A real life investment you really do have to weigh up the pros and cons if youre not physically able to have children the baby business someones making a lot of money out of this if nature doesnt oblige medical science can do wonders a surrogate mother eggs i. V. s and the bill at the end of the whole process can be something of a one to two it can easily reach into the tens of thousands of euros an emotional purchase an easy catch for those delivering the goods and theres an emotional and psychological tag attached as well as the price tag well explain in a moment first meet my neighbor is a yella and her son henry the best neighbors one could have shes been through the whole i. B. S. Process a few times now youll be surprised how common its grown my sister also tried unsuccessfully but in his case there was a little surprise waiting around the corner. There was and were really happy and thrilled to have a healthy happy child we hope it stays that way. Also dont want to hurt their own motivation was just realizing we belong together and wanted to become a family and we were lucky enough to have a baby. And king we both wanted a family and a child and thats why we put ourselves through so much on us thats what narrative was in our front albums. Because im here we had our if you have four times in total. Because we did them one straight after the other we spent a five figure sum in just nine months. National fund it came out of our savings and our parents helped us along the spot to as arnold of our understood it was a big financial strain but we found the emotional strain much greater than the physical strain because every time its a major homeowner procedure. It was a home on the line for us. Twins airport and im a very positive person and i just thought it would work maybe not the first time we didnt but after four attempts i thought when do you say that was the last time and thats a viable flats that my. Mom was hired its been a physicist but i think you have to decide for yourself how long do you want to do this for and how often. And will you be able to live with the decision not to devote yourself to this process forever theres always a mushing that some point you come to a dead end financially of course but also psychologically you get to the point where you just cant take anymore and. And. The global Facility Services market is growing at an annual rate of around ten percent report published by allied Market Research shows it could be worth over thirty billion dollars by two thousand and twenty three. Excited as well as some countries shrinking populations are a drag on many of the advanced economies after all whos going to pay the pensions of an aging population procreation appears on many government agendas in the form of Financial Support when i first came to germany i couldnt get over how many of my friends had no brothers and sisters thats changing but slowly. One point five nine thats the average birth rate per woman in germany. Its the highest figure since the one nine hundred seventy s. Numbers have been rising for years. Eight hundred thousand children were born in twenty sixteen. Partly because an increasing number of older women became mothers often with the help of i. V. s. And women with a migrant background had more children on average. One point five nine per woman thats something to celebrate. Still more deaths than. Germanys birth rate is below average in europe. And europe is at the bottom of the international rankings. Of women have an average of two point two children and its four point six in africa. To germany and there are much more likely to have brothers. As youve heard people desperate to have children or a great source of income for many businesses the Fertility Services sector is going gangbusters and we havent even gone into adoption but what about surrogacy time to delve into the legalities and ethics behind the business of having someone else spare a child for you. Takes on this next. On that is placed. A. What is it feel to by a child. That. Time. So. Im looking at the website of a fertility and surrogacy clinic. It offers a range of services it has experts say it carries out in vitro fertilization and it provides surrogate mothers. You know fatah depending on the package the cost can be thirty forty or fifty thousand euros. More than the price of a midrange car so thats a lot of money to. The clinic is in ukraine that the website is in german and targets german women who cant have children i tried to reach out to some women in this position via facebook great contacts and they were basically all very skeptical about me as a journalist joining their group so i could quiz them. Parked only one woman responded shes looking for some a good mother. Im very long how long have you been looking. She says its been two years now. Sandra does not want to be identified she tells me she was born without a womb. I think thats not true that some things are natural you know every woman can have a child some had a quote from me. Or any chances with the help of a surrogate. But why wont they let us on the hobby of sandras eggs have been fertilized with her husbands sperm now she just needs to find a woman who will let an embryo be implanted and carry the child to term and then give the baby back to its biological parents for a fee this kind of service is banned in germany because poor women could feel compelled to rent out their