"Ultimate Outsourcing"

NBC morning show ran a segment called, "Ultimate Outsourcing: Wombs for Rent in India." It features a white San Diego couple, unable to conceive, who pays a woman in Indian to be a surrogate after finding her on a website. There has been a lot of discussion popularly and academically about transnational adoption, and some of it centers around (fairly offensive) fixed ideas of race and culture where commentators worry that the adopted child will lose his/her "real" culture/race. So much better than to avoid that quandary and jump right to having women in the third world literally produce America's biological children. It's the perfect meeting of postcolonialism (a new twist on the 'raw materials' to 'finished product' relationship of mercantilism), reproductive politics (increased government regulation of women's bodies), racism (no explanation needed), and bio-essentialism (or perhaps more appropriately bio-obsesssion--this couple sold their house to afford a child that looked like them).

Here's the link:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23252624/