I first heard a commercial inviting people to consider Indian surrogates a few weeks ago, and I was horrified that women in the third world were being exploited as human incubators, usually because they were in desperate circumstances.
I felt a flashback to a book I had read long ago, "City of Joy," in which a poor man driving a rickshaw sold one of his kidneys so that his daughter could have a dowry and become marriageable, their only hope out of poverty.
Of course this probably happens in the U.S., too. I am sure that many surrogates are women in financial need, although it is more likely that some are doing it for a friend or family member.
And I keep thinking about something my friend who had spent a summer in a meat packing plant once told me--that immigrant workers will deliberately cut off one of their fingers in the machinery if a financial crisis comes up--child's education, medical bills. When she worked there, loss of one finger was worth 4 grand.