I saw this article online on The Chosun Ilbo, and it lit my pilot light, but then I saw that the estimable Space Nakji had done a rant on the same article, so now I feel compelled to chime in.
According to Korean law, it is illegal for women to sell their eggs, but no regulations apply to surrogate pregnancy. Meanwhile, surrogate pregnancy has been illegal in Japan since 2003. As a result, increasingly more infertile Japanese women are seeking Korean women as surrogate mothers. Korean surrogate mothers get 30-40 million Korean won (approx. US $31,000 – $41,000), while egg donors get W3-4 million (about $3,100 – $4,100).
So in response to this trend, Grand National Party lawmaker Bahk Jae Wan says:
“With the lax regulations on surrogate pregnancies in Korea, the number of Japanese finding surrogate mothers here is rising. My concern is that we could be reduced to Japan’s womb colony.”
Uhhh. It’s OK to harvest and package Korean babies for exportation and social experimentation and then claim that we adoptees are good for diplomatic relations, but they should draw the line at surrogacy for Japanese? I suppose you can’t knock a multi-million-dollar business like adoption, but the Japanese commission of private works? That’s everybody’s business.
*sigh*
Sooooo, “counseling” and recruiting young expectant mothers to commit their unborn and newly born babies to intercountry adoption to white Europeans and Americans is apparently an acceptable practice, but the renting out of womb space to the Japanese is poised to become the newest national shame.
O, Logic! Whither have you gone?
All right. Back to being scarce.
Oh yeah you’re so right. I guess with baby exportation/adoption, “everyone benefits” (RIGHT!!!) but with this surrogate issue, it’s a matter of the Korean women being used? I wonder how much of it has to do with anti-Japanese sentiment that’s still around in Korea.
Oh boy. It does certainly seem as if the congressman is overlooking the obvious. In a sense, Korea has already become a “womb colony” to other nations. But adoption has become an institution over the past 40 some years, so my feeling is that Koreans have become conditioned to overlook it.
I wish this congressman would add his voice to the other Korean congress people who wish to reform Korea’s international adoptions. Get started on fixing _that_ epidemic and then take this surrogacy business up. Just my 2 cents as an a-mother.
Hi~ I found your blog by chance while searching for stuff online. ^^*
I’ve always been curious about the whole adoption thing that happens in korea.
I have many korean-adoptee friends and I was always hesitant in asking personal questions about their situation.
Anyway, I guess they feel this way because of the whole Korea/Japan history. Maybe that’s the reason they’re worked up over it. @@
I think it has to do with the anti-Japanese sentiment in Korea. It’s like, do you want to help those who made your ancestors “Comfort Women” reproduce…
Just found your blog today.
Convenient how Koreans can gloss over baby exportation, isn’t it? IT’s sad that intl adoption has become a given in Korea rather than something to avoid. It’s been a crutch for so long, I’m afraid the tide is turning much too slowly. Although I hear more and more domestic adoptions are happening there, but still, it is a shame that babies continue to leak out of the country and that so many Koreans still believe it has to happen.
wow, the whole “harvest” concept bothers me no matter what. I don’t believe anything in a woman’s body is really to be harvested. But, the ability of Japanese women to “rent” out a Korean woman’s body is odd, especially since there seemed to be a trend a few years back where Japanese women were trying to marry Korean men…so I wonder if these Japanese women who are married to Korean men will look for a Korean woman to “host” her baby?