Foreigners need proof of citizenship for surrogacy

New Delhi (Deccan Herald) : If the Surrogacy Bill being drafted by the government is passed by Parliament, any foreign couple seeking a child to be born through surrogacy in India will have to first obtain a guarantee that the government of the country they reside in would allow them to take home the newborn.

The proposed legislation now being vetted by several ministries of the union government will make it mandatory for any foreign couple commissioning a surrogacy to obtain a written assurance from the government of the country of their residence or from that country’s embassy in India that the baby to be born would be permitted entry to their country as their biological child.

According to the draft Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Bill, the couple will also have to furnish a certificate from the government of their country elucidating that it recognises surrogacy. The bill is being drafted by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in consultation with Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Law and Justice.

The move is to ensure the citizenship of the child to be born through surrogacy is intended to pre-empt legal complications after the birth of the baby. The need to legally ensure the child’s citizenship in the country his or her biological parents reside in was felt after the harrowing experience that a German couple and their twins born to a surrogate mother in India went through between 2008 and 2010.

Jan Balaz and Susan Anna Lohla had to fight a protracted legal battle as German Embassy in New Delhi refused to issue passports to their twins, Nikolas and Leonard, who were born to an Indian surrogate mother in Gujarat in January 2008. The embassy pointed out that German laws did not recognize surrogacy as a means of parenthood.

Surrogacy 'leading to exploitation' of poor Indian women: Report

Washington (ANI) : Foreign couples hiring Indian surrogates is an unregulated industry that is completely dependent on vulnerable women, a report has said.

For many couples, the only hope to create a child of their own is to fertilize an egg in a test-tube and implant it in a surrogate.Indian clinics do that for a fraction of the usual cost.
The procedure in which doctors implant an embryo into the womb of a surrogate mother is a delicate operation. If all goes well, in nine months time, the surrogate will deliver a baby for a childless couple.

But the country's baby business has critics, like Dr. Ranjana Kumari.According to CBS News, Dr. Kumari argues that there so many Indian women who want to do this because the country has so many poor women. There are so many women who don't want to see their own child dying out of bad health, or not getting educated, not getting two meals a day. So that's why so many women are available, she added.Dr. Ranjana Kumari pointed out that the industry needs to be regulated.

According to the report, the stressed that the vulnerability of poverty is being exploited in this whole system, and it should be banned. The report pointed out that there are some clinics in India that give the surrogate mothers life insurance and medical care, even after the baby is born.But other clinics don't provide this care. Their primary concern is the baby because that's where they make their money.