Reproductive Exile in Global Dubai: South Asian Stories

As India becomes the center for global commercial surrogacy, infertile Indians themselves may be forced to seek assisted reproductive technology (ART) services elsewhere. The inability of Indian couples to access affordable, high-quality services in their home country may force them to become reproductive tourists—a phenomenon defined in this article as "reproductive exile." Reproductive exile bespeaks the "forced" nature of fertility travel, when infertile couples must leave their home country in order to access safe, effective, affordable, and legal infertility care. Their choice to use ARTs to produce a child is voluntary, but their travel abroad is not. Furthermore, the term exile takes on additional meanings in the South Asian context. South Asian laborers, both poor and middle-class, may feel forced to leave home in order to secure a living wage, send home remittances, save for their futures, and accrue enough money to access ART services. For many South Asians, Dubai is now the global hub for both labor migration and reproductive exile, owing to the long history of South Asian-Arab Gulf transnationalism, as well as Dubai's reputation for specializing in all manner of "high-tech" services. In this article, reproductive exile to global Dubai will be explored, along with three South Asian stories highlighting infertile couples' dreams of making a test-tube baby.