For the first time ever the majority of women giving birth today are over the age of 30. Statistics Canada reports this is about two and a half time the percentage in 1974. This matters as a woman's fertility starts to decline at age 28. In fact, one in six couples trying to have a child are infertile. Do these medical facts mean that we should stop encouraging women to be fully contributing members of our economy? Absolutely not! On the contrary, it means government policy must begin to keep pace with modern realities and available medical technologies.

"Reproductive tourism" is the practice of infertile people crossing international borders to receive technologically advanced reproductive services. Indeed, the international fertility trade is now big business, with India having recently emerged as the likely world leader in providing services -- most controversially the hiring of surrogate mothers -- at comparatively low costs. In our recent paper we attempted to elucidate some of the factors that make the maternal surrogacy industry ethically troubling to many people. On one hand, it's hard not to celebrate a poor woman's opportunity to pull herself out of poverty by exercising her autonomy over her body. On the other hand, there's no denying that when the poor and illiterate enter into a commercial relationship with people of greater wealth and power, there's usually more than a soupcon of exploitation involved.