bodies. The ethical issues are certainly complex for all sandra shows me lots of websites offering commercial Surrogacy Services as if it were a business like any other. Side some require a fee just to establish contact. Center look for a surrogate and germany. With my new negotiate the prime so much were talking about as a. Surrogate mothers are spent twenty five thousand euros vances tolls and all who is that the maximum mechanical or higher. Much higher. Theres no limit. When it comes to cost there is no limit one woman was asking for thirty five thousand for that price i could do is abroad in legal terms that would be safer. Surrogacy is legal in a number of countries there are clinics in the United States that provide the service for about one hundred thousand euros its a lot cheaper in ukraine laos and kenya. Commercial surrogacy used to be big business in india until it was banned in twenty fifteen for foreigners and then in twenty seventeen for indians as well. Now surrogacy is only allowed among relatives and if no money changes hands rinku tells my colleague how much she earned as a surrogate mother four thousand euros that is as much as a husband as a rickshaw driver in three years. And with the money she has been able to finance her sons schooling. Its estimated commercial surrogacy in india was a two billion euro a year industry at its peak does a legal ban mean it just stops or does that drive the business underground im far from me during the whole thing somewhere else like that was not an option just look how the women live there its a total rip off. Sandra tells me that it would have cost her thirty five thousand euros in ukraine but the surrogate mother would only get seven thousand euros. The cleanin get the rest. To be pregnant misandrist dream but it will never happen. She has however now found a woman here in germany who is willing to be her surrogate in the autumn theyll go to a clinic in the Czech Republic for the procedure to implant the embryo. Shell pay her eight thousand euros. For instance do you feel like a criminal since this is not allowed in germany. For surrogacy is not in fact banned in germany per se and it cannot be punished through what is illegal is the procedure. So theres a bit of a loophole in the law. And were doing the procedure abroad and then well come back to germany. Not so it appears we have to do it this way fertilization and implantation in a foreign country. On this in some and then well have to adopt the child here in germany or our own child as mine i. This whole story has left me rather stunned i can totally feel for the women who want a child and i can understand the position of surrogate mother has. But still the commercial aspect is unsettling the whole industry devoted to making and marketing babies wanting. To give the legalities just explain why that woman had to adopt her own child i mean that straight yes because shes not believe in mother or the surrogate mother the legal mother in germany and the father spent as the legal father so then at the end she kind adopted by the takes time and security the trust factor thats thats a huge thing trusting that youll actually get that kid back yeah its. Trust is a huge thing and that because someone doesnt know if the surrogate mother really gives she gives birth to a child and she doesnt know if she if you think should be attached to that child or she probably is and the same way around. Its the surrogate mother sure that sandra takes the kid because there have been cases when the biological parents didnt come to get the child anymore you know they just left it because it had disabilities or something so trust and theres no legal no legal basis its just trust that links both what parts. What about actually talking about these things my neighbor for example i never knew that shed gone through i v f my sister of course told me all about it but a lot of people dont want to talk about it yeah i dont know actually read if you have two thousand and eighteen and we dont talk about using medical help to get pregnant and using these all that matters its still an i dont know theres still shame this still shame attached to this topic you probably know that its not easy to talk about these kind of things and i think i dont understand why this two thousand and eighteen its not. What you think about the methods and the actual principle behind them and the cost yet to be honest im very liberal some might rary personal opinion is its good to have these measures its good to have these possibilities but at the same time you talk about the amount of money to people who can afford to do that get children so is it really is it really fair only to get children because you can pay thirty five thousand forty five thousand people thats really its a difficult question yeah good question great thank you very much exciting stuff. Well lets talk a little more about success rates the return on your investment and if those astronomical prices are justified because the business of assisted reproduction is booming and some people spending small fortunes on achieving their dream of a child. One prick of the needle costs fifteen hundred euros. Officially uniting exile and is an expensive business its also a laborious one first as many emotional sperm as possible have to be collected and then theres the eggs. Its our job to isolate egg cells and to identify embryos that have the greatest