Women arrested in Cambodia surrogacy crackdown
by Xavier Symons | 17 Nov 2018 |
The crackdown on commercial surrogacy continued in Cambodia this week with a major court charging 18 people for violating laws against surrogate births.
A spokesman for Phnom Penh Municipal Court said that 11 surrogate mothers and four other people had been charged with surrogacy and human trafficking. Three more people were charged with conspiracy but did not appear.
The legal proceedings come in the wake of the arrest 32 pregnant Cambodian women in Phnom Penh in June, who allegedly were carrying babies for clients in China.
Chou Bun Eng, from the National Committee for Counter Trafficking, said the government was very worried about commercial surrogacy. “Now we find more and more, we don't know how many more [there will be]”, she told reporters. She said that surrogacy was a form of human trafficking: “They hide the baby in the womb and deliver them or bring them across borders”.
But surrogacy advocates and couples desperate for a child have objected to that characterisation. “To compare child-trafficking to surrogacy is an ignorant and far-fetched comparison”, said Sam Everingham of Australian-based Families Through Surrogacy. Commercial surrogacy has been banned in Cambodia since late 2016. The country’s government is currently drafting legislation to formalise the ban.
Sunday, November 18, 2018
Occasionally we tag one of our articles “reproductive revolution” because it exemplifies how far law and technology take us once sex has been detached from reproduction. This week’s tale comes from India. A team at Galaxy Care Hospital in Pune has performed India’s first successful uterus transplant. A 45-year-old mother donated her womb to her 28-year-old daughter who eventually gave birth to a healthy baby girl.
Arrangements like this are no longer newsworthy, but what made the transplant necessary? It turns out that the young woman had had at least two abortions and these had damaged her uterus. Frankly, I find this fertility-at-any-cost approach a bit bizarre.
But not more bizarre than some of the other stories: the Dutch sperm donor who may have fathered 1000 children, the Japanese man who is raising 13 children by commercial surrogates from Thailand, the 65-year-old German grandmother who gave birth to quads, the German zoophile who is in a “relationship” with his Alsatian because “Animals are much easier to understand than women” and so on.
The reproductive revolution was originally intended to give loving couples the joy of having children of their own. How differently it has turned out. As they say, “Like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children."
Arrangements like this are no longer newsworthy, but what made the transplant necessary? It turns out that the young woman had had at least two abortions and these had damaged her uterus. Frankly, I find this fertility-at-any-cost approach a bit bizarre.
But not more bizarre than some of the other stories: the Dutch sperm donor who may have fathered 1000 children, the Japanese man who is raising 13 children by commercial surrogates from Thailand, the 65-year-old German grandmother who gave birth to quads, the German zoophile who is in a “relationship” with his Alsatian because “Animals are much easier to understand than women” and so on.
The reproductive revolution was originally intended to give loving couples the joy of having children of their own. How differently it has turned out. As they say, “Like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children."
Michael Cook Editor BioEdge |
NEWS THIS WEEK
by Michael Cook | Nov 17, 2018
Indian woman ‘borrows’ her mother’s because hers was scarred after abortions. by Michael Cook | Nov 17, 2018
Becoming a resource-wasting ‘epidemic’ by Michael Cook | Nov 17, 2018
Social isolation can even lead to changes in brain structure by Michael Cook | Nov 17, 2018
Settlement reached after five years of litigation by Michael Cook | Nov 17, 2018
Not part of a slippery slope, says IVF expert by Michael Cook | Nov 17, 2018
A very expensive form of insurance by Xavier Symons | Nov 17, 2018
The bill that would ban terminations after a fetal heartbeat can be detected. by Xavier Symons | Nov 17, 2018
The state government has appointed and expert panel to draft a bill. by Xavier Symons | Nov 17, 2018
A court has charged 18 people with violating surrogacy laws. BioEdge
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