Trailer for the documentary Google Baby.
In vitro treatments and surrogacy have been around for years, but in the U.S., the process can cost more than $100,000. In India, however, it costs only around $6,000. Welcome to the brave new world of outsourcing, where technology has turned "making a baby" into an act that is independent of sex, and globalization is making it affordable.
Beginning with sperm and/or eggs purchased online, the process of outsourcing pregnancy involves freezing multiple fertilized embryos, packing them in liquid nitrogen and shipping them to India, where they are implanted into the wombs of surrogates. The customers arrive only at the end of the nine-month pregnancy to pick up their babies. Google Baby follows several men and woman involved in egg donation and surrogacy in the U.S., Israel and India, including:
Doron, an Israeli entrepreneur who was inspired by his own experiences using a surrogate for his daughter's birth and started a service for "baby production," using eggs donated from the U.S. and surrogates in India.
Dr. Nayna Patel, who operates a surrogacy clinic in Gujarat, India, and sees her service as "one woman helping another."
Katherine, a 28-year-old American who has successfully donated eggs, and plans to donate again to help pay for her family's home remodeling.
Two women from Dr. Patel's clinic: Vaishali, a first-time surrogate who hopes to buy a house with the money she earns, and Diksha, whose first attempt at surrogacy ended in a miscarriage at five months, but wants to try again so that she can better provide for her son.
While surrogacy allows some women to make significantly more money (around $6,400) than they could otherwise, "wombs for rent" carry many risks. Dr. Patel explains to the women who come to her clinic to be surrogates that since all babies are delivered by cesarean section, they risk the possibility of blood loss and even death. She also reminds them that they will have no legal rights to the baby, even if they feel a bond to the child that they have carried.
When Doron proposes using egg donors from the U.S., fertilizing the eggs in America, and then shipping the embryos to Dr. Patel's clinic in India for surrogacy, she is hesitant, concerned that her facility might be seen as a "baby factory." Not everyone is accepted as a client at the clinic - only couples who medically cannot get pregnant and have no children, or just one child, can use her service. Dr. Patel's surrogates are closely monitored, given prenatal vitamins and instructed about healthy eating.