Reproductive tourism, reproductive rights, and public health

Reproductive tourism is a growing industry in which individuals and couples travel to other countries to find cheaper reproductive technology services or to avoid regulation in their home countries. Some examples include US couples hiring surrogates in India for $12,000 compared to $80,000 in the US; women from the UK hiring women in Romania and Hungary for their eggs, for the equivalent of a month's rent, due to a shortage of eggs in their home country; and couples from China and India traveling to the US to do pre-conception sex selection because sex selection is prohibited in their home countries. This phenomenon raises many concerns for public health professionals committed to women's health and to reproductive rights and justice, including the lack of protections for the women hired to provide reproductive services; inadequate information on the long-term health risks of egg retrieval; concerns about exploitation of women in developing countries; and the absence of regulation that would safeguard women's health and rights. This presentation will provide an overview of reproductive tourism around the world today, including the context in which reproductive and genetic technology are used; the countries people are traveling to and for what technologies; and an explanation of why this industry is growing so rapidly.