Outsourcing You May Not Have Heard About

Posted on Oct 4, 2006

flickr/mahalie

Infertile women who want a bargain as much as a baby can now rent an Indian womb for one-tenth the going rate.

Wired News:

Everybody knows you can get hi-def TVs manufactured or customer calls answered in underdeveloped areas of the world like Bangalore or South Carolina. But some of the jobs being outsourced these days are just plain bizarre - even disturbing. They range from reproductive services to schemes that might shave a few seconds off a Big Mac order. For every problem, it seems, there’s a cut-rate, third world solution.

WOMBS
Outsourcer: Infertile wannabe moms
Outsourcee: Young women in India rent their uteri to incubate the test-tube-bred fetuses of couples from the US, Britain, and Singapore. It costs as little as $3,500 - one-tenth of the US price - and in India, unlike parts of the US and Europe, fertility for hire is unregulated.

...

PRAYERS
Outsourcer: Catholic Church
Outsourcee: Churchgoers can request (usually with a little something extra in the collection plate) a special mass to, say, help a sick friend. But what if there’s too much demand? An email to India gets the prayer rolling: A priest there collects the donation and says the mass in a local language.

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