Commercial surrogacy on the rise.

I don't usually blog about issues like this, but I found this one particulary touching.

People are paying as little as $10 000 to have an Indian national bare their child. That includes fertilisation, medical expenses and the surrogate mothers fee. Said women normally make $25 dollars a week doing "regular" work, so when they get around $4500 to carrry somebody else's child, many are willing to do so.

This article by Fox paints a pretty pink picture if you ask me, but not necessairely unrealistic. It's rather surreal to read how lightly these women take the matter, strikes me as highly odd. Then again, I am not them, I don't know what life in India is like ... a good read at any rate.

The article warns of these services becoming a luxury to the rich, rather than a way for infertile couples to have a child of their own. Fools! One of my stateside friends reported that having his baby cost' him $5000 dollar in insurance related costs alone! Include medical checkups, classes taken to bear through delivery, time spent away from work during the pregnancy ... heck, ten grand is starting to sound like a bargain, allowing working mothers to keep working for an extra three to four months.

How soon will this become a commercial industry? Will women give up actually "having" their own children in exchange for a cheaper deal elsewhere? Would companies encourage their female employees to do so?
Coorporations are already starting to rival federal governments in terms of power in certain regions and on certain fields, and you may not like to hear it, but they are already trying to excert control over their employees family lifes in an attempt to maximise the amount of time spent working)
Skilled and trained workers are an important asset to these people, do you think that they'd pass up the chance of removing a womans pregnency from the equation for a measely ten grand? You know how big companies tend to forget about the human element in fuction of profit ...

Can you imagine a future where companies encourage their female employees to not have their children themselves? It used to be science fiction, right now it's projection, but how is this going to turn out?