In San Antonio, Lisa and Brian Switzer risk their savings with a Medical Tourism company promising them an affordable solution after seven years of infertility. Halfway around the world in Mumbai, 27-year-old Aasia Khan, mother of three, contracts with a fertility clinic to be implanted with the Texas couple’s embryos. MADE IN INDIA: A Film about Surrogacy, about real people involved in international surrogacy, follows the Switzers and Aasia through every stage of the process.
With its dual focus, this emotionally charged, thoroughly absorbing film charts obstacles faced by the Switzers and presents intimate insights into Aasia’s circumstances and motivation. As their stories become increasingly intertwined, the bigger picture behind offshore outsourcing of pregnancies—a booming, unregulated reproductive industry valued at $450 million in India alone—begins to emerge. So do revealing questions about international surrogacy’s legal and ethical implications, global corporate practices, human and reproductive rights, and commodification of the body.
"The film illustrates numerous clinical, legal, and ethical issues raised by medical tourism, both in general and in the context of surrogacy...delivers an important cautionary message to patients considering medical tourism for themselves and to professionals advising them about this option." Journal of the American Medical Association
"[A]n extraordinary film ... akin to a psychological thriller, inspiring both the family and the viewer to question their moral and ethical scruples, and to wonder whether they could do the same.... A touching and important document." Woodstock Film Festival
"This perspective on international surrogacy is a common one but also an overly simplified one, and MADE IN INDIA delves into the complexities... It exposes the glitches in the system as communication breaks down..., yet it also looks at the joy that both parties get from creating a family together." Real Screen
"Highly Recommended." Educational Media Reviews Online (EMRO)
*** (3 stars) Video Librarian
"'Made in India' is an eye-opening, compelling, even terrifying film. The viewer confronts the uncharted but expanding territory of "tourism" for assisted reproductive technology from the viewpoints of a range of very determined individuals: an infertile American couple, their medical go-betweens in North America and South Asia, and a pert, thoughtful Indian Muslim surrogate mother. This will make you think." Amy Bard South Asia Studies, Wellesley College
"The toughest questions about reproductive surrogacy actually end up aimed at the doctors and agents...as the lacunae they create are ripe for filling by human rights, feminist, diplomacy, and medical activists interested in shaping an industry that is quickly growing, for better or worse. Should be seen by anyone interested in the intersections of reproductive justice and global economics." Katie Presley, Bitch Magazine
Asia; Family Relations; Labor Studies; Medical Ethics; Motherhood; Reproductive Rights; South Asia/India
Keywords
International Surrogacy,Reproductive Rights,Human Rights,Asia,infertility,India,medical tourism,fertility clinic,fertility,surrogacy,reproductive industry,reproductive rights,pregnancy; "Made In India"; Women Make Movies
Distributor: Women Make Movies
Length: 97 minutes
Date: 2010
Genre: Expository
Language: English; Hindi / English subtitles
Grade: College, Adults
Color/BW:
Closed Captioning: Available
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