The Underground Railroad

It Is Selfish To Have A Surrogate Baby

Indian surrogate mothers listen to a doctor at 'surrogate mothers' home in Anand, near Ahmedabad. Photograph: Sam Panthaky/AFP/Getty Images

In an age when people are getting married later, are choosing to live alternative or designer lifestyles, and the gap between rich and poor is ever-growing, we must be all the more vigilant as to how our lifestyles can continue to oppress others. Baby-markets are turning children into commodities even before they're born. The impulse to have a child of one's own, especially if it is biologically impossible between partners, is daunting. Yet we cannot allow our impulses to dictate actions that create more buying and selling of people, and rifts between "the haves" and "the have nots". There are children in Canada, the US, and the UK all waiting desparately for homes - many of whom have been shuffled around a good deal already. Instead of creating baby factories and destroying the lives of women and children for our own desires, perhaps we need re-tune our desires to make an impact on the lives children right before our eyes.

I would posit that the desire to have children is certainly not selfish, but the process of "rent-a-womb" certainly is, especially when considering children already needing homes and families. Thoughts? Questions? Reactions?

As Julie Bindel of The Guardian puts it:

The documentary Google Baby, transmitted on Channel 4 earlier this year features a clinic and "surrogacy house" in India, the "rent-a-womb capital of the world". Many of the women having babies for rich westerners have been pimped into surrogacy by their husbands, and are powerless to resist. The women sleep in cramped conditions and are controlled to the point of being told when to eat, drink and sleep. There are serious physical and mental health consequences for both the egg donor and the surrogate, and yet this practice is becoming increasingly normalised.

In India hundreds of brokers benefit from reproductive tourism now worth an estimated half a billion dollars a year. There are 350 clinics offering surrogacy around the country. Prices in India for the full service including eggs, drugs, the surrogate and all medical treatment are significantly lower than in Europe or the US, prompting many individuals and couples from Europe to opt for its services.

For the full article, click here: It Is Selfish to Have a Surrogate Baby

Organ trafficking: 'Her heart was missing' - Features - Al Jazeera English

Organ trafficking: 'Her heart was missing' - Features - Al Jazeera English.

How much would you pay for the life of a loved one? For yourself?

How much is your body worth when your family is starving?

The sex trade garners a lot of attention when talking abolition, and right well it ought to. The often quoted global percentage of victims being used for sexual purposes, whether they were purchased for those intentions or not, is 70%. That is obscenely high.

Yet people must also deal truthfully and fully with other faces of slavery. The organ trade is lucrative, tempting, dangerous, and quite real. When people are faced with situations where they or their loved ones are dying because of kidney or heart failure, and the waiting list for a transplant is simply too long... well... desperate times call for desperate measures. Especially for those able to cough up the cash, there is a way to take what is needed.

The above article link gives a brief snapshot into the reality of the organ trade. In my mind, after going through it (as well as some other material), it is another example again of the rich getting richer and the poor getting... death. 

You see, with sex trafficking, even lower income cultures/families can play a part in the demand side of things. Poor farmers, unable to pay workers, take children in as a 'favour' to even poorer families and make them work the land (see my blog re: resteveks).

Poor people can't pay for organ transplants, let alone basic medical care.

Whether the harvesting of organs is consensual or not by the donors, this is a blatant example of those with money taking what is not theirs to purchase. This unique face of slavery must not be overlooked in the fight against human trafficking and the pursuit of Christ's compassion and justice.

Project SECLUSION

Project SECLUSION is the 2010 outcome of the RCMP's investigation into the crime of human trafficking in Canada.

http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/pubs/ht-tp/htta-tpem-eng.htm

Dividing the issue of trafficking into its two broadest categories (sex and labour), the report is further broken down into regions of origin. While the report does have its limitations, recognizing the different forms of exploitation from different part of the world is crucial. 

I encourage you all to check it out and judge for yourself. It is evident by now that Canada is a part of the slave trade -- source, transit and destination country. It is also a consumer country, meaning that Canadian purchase practices can and have the potential to aggravate other slavery practices around the world. 

SECLUSION's scope is Canada specific. It does not go into the issue of Fair Trade or who bought what conflict-free diamond or cell phone. It does focus on issues within our country based on 257 files found to have met the criteria of the research.

Questions for Annie Leonard, Part 3: The Price of Our Stuff - Planet Green

Questions for Annie Leonard, Part 3: The Price of Our Stuff - Planet Green.

  So why is it perfectly acceptable for us to buy goods at lower prices, when other people, communities and generations suffer to market and produce those goods? Annie Leonard discusses...

The Crock of Bottled Water

 

 

Some of you have asked: what's the next step? What can we do?

What if I said that the greatest resource we should be protecting was not oil, but rather WATER -- more specifically, clean, usable, fresh drinking water? Some people would throw their heads back and laugh.

Seriously... our world is drowning in  water crisis. But blindly we carry on, once again not realized HOW we're contributing to destruction, and then panic when we discover just how bad the situation really is.

Hopeless?

Nope. Didn't say that.

But as stewards, we've got to admit we're not doing a spectacular job at taking care of our world. In fact, we're doing a truly bang-up job, literally. Whether you believe in global warming or not, you can't deny we're acting abusively towards our world -- resources, people and community.

Go back to tap.

Use your reusable water bottle wherever you go.

Stop buying plastic bottled water. That's it. Easy. Just stop buying.

1, 2, 3.

Another step taken.