chance of achieving a pregnancy and can be implanted. There have been big technological leaps forward here or at the camera systems and genetic checkups that help us to do just that. Special cameras doctors can identify which takes cells a not viable one indication the cells clump together that means theyre on suitable for use in i. V. s treatment. And every day occurrence in the reproduction business. The laboratory belongs to a fertility clinic in berlin and the clinic itself belongs to one of the beacons provided survived. And demanded you drag to Sebastien Ahrens turn over the divine nature has risen by four percent per annum and still he continues to buy out kleenex. Shift as its really. An attractive business if you can make money if you run things properly like saudi thats the same time the level of competition as growing and quality standards are improving its much i wholeheartedly welcome and the venue no group is happy to participate and that. Quality means making as few mistakes as possible for example when removing egg cells for ive yet there are. A clinics reputation race on the race at which its patients get pregnant the more pregnancy the better for customers the cost is of second dream for. When weve exhausted all possibilities that we have as fertility specialists you can assume that there will be a cumulative pregnancy rate of sixty five seventy or even eighty percent as far as were concerned thats a very very good rate well never manage to achieve one hundred percent there will always be couples who will be unable to achieve a pregnancy and no matter how hard or how often they try. Telling you possible lavin you think business has no really taken off social aid freezing this allows women to have removed and cryogenically stored when theyre young they can then have those eggs implanted later in life and thus delay childbearing years even. Three years theres been a lot of publicity about how we might have expected to be overrun by women wanting to take advantage of it but thats not the case is weve only had the hard consultation and comparison to the volume of our other treatments there are few women who are interested in social egg freezing. I. D. F. On the other hand certainly has a future as more and more women in germany decide to have a child later in life that makes it less likely that they will get pregnant naturally but its certainly good for business. To look to the future now at a topic that isnt all that far down the road design a baby with precision gene editing already a reality parents today can for example prevent certain inherited diseases but what about altering other traits may be possible but its illegal in germany ended many other countries is a look at just some of the ethical conundrums confronting lawmakers. The baby blue eyes and blond hair or would green eyes be better very soon parents may be able to choose genetic modification could theoretically be used to create the desired appearance but thats ethically problematic and would have to know ramifications for the health of the child but it is possible and in countries like the us legal another scenario trying for an ideal child with the ideal d. N. A. For instance taking agone sperm from men and women with high genetic potential to create a child and a lab. Then theres the chance to scan and embryos genetic makeup for conditions like metabolic disorders to minimize the chance of illness. And suspect embryos are rejected with the aim of creating a healthy child. In germany embryo selection is strictly regulated and genetic modification is banned. Germany is a giant when it comes to industry events hosts of the Worlds Largest trade fairs in everything from electronics to the just sticks but until recently Reproductive Services didnt have one thats because for historical reasons reproduction has always been a touchy subject here we went to have a critical talk with the man whos been breaking taboos. The part of the show is to achieve peoples. Wish for a baby. The idea is to obviously. Create your own family. That is also maybe a bit like a commodity. Now its just a cute picture. Tracks people tracks they are. You know at the end of the day people can accuse babies. There was still quite a lot of controversy when it first opened because i guess its. That aspect thats you know its you know just basically Offering Services that the germans would say forbidden in germany for a reason a lot of controversy. Germans are already doing it with or without the show so people are going abroad they are choosing Nice Services and they are bringing children back some of them having complications bringing children back. We dont advocate or ban anything we say here is a range of things are available around the world you choose what you want to do and then we bring the experts together to help them make those choices. But its a fine line between educating and selling right im not allowed to sell so it is forbidden to show to sell to sell any of the services so it really is about informing people of the legalities in those individual countries. And how those treatments work i guess if you want to be really critical you say ok but you dont have. Anybody who discusses like the ethical implications its really about the fraud and the baby is that its a probably do have ethical we do have ethical discussions a we do its no it isnt just to pry is about understanding the entire. Fertility universe