Here's my rant about the Radiolab episode Birthstory. This was originally an email to my parents way back when the story first aired. Ideally I would listen to the episode again and refine these thoughts, but for now this is all you get.
First, the two men who are going through the surrogacy process come off as hopelessly and stupidly naive to me. They specifically chose to go the India/Ukraine/Nepal route because it was cheaper than the US process...and then they're surprised that these third-world countries lack a transparent process? It seemed to be they didn't read their contract carefully and willfully ignored the ramifications of doing business in those less developed countries. And if they were really so distressed at finding out their surrogate was not paid as much as they thought she would be, then why not track them down and make a cash payment? [My dad says he thinks we're supposed to read between the lines that they did do this, but I did not get that impression.]
Second, it bothered me that the show tried to assuage our collective conscience regarding the squicky issue of surrogacy by saying this was the woman's choice to use her body that way. I'm sure that's the case for some, but the economic reality these women face is so distressing that I don't see their choice to become a surrogate mother as much more noble than a choice to turn to prostitution out of necessity. It's still renting out their bodies in invasive ways that could cause social shame and stigma for them (and, in a further uncomfortable parallel, to mostly white men). I thought the show just whitewashed that whole issue. It made me uncomfortable.
Third, you cannot just have a throwaway mention of "cheap white eggs" from Ukrainian egg donors and stop there. I thought that was a huge moment that the episode completely bypassed. I mean, looking through a catalog, seriously? The ick factor was through the roof and they just made it sound like this jolly shopping lark.
I also thought it was so manufactured when the reporter told the Radiolab hosts that if the surrogate mother miscarries the pregnancy, she doesn't get paid. When the reporter said that, both hosts gasped all dramatically and seemed surprised. And I was like, at what point did you forget that this awful business is just that: a business? At what point did you forget that this woman is only being paid to deliver a product (a baby), and that doesn't happen if she has a miscarriage? Ugh, it was so faux-sympathetic.
Finally, the spoken interpretations this episode used for the Indian surrogate mothers were so patronizing. I do not speak Hindi, but I do not need to to know that when you translate their words literally (like the part where the baby "washed"), it makes them sound stupid. These women may be uneducated, but that doesn't mean they aren't bright and articulate. We say things all the time in English that if you interpreted them directly, might sound as uneducated as "washed" did in the context of a miscarriage (like you "lost" the baby - what do you mean you lost it, don't you know where it went? Etc.). The show should have helped us hear those women as a native speaker of Hindi would, not using pidgin jibberish like they did. I thought this was shameful and I wrote the show an email telling them so. [I suppose there is a chance that we were hearing an accurate interpretation of their words as a native Hindi speaker would have heard them, in which case I retract this point.]
When this episode started, I thought ooh, this is going to be really interesting. But in the end I felt manipulated and almost lied to, like we're supposed to feel SO sorry for these two obviously extremely affluent people who made a selfish choice to exploit third-world women for their own gain and then felt bad when it didn't go like they half-heartedly planned it would, i.e., in a way that would not force them to examine their conscience.
All of this is part of a wider complaint I have about Radiolab that more and more often, I don't like their episodes. Debatable made me have flames on the side of my face. On the Edge 1. was nothing teenaged-me couldn't have told you - I literally read the cryptic episode description and was like "hmm, I wonder if this episode is about Surya Bonaly's backflip"; and 2. ignored the fact that while Bonaly was obviously a good skater, she was terribly inconsistent and fell all the time (but she was still awesome and I enjoyed watching her).
ANYWAY. Surrogate pregnancy is a super complex issue and I don't feel like Radiolab gave it the nuance it deserves.
