Marketing Reproduction: Assisted Reproductive Technologies and Commercial Surrogacy in India

The growth of the huge privatised infertility care industry in India can be attributed to a culture loaded with stereotypically defined gender roles, which defines childlessness as abnormal' and stigmatises infertility, as well as to the lack of infertility care in the public health system. The private infertility care market capitalises on existing patriarchal normative cultural norms and values. The proliferation of assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) is one of the best examples of a response to the demands of the marketin this case, state-of-the-art facilities for women to become mothers. The ARTs industry in India, including surrogacy, has attracted an increasing cross-border movement, leading to the need to analyse the different stakeholders' involvement in it as well as regulation of the industry.