Book Review: Wombs in Labor: Transnational Commercial Surrogacy in India

Pande, Amrita. 2014. Columbia University Press. New York. 272 pages. Paper $28.00 Amrita Pande's Wombs in Labor: Transnational Commercial Surrogacy in India is a fascinating look at the world of the Indian surrogate and the choice she makes in an effort to better her and her family's economic status. At times heart-wrenching, Pande's ethnographic research provides a detailed and empathetic look at the business of India's surrogacy industry and the women who willingly carry a child for those unable to do so. Pande's research leads her to southern India where she works to immerse herself in the surrogacy industry by visiting clinics, living in hostels and speaking with everyone involved in this burgeoning labor market. She even spends time with the infertility doctor, "Usha Madam", made famous by Oprah Winfrey's 2006 segment "Wombs for Rent". Unlike in the Oprah segment, Pande highlights the sacrifices made by the surrogates, rather than the trials and heartbreak faced by couples struggling with infertility. Most importantly, through her detailed and rich interviews, Pande provides a highly nuanced and intimate look at the thoughts and hopes of these surrogates, and a realistic portrayal of life as a surrogate. Consisting of nine chapters and an epilogue, Wombs in Labor focuses on surrogacy's role in the changing landscape of India. Carefully woven into each chapter are the numerous field notes and interviews Pande conducted with the surrogates, conversations that vividly account life as a surrogate, including all of the messy details often left unsaid. It's these vignettes that are the real strength of this study and what provide the reader with a keen understanding of the power struggle, joy and pain that is accompanied with surrogacy. In the early chapters, Pande sets the stage for her study, by providing a brief overview of the history of reproduction in India, specifically in the south, and what she deems a contradictory stance between "pro-natal technologies in an anti-natal state." Ironically, while India is well-known for outsourcing surrogates, its own people are encouraged, through incentives, to practice a two-child norm. Pande argues that this is hypocritical since the government allows surrogacy clinics to promote reproductive tourism while at the same time persuades women to practice birth control at home. In an effort to help the reader understand how and why a woman becomes a surrogate, Pande interviews dozens of surrogates and hears first-hand what brought them to surrogacy, and, in many cases, what keeps them there. Through these engrossing vignettes, we learn the myriad of reasons for choosing surrogacy and are offered insights about their hopes and dreams for the future. Moving through the chapters, Pande provides insight into the daily lives of the surrogates. She focuses on the recruitment tactics employed by the brokers and the daily rituals at the maternity clinics and how they work to create the perfect "mother-worker." Through conversations with doctors, surrogate counselors, and brokers, Pande illustrates the thinking behind recruitment campaigns and the work that is put into convincing the surrogates that they are simply providing a service for someone who cannot carry a child. …