Biotechnological Colonialism

And so, what I call biotechnological colonialism continues. Now. the Times of London is reporting, British would-be parents are traveling to India to buy embryos for implantation and birth. From the story: “The booming industry has attracted criticism on ethical grounds. Social workers in India fear that poor women are being exploited for ‘rent-a’womb’ services such as surrogacy, banned for commercial gain in countries such as Australia and China.

“British health professionals, meanwhile, fear a rise in multiple births and an added strain on the Health Service. In Britain, embryo implants are limited to two at a time but in India, where there is no law governing fertility aid, doctors can insert up to five.” (And yes, I agree with the adoptive parents in the story: Race is irrelevant.)

This is just the first trickle of a flood—unless we begin to exercise self restraint. Wait until the cloners go after the eggs of the poor women of India and Bangladesh. We already have Ukrainian women paid $200 to get pregnant and abort to collect fetal stem cells for “beauty treatments.” The rich are buying the organs of the destitute. There is no other way to put it, it seems to me: This is neo-colonialism. Only the natural resources being exported from the Developing World are human body parts and embryos—apparently worth far more than their weight in gold.