Here’s a sampling of news and opinion items the CBC staff has been reading recently.

ABC Australia, “Breaking the Code: Donor-Conceived Children Search for Identity of Fathers and their Biological Heritage”

When you go to see your doctor, you assume that he or she will keep an accurate record of that consultation. But that is not what happened at a public hospital in Sydney.

Al Jazeera America, “Offshore Babies: The Murky World of Transnational Surrogacy”

The case of an Australian couple accused of abandoning their child with his Thai surrogate mother after discovering he had Down syndrome — and taking home his healthy twin — has turned global attention to the murky underworld of international surrogacy.

Daily Life, “Is Surrogacy Baby Trafficking?”

Proponents of surrogacy claim that it is completely different from prostitution. But are there similarities?

The Conversation, “Reject commercial surrogacy as another form of human trafficking”

The practice of reproductive surrogacy is in the news in Australia because of the story of a Thai child, Gammy, a twin who was apparently abandoned by the buyers because he was sick. They took his healthy sister.

This story should not be seen as just an individual bad news story. It has much to tell us about the effects of commercial surrogacy. This industry is an offshoot of the very profitable reproductive technology industry, which created, through IVF, the possibility of persons buying children in the marketplace.

Public Discourse, “Journey to Baby Gammy: How We Justify a Market in Children”

Materialism, relativism, and consequentialism are at the heart of the arguments in favor of third-party reproduction.

New York Times, “Transplant Brokers in Israel Lure Desperate Kidney Patients to Costa Rica”

Aside from the six-figure price tag, what was striking was just how easy it was for Ophira Dorin to buy a kidney.

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