Women who break the law to sell their eggs for IVF
GLOBAL HEALTH & DEVELOPMENT
editor's note
Diaa Hadid/NPR
In India, it is against the law for a woman to sell her eggs for use in IVF.
Yet it seems many women break that law -- because they need the money they can earn to feed their family, to do home repairs -- and in one case to pay for the funeral of her alcoholic husband.
Hadid and Desai found that a law meant to regulate India’s fertility market by banning the commercial sale of eggs likely helped that market boom. They found the law tightly constrained the supply of eggs while demand was surging.
"The harsh realities of India [are] that we are a highly unequal society — there are a lot of poor people," says Prabha Kotiswaran, a professor of law and social justice at King's College London. "In that context, if you bring about a law that essentially shuts down a certain sector, it may be well-intentioned, but it is bound to have unintended consequences."
So some women sell their eggs illegally and expose themselves to harm, exploitation and abuse.
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