Savita Halappanavar, 31, began to miscarry her baby 17 weeks into her first pregnancy and died. Her death sparked international outrage, protests and Ireland legalizing abortion in some cases.
Now, please note the death of another Indian woman Mona Qureshi. Please note it because nobody else is.
Wesley J. Smith reports:
The IVF industry is a big time biological colonizer. Indian women are a prime resource in this regard for their gestational capacities–with terrible abuses recorded. Occasionally, the possessor of the rented uterus dies–as I reported here about a 2012 case. And now, another Indian ”gestational carrier”–the dehumanized term of the IVF industry for the surrogate mother–has died giving birth to a Norwegian baby.
The widower plans to sue. From The Local story:
An Indian man whose wife died after giving birth to a Norwegian couple’s surrogate child may sue the Norwegian state for damages within days, Dagsavisen has reported. Naeem Qureshi’s wife Mona entered a surrogacy programme to pay for his medical treatment, but suffered fatal complications during the birth. One of the twins she was carrying died shortly after birth but the other is now in Norway with its parents.
Norwegian lawyer Shahzad Nazir, who is giving Qureshi him free legal aid, said he hoped the state would provide help without his client having to go to court. “We have sent a request to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and the Ministry of Children, Equality and Social Inclusion (BLD), asking them to provide financial and medical assistance to my client,” he said. “He is seriously ill and is constantly at the hospital.” In the letter, Nazir argues that the state is liable because although surrogacy is illegal in Norway, it provides a loophole allowing Norwegian couples to use it abroad.
So, Norway does not allow its poor women to be exploited by commercial surrogacy–the proper policy in my view–but is perfectly fine with allowing Norwegians of means to exploit the women of other nations. And a woman is dead, leaving a sick widower without support.
This is the rich exploiting the poor or as Wesley Smith calls it biological colonialism.
August 3, 2013 at 3:06 am
This sort of thing is being talked about constantly by the French "marriage for all" protesters — that "gay marriage" will mean a big increase in surrogacy, which will create children to take them away from biological parents on purpose (in the case of using sperm donors) and turn poor women into "rented wombs."
August 3, 2013 at 9:58 am
It is actually talked about a lot here in Norway, and hopefully the new election will bring about a change in laws making it even more clear that surrogacy is illegal.
India has also changed their laws and it is now illegal for foreigners to use surrogate mothers in India when surrogacy is forbidden in their home country. Unfortunately the US still allows it….
August 3, 2013 at 10:40 pm
Was the twin that died at birth given a funeral, or was it disposed of as medical waste by the Norwegian parents?
August 4, 2013 at 1:02 am
This sounds like it should fall under the umbrella of human trafficking crimes. Shady and a bit creepy. That or lets not judge but be tolerant of human exploitation.
August 4, 2013 at 11:22 am
I just came across this post at the FuturePundit blog that suggests to me that IVF could enable human enhancement for IQ right now — at least in principle.
If true, I think that there may only be two likely endgames in the next few decades — either we will enact a total worldwide ban on IVF, or we will see an enormous expansion of its use by healthy, fertile couples for enhancement purposes. Reproduction via sex will be abandoned, just as Huxley imagined.