This book is the first to bring together an interdisciplinary collection of essays on surrogacy and egg donation from three socially, legally and culturally distinct countries - India, Israel and Germany.

Introduction.- 1. Why Compare the Practice and Norms of Surrogacy and Egg Donation? A Brief Overview of a Comparative and Interdisciplinary Journey.- Comparative Views.- 2. Globalisation and Market-Orientation: A Challenge within Reproductive Medicine.- 3. Transnational Surrogacy: An Overview of Legal and Ethical Issues.- 4. A Case for Restrictive Regulation of Surrogacy? An Indo-Israeli Comparison of Ethnographic Studies.- 5. Cross-Border Reproflows: Comparing the Cases of India, Germany and Israel.- 6. Beyond Relativism: Comparing the Practice and Norms of Surrogacy in India, Israel and Germany.- A System under Transition: The Case of India.- 7. Law's Paradoxes: Governing Surrogacy in India.- 8. Surrogacy in India: Political and Commercial Framings.- 9. Indian Surrogates: Their Psychological Well-Being and Experiences.- 10. Surrogacy and Social Movements in India: Towards a Collective Conversation.- A Restrictive System: The Case of Germany.- 11. German Law on Surrogacy and Egg Donation: The Legal Logic of Restrictions.- 12. Ethical Objections about Surrogacy in German Debates: A Critical Analysis.- 13. Parents on the Move: German Intended Parents’ Experiences with Transnational Surrogacy.- 14. Conceiving before Conception: Gay Couples Searching for an Egg Donor on Their Journey to Parenthood.- State Supported System: The Case of Israel.- 15. In the Throes of Revolution: Birthing Pangs of Medical Reproduction in Israel and Beyond.- 16. Repro-Migration: Lessons from the Early Days of Cross Border Migration between Israel and Romania.- 17. Parochial Altruism: A Religion Sensitive Analysis of the Israeli Surrogacy and Egg-Donation Legislation.

This book is the first to bring together an interdisciplinary collection of essays on surrogacy and egg donation from three socially, legally and culturally distinct countries - India, Israel and Germany. It presents contributions from experts in the field of social and cultural sciences, bioethics, law as well as psychology and provides critical-reflective comparative analysis of the socio-ethical factors shaping surrogacy and egg donation practices across these three countries. This book highlights the importance of a comparative perspective to ‘make sense’ of controversies and transitions in this highly contested area of artificial reproductive technologies. It demonstrates how local developments cannot be isolated from global events and vice versa. Therefore, this volume can be used as a standard reference for anyone seeking to understand surrogacy and egg donation from a macro-perspective in the next decade.

“This important edited collection explores regulation, activism, and the framing of and restrictions on third party and cross-border reproduction in three countries known for their strikingly different surrogacy and egg donation regimes. Top scholars drawn from anthropology, bioethics, sociology, and psychology draw our attention to these dynamics in a powerful interdisciplinary comparative end product.” (Charis Thompson, UC Berkeley, USA, and Author of Making Parents: The Ontological Choreography of Reproductive Technologies)

“This is the most important book on the ethics of surrogacy and egg donation to be published in recent years and a “must read” for anyone interested in reproductive ethics. Good ethical analysis requires in-depth knowledge of the actual reproductive practices and the application of nuanced and sophisticated ethical reasoning. This book provides both.” (Søren Holm, University of Manchester, UK, former Editor of Journal of Medical Ethics, and now Editor of the journal Clinical Ethics)

“This stimulating volume by leading scholars presents the benefits and insights possible with a comparative approach for studying the rapidly shifting terrain of global assisted reproduction. It offers an essential reading to all those interested in the social, legal and ethical impacts of assisted reproduction.” (Andrea Whittaker, Monash University, Australia, and Editor of Abortion in Asia: Local Dilemmas, Global Politics)

Offers a scholarly analysis of three major types of ethico-legal regimes concerning surrogacy and gamete donation, i.e. India, Israel and Germany Examines in a comparative and interdisciplinary way how in each of these regimes the ethical, social, legal and cultural issues are entangled Includes multiple contributions on Israel, India and Germany: three prototypical examples of particular ethico-legal regimes concerning assisted reproduction