We are looking forward to hosting the author of this piece, Julie Bindel, in the Bay Area in November. She is a London-based writer and activist whose work focuses on issues of violence against women. Bindel is a visiting researcher at Lincoln University and former assistant director of the Research Centre on Violence, Abuse and Gender Relations at Leeds Metropolitan University. She is currently in the midst of a research project entitled “The Pimping of Pregnancy: Exposing the International Commercial Surrogacy Business.”

More details about when and where you will be able to hear her speak will be coming soon. For now, though, here’s a preview of her work:

Surrogacy has recently been repackaged and presented as a human rights issue for gay men and others desiring their own baby who cannot conceive the traditional way. It is outrageous to me that the decisions of rich, gay men and other people should be held above the rights of impoverished, exploited women.

“The surrogate women don’t come from the wealthy or affluent communities,” Jennifer Lahl, founder of Stop Surrogacy Now, told me when we met in Paris at a seminar entitled “Vers l’abolition de la GPA” (“Toward the abolition of all surrogacy”).

“[The U.S.] does not have destitute poverty like they do in India, but [potential surrogates] are low-income women, often young moms, sometimes military wives. You can see the targeting and the advertising directly towards this demographic,” says Lahl.

Click here to read the full article at TruthDig.

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Matthew Eppinette, Director of Programs