Surrogacy stakeholders draw up guidelines

AHMEDABAD (Radha Sharma/Times of India) : Most of the women driving multimillion-dollar surrogacy industry in India by renting out their wombs to childless couples do so to beat poverty. Often, they are exploited by agents and even risk their lives.

While there is no legal framework enacted - the Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Bill, years after it was drafted, is yet to be passed - a handful of stakeholders have formed a society to assure surrogates get basic remuneration, compensation in medical crises and, most importantly, respect for carrying somebody's child for nine months and delivering happinessThe first-ever Indian Society for Third-Party Assisted Reproduction (INSTAR) has now been formed. Infertility experts, lawyers, embryologists and social workers from 15 states including Gujarat have joined hands to enforce self-imposed moral and ethical guidelines for the welfare of surrogates in India.