Asia Life Sciences

Abstract : Norms, which are common behaviors observable in a social group, are widely regarded as an important factor that affects social behavioral intention. They are standards of progress that normally comes from the average achievement of a large group. However, there are other factors that provide significant influence on social behavior. Based on the rational decision-making theories, this study combined rational factors, including economic evaluation and actual control factor which greatly impact social behavioral intention and irrational factors, to construct a balance behavior model to promote consumer social behavior. Moreover, this study classified consumer emotional reactions based on their involvement into four different types namely: (1) strong emotion, (2) weak emotion, (3) empathy, and (4) touching. Furthermore, different message appeals were proposed to generate social behavior. This study found that irrational factors could have a huge impact on consumer involvement in positive social behavior

Abstract : Surrogacy is a practice where a woman, known as a surrogate mother, carries a child for another with intent of handing over the child after birth. Traditionally it was meant to be the last option for infertile couples or when pregnancy was either not possible or risky due to medical condition of the woman. With the advances in ART (Artificial Reproduction Technology), it began to be used by others like same sex couples, singles, divorced, widowed or aged persons or anybody who wished to have a child by surrogacy in exchange of some monetary incentive to the surrogate mother. The increased demand led to the emergence of a commercial surrogacy market, with the purpose to “rent a womb” and “sell a child”. It raised serious legal, ethical, moral and religious issues leading to banning or strictly regulating all forms of surrogacy by most of the developed countries of the worldwide. In 2002 Supreme Court of India legalized commercial surrogacy in India to boost its ‘medical tourism industry’. India soon became a global ‘Surrogacy hub” leading to large number of foreigners flocking to India to hire surrogate mothers and avail surrogacy services at much lower cost than the developed countries. In the absence of any strict legislation, the ART (infertility) clinics began to rampantly misuse surrogacy to exploit women of economically weaker sections, who were lured or coerced into surrogacy by intermediaries hired by the clinics. Our paper examines the commercialization of surrogacy, making India a global ‘surrogacy hub’