mark Hutter. New York: Macmillan, 1991. |
BUSINESS LANGUAGE NEED TO KNOW RETURN
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