Clarification from the Hospital & Surrogate Mother on Article in
Daily Mail on titled Our 'rent a womb' child from an Indian baby farm:
British couple paying £20,000 for a desperately poor single mother to
have their child" published on 31st Aug 12
There is a sustained
campaign being carried out by the British press particularly the daily
mail tabloid against Surrogacy in India,according to Sai Raj
Jaiswal,Legal Adviser to the KIC,Hyderabad,India.this is very evident in
the article published in Daily Mail on titled Our 'rent a womb' child
from an Indian baby farm: British couple paying £20,000 for a
desperately poor single mother to have their child" published on 31st
Aug 2012. Link to the article is as below.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2196538/Our-rent-womb-child-Indian-baby-farm-British-couple-paying-20-000-desperately-poor-single-mother-child.htmlHe
states that the article is malicious, negative, erroneous, false and
contains derogatory remarks about the Surrogate Mother, Medical
Facility, City of Hyderabad, India as a Country. It is a sponsored and
is aimed at painting a Negative Picture of Surrogacy Treatment in India.
Few of the points listed in article are.
1)
(British Couple), a middle-class Oxfordshire housewife, admitted the
£20,000 deal sounded 'cold and clinical' but insisted: 'This is a
business transaction.'
2) Describing the surrogate mother as
'just a vessel', the 34-year-old former estate agent added: 'There is no
altruism involved on the surrogate's part: she is being paid to have
our baby'.
3) They know she is 31 and has children of her own.
They know her name, and that for reasons not explained — perhaps she has
been widowed or deserted — she has no husband.
4) For the
duration of her pregnancy she will live with other surrogates, away from
her home and family, in a primitive dormitory within the clinic. It
goes without saying that she is desperately poor.
5) The British
Couple have not been told how much their surrogate will earn from the
£20,000 cost of the treatment — clinics are loath to specify sums — but
estimates range from £3,000 to £6,000.
6) 'There is no altruism involved on the surrogate's part: she is being paid to have our baby. It's a contractual arrangement.
7)
India's burgeoning surrogacy industry — there are about 1,000 clinics
providing surrogates for 'fertility tourists' — has been compared to a
baby factory in which children are made-to-order for affluent couples
who often use donated eggs and sperm to create their baby, and an Indian
donor to carry it, choosing everything from their baby's eye colour to
its height.
8) Impoverished cities like Hyderabad
9)
Around 2,000 births to surrogates took place in India last year, and
Britain supplies the largest number of clients — estimates suggest as
many as half are from the UK. The fact that just 100 surrogate births
were recorded in Britain last year puts the scale of the Indian
operation into perspective.
These statements are derogatory in
nature and were made without any proof. No effort was made by anyone
from Daily Mail to verify these facts. Neither the Parents featured in
the article nor the Journalists from Daily Mail bothered to meet the
Surrogate Mother or visit the facility. Details mentioned in the article
about number of Patients from UK Visiting India and other such details
are not verified and were added just by hearsay.
According to
Mr.Jaiswal, facilities provided to surrogate mothers in India are at par
with the facilities available in most of the middle class households in
India. The nutrition, nurture, care and medication provided to
Surrogate Mothers is at par with the highest quality of such care only
available to elite few.
Surrogate Mother for featured couple, who
has had to face the brunt of the article, has had a very good
upbringing, is from a lower middle class family. She is educated and can
understand, write, and read in English. Women are ready to become
Surrogates not just for money but to improve the circumstances in which
they and their family currently live in, at times to secure their
child's education, at times to pay for health concerns of their
immediate ones, at times to fulfill their dreams of owning a house and a
farm plot.
Surrogate was anguished and devastated when she saw
the article. Her first reaction was "All of us at times work for someone
or other, in work places all of us feel that our bosses are using us to
gain profits and do not care about our well being. But no one likes to
be called a slave or vessel in person and this has happened to me in
Media"
When these issues were brought to the notice of the
Publisher as-well as the Parents and the surrogate demanded for an
unconditional apology, instead of apologizing to the Surrogate Mother
and the facility for this article they have offered the surrogate one
more article which they state will cover the positive side of the story,
one more TV Documentary and a 1000 pound pay off to the surrogate by
the daily mail to keep her mouth shut
When a clarification was
sought from one of the journalists of the article, through her hotmail
e-mail id we have received a response as quoted below.
"I have
met many surrogates in India, although I have not made it to your clinic
yet. I learnt from your clinic that you have felt offended by certain
words used in the article. I want to apologise if those words have upset
you at all."
She further adds on "The emotions that British
Couple is feeling and quoted are obviously very personal" & "British
Couple's quotes were her personal very raw feelings"
Further she
adds "newspapers always need to accommodate their reader, so they use
words which suits their style of writing." "Myself as a writer, and the
featured British Couple as the interviewees have no say on the headline
used."
Further on seeking clarification from the Featured Parents. Their replies were as anticipated.
Initially
they tried to express their inability to confront the Publisher's "I'm
afraid we have no ability to persuade the Daily Mail paper as to what to
say." "We have not been fairly represented by the whole experience;"
Further
added on "our experience with surrogacy and the Kiran Infertility
Centre has been an overwhelmingly positive experience to date.
Unfortunately for us all, this message has not come across clearly in
the initial article published in the Daily Mail on Saturday 1st
September." "We are devastated that the Daily Mail article has caused
such upset. We certainly did not think it would be hard hitting headline
news"
As a last resort we were lured for another article stating
the quoted lines in one of the e-mails "I personally believe the best
way to overcome this is not to fight it in a legal manner and with
threats sent to journalists - I'm certain this will have no positive
outcome in the UK. I'm sure you already know of the reputation of the UK
press. I've also taken the advice of a number of PR professionals in
the last 2 days to understand the options available to us. I can assure
you, that their consistent advice is not to fight it, but to try and use
the attention gained to tell a story. Fighting the UK press is not
something that I nor you should want to embark upon as the results are
highly unlikely to be positive."
"The angle of the article was
not our intention at all and I hope you can see the sensationalism in
the article – a result of the story becoming headline news. I understand
you had provided facts and figures, but still your quotes have been
contorted and you must appreciate the same thing has happened with our
interview."
Through this press release we intend to bring the
false hood and lies mentioned in this article to fore and to ensure that
such incidents are not repeated in future. We also would like the
parties involved to apologize to the Surrogate Mother who has been at
the receiving end of this article. We are also thankful to all the
readers of the article who have voiced their views about the negativity
of this article on the website of daily mail.
For Original article, click here >>