and whats out there whats good whats bad whats in different. Like any industry there are Service Providers that to a great job and there are Service Providers that you would not wish to choose. Where do you draw the lines. We draw the lines in countries that are controversial in terms of some of the treatments so there are some countries around the world that have questionable. Services that we would not invite to come along to shout at me any examples where that you can get out of or i probably shouldnt but somewhere like thailand there has been many controversies in the Services Available in town and particularly. When it comes out of the say. Its a lot of. For in provide this unfortunately the german. Fertility industry has been a little bit slow in supporting the event some fear i think from a lot of the doctors. Not used to. Presenting themselves in public they dont want to come across as a business they probably dont want to see themselves selling selling their practices. Do you think its going to in the long run helps. To normalize treatments that are at the moment forbidden in germany but you create demand and that might in the long term also changed the law really what we have done in the last two years is raise awareness of the subject raised the subject raised the topic in germany and got people talking about it again if you take the patients themselves they dont want opinions they want Solutions Solutions to career family that can only be a good thing. The question is good for whom back at the beginning of the show we met my neighbor got together and her son henry shes been there done that so how does she feel about it now. In fact. I think its a big and lucrative business but its also a big dream for many people like getting married to the love of your life and celebrating with the whole family and spending a lot of money on the wedding but theyre going to have. Perhaps why people are willing to spend a lot of money on fulfilling that desire for a child and see it as a key to happiness. But i think thats really just a moment. But after four attempts there came a point after nine months of i. P. F. Treatment when this topic was only present when we said lets take a break. And the following year we conceived our child quite naturally. It was a minor miracle and a great relief to no longer have to deal with this topic anymore because i learn as an author said. By. Instance of a hope than what i can. I dont think ive yet for other kinds of first to let your treatment talk to boom but its not something you talk about with the baby because either as there is still a bit of stick more attached. But with time you discover that a lot of people have their children with assistance only with a great deal of luck or have adopted children. Out of here to kidnap. But you only find that out afterwards. I think it would help a lot of people if society were more open about the subject. Of this and. The unit that would make it a bit easier for people who have to deal with it as the last of it doesnt matter so they realise theyre not alone. The whole thing is not something bad. And it can have a happy end. Nice way to end the show but if you want to share your thoughts on the subject get in touch with me on twitter or head for our Facebook Page its always great to hear from you thanks for joining us this week on major catch you again next month by fidel. Should. The bush. Tax. Cuts. The country on the brink of economic collapse move back on the cusp of for medical training venezuela and again and again environment protests erupt demonstrators style australias air. Campbell reports undercover from a country on the edge of ruin. It is a way to. Close up a fifteen minute spot teetotal. The fast pace of life in the digital. Shift as the lowdown on the web it shows new developments useful information and anything else worth knowing. Presents the latest finds. Looks over the shoulders of makers and she observes a. Shift in the five minutes to. Higher and higher further and further dirtier and dirtier. The high gloss world of professional sports behind the scenes of bitter truth. Manipulation exploitation corruption mafia style business worth millions just how murky it is the world of sports and reality. Joining me starting june sixth from t. W. You can tell a lot about a society by its garbage. The first six worthless for the rich but for many poor people it offers their only chance of survival and i could be lunch for today just like that. Our reporters travel to nairobi and work in to meet people who know the true value of courage. It has created a surprising parallel economy. What does all this mean for economic inequality around the world you guys are starting class warfare the response to that statement should be yes we are starting class wont be because were tired. Actually destructive he couldnt. Bridge. The truth exclusive report starting june eleventh on t w. This is t w news coming to you live from berlin literary giant philip are all done at the age of eighty five we look back the life and works of the lives of the Pulitzer Prize winning novelist ralph explored the tragedy and comedy of the American Experience also on the Program Facebook c. E. O. Mark zuckerberg apologizes to european lawmakers for the recent data scandal at the social media giant but he runs out the clock to dollar several tough questions on how user data has been shared and manipulated