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The San Francisco Chronicle has a long and amazing story on surrogacy in India. It reveals how terribly the “gestational carriers” are exploited. For example, in one clinic three-quarters of all the children are born surgically by caesarean–and, it would appear, with inadequate post-surgical pain control.

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Since these women have no power, one could say they are “forced” into surgery along with being exploited in surrogacy. From “Outsourcing a Life:”

On a mattress in her room at the clinic, Manisha struggled through the early stages of recovery. Even eating and sitting hurt, thanks to the incision on her abdomen. Her cesarean section, Dr. Patel said, had been a last resort when she determined the baby was too big to deliver vaginally. But the surgical nurse who had fetched Manisha from her room two hours before the birth, and another who helped prepare the delivery room, both said they were readying her for surgery from the start.

Manisha trusted the doctor’s judgment. After all, her baby was the 649th born to a surrogate at the clinic, and Dr. Patel had delivered virtually every one. But unknown to Manisha and the Kowalskis, close to three-fourths of them had been delivered by cesarean, an extremely high rate.

Take a look at the photo above of the surrogate writhing in pain. This is the face of biological colonialism.

Reprinted with permission from National Review