Paper short abstract:

Why is there such excess maternal and neonatal mortality in India and the US and how might one relate this social fact to the expanding role of surrogacy in both countries? We look at the policies seek to level reproductive inequity even as they may wind up increasing certain forms of social hierarchy.

Paper long abstract:

Why is there such excess maternal and neonatal mortality in India and the US and what happens when one relates these social facts to the expanding role of surrogacy in both countries? In addition, how can an anthropological approach help illuminate the disconnections and discontinuities between global policies and local practices that presume to protect women from unwanted maternal death, even as they promote surrogacy for women in the name of reproductive choice and rights? This paper examines the global push to reduce maternal mortality across the globe and its intersection with the fields of surrogacy. It builds on 15 years of fieldwork in India and the US on reproductive health and rights. It interrogates the local, national, and transnational practices and institutional forces that both constrain and promote women's access to safe delivery and surrogacy in either country. It is especially interested in how regional, national, and global policies promoting safe delivery and fertility intersect to constrain the agency and access to services for the most marginalized women in society even as the rhetoric of surrogacy promotes the idea that surrogacy is a win-win situation of expanding access and choices for women across a variety of social spectrums (incomes, caste, status). In short it seeks to understand the connections between policies seek to level reproductive inequity even as they may wind up increasing certain forms of social hierarchy.