Google Baby – Rent me a Womb, Baby?

Documentary Google Baby (2009) by film maker Zippi Brand Frank deals with birth outsourcing among three countries: Israel, USA and India. It involves business, technology (computers and human bodies) and a bunch of paradoxes.

Israeli entrepreneur Doron Mamet proposes a new global service to all couples who want to have a baby, but for some reason can’t have it. The business runs completely legal and within international economic regulations.  He calls himself a baby producer.

The prelude is based on Doron’s previous private experience. He and his boyfriend got a baby thanks to a American agency that offers the best egg-cells on the market, Egg Donation, Inc. Because Israeli laws don’t allow their women to sell their eggs and are not so elastic to gay couples willing to adopt a child, it was the only way they could make it.

It cost a lot, but exactly this experience gave him an idea to start a company for baby production in order to cut a price a bit, to make it more accessible for ‘pocket short people.’

It’s safe! No sex, just a credit card and follow the instructions from YouTube.

Egg Donation, Inc provides the best selection of eggs and women, a selection that varies from great personality to natural blond or charming brunette. When the preferred genetic material is definitely selected, purchased  on-line via credit card, multiple embryos packed in liquid nitrogen are ready for a trip to another continent, travelling forward to India to be placed in someone’s womb.

Dr. Nayna Patel runs a clinic for surrogate mothers from the poorest quarters in the city of Anand. All women are offered full medical care and money that enables them to buy a house or education for their own children. At the end of the nine month pregnancy the customers arrive to India to pick their babies.

Director Zippi Brand Frank does not make any judgment on the topic, but somehow you can find yourself completely confused in this body, egg, sperm, embryo, womb and baby traffic.

Zippi Brand Frank was born in Tel Aviv. She studied at the Sorbonne in Paris before receiving a B.A. in law and journalism from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In 2005-2006, she attended Harvard University under a Nieman Foundation Fellowship. She is the director of the television documentary series ‘She is in the Army Now — Yerukot’ (2001), ‘Somebody to Love’ (2003) and ‘Wake Up Call’ (2005). ‘Google Baby’ (2009) is her first feature documentary. (bio taken from ZagrebDox)