India’s draft surrogacy Bill bars homosexuals, live-in couples

New Delhi (Vidya Krishnan/Mint) : India’s long-awaited surrogacy Bill will disqualify homosexual couples, foreign single individuals and couples in live-in relationships from having children through surrogate mothers in India. The law also imposes age restrictions on surrogate mothers.

Critics said the strict norms of the proposed ART Bill will see the activity moving to more conducive destinations such as Thailand. Surrogacy is a method of reproduction where a woman—the surrogate—agrees to carry a pregnancy to term for a fee.

In January, the home ministry had barred homosexuals and foreign single individuals.

“I do not understand why the law has to be discriminatory towards unmarried foreigners when unmarried Indians are allowed this facility,” said Ritu Bakshi, chairperson of the International Fertility Centre in Delhi.

“It is fair to expect that surrogacy should be allowed in the country of the commissioning couple because citizenship of the child becomes an issue otherwise. Other than this, many restrictions imposed are not encouraging for business. A majority of our clients are from foreign countries. To expect this sector to not have commercial interest is naïve. Surrogacy is very expensive across the world,” she added.

Surrogacy act gives birth to a debate

Mumbai (DNA/Santosh Andhale) : While a top Bollywood actor rumoured to be having his third child through a surrogate has neither confirmed nor denied the reports, senior doctors and in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) specialists are once again hotly debating whether surrogacy should be available only to those couples who cannot bear a child in any other way or to anybody who can afford it.

In the absence of clear regulation, they all agree, surrogacy is a currently unchecked and unsupervised industry with no law to fall back on if anything goes wrong during the treatment. Whether couples already blessed with kids should opt for a surrogate is also being debated. “Surrogacy is an option for those couples where pregnancy could be dangerous for the woman or if she has a medical problem such as multiple miscarriages,” said Dr Ameet Patki, a senior IVF expert based in Khar. That’s the only condition on which he recommends surrogacy, he added,” Dr Patki added.

Why India’s illegal surrogate industry needs to be regulated

(By Health.India.com) : Sir Robert Edwards – the father of the In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF)who passed away two days ago would never have imagined the worldwide repercussions of his invention. While IVF has given children to thousands who never thought they would have children, it has also exploited thousands of women in poor countries who’ve been forced to be surrogate mothers because of their poor financial situation.
Couples from Edwards’ native Britain along with Americans are coming in droves to India to hire women as surrogate mothers. Indian clinics offer them services at a fraction of what it costs in the UK or the USA and due to this India have been unofficially christened the Surrogacy Capital of the World It’s estimated this illegal industry is worth Rs 13033 crore. And it’s an industry which is dependent on vulnerable, financially-poor women.