Surrogacy is when a woman
carries a baby for another couple and gives up the baby at birth. In the past
decade, commercial surrogacy has grown tremendously in India. It is currently
estimated to be a $2-billion industry. Before November 2015, when the
government imposed a ban, foreigners accounted for 80 per cent of surrogacy
births in the country. This is because most countries, barring a few such as
Russia, Ukraine and some U.S. states, do not permit commercial surrogacy. Many
countries in Europe have completely prohibited surrogacy arrangements, both to
protect the reproductive health of the surrogate mother as well as the future
of the newborn child.
The trigger
The debate began when, in
2008, a Japanese doctor couple commissioned a baby in a small town in Gujarat.
The surrogate mother gave birth to a healthy baby girl. By then the couple had
separated and the baby was both parentless and stateless, caught between the
legal systems of two countries. The child is now in her grandmother’s custody
in Japan but has not obtained citizenship, as surrogacy is not legal in Japan.
In 2012, an Australian
couple who had twins by surrogacy, arbitrarily(randomly,मनमाने) rejected one and took
home the other. A single mother of two from Chennai decided to become a
surrogate mother in the hope that the payment would help her start a shop near
her house. She delivered a healthy child, but her hopes bore little fruit for
herself. She received only about Rs.75,000, with an autorickshaw driver who
served as a middleman, taking a 50 per cent cut. After repaying the loans, she
did not have adequate(enough,पर्याप्त) money. On January 29,
2014, 26-year-old Yuma Sherpa died in the aftermath(result,परिणाम) of a surgical procedure
to harvest eggs from her body, as part of the egg donation programme of a
private clinic based in New Delhi.
These incidents highlight
the total disregard for the rights of the surrogate mother and child and have
resulted in a number of public interest litigations in the Supreme Court to
control commercial surrogacy. The 228th report of the Law Commission of India
also recommended prohibiting commercial surrogacy and allowing ethical altruistic(kind,परोपकारी) surrogacy to needy
Indian citizens by enacting a suitable legislation.
The Surrogacy
(Regulation) Bill, 2016 proposes to regulate surrogacy in India by permitting
it as an option for couples who cannot naturally have children, have a lack of
other assisted reproductive technology options, are keen to have a biological
child, and can find a surrogate mother among their relatives. Altruistic
surrogacy, which means an arrangement without transfer of funds as inducement(incentive,प्रलोभन), is currently practised
in some centres in India, though the majority of surrogacy centres use women
who are paid for their services. The child born through surrogacy will have all
the rights of a biological child. Indian infertile couples between the ages of
23-50 years (woman) and 26-55 (man) who have been married for five years and
who do not have a surviving child will be eligible for surrogacy. The surrogate
mother should be a close relative of the intending couple and between the ages
of 25-35 years and shall act as a surrogate mother only once in her lifetime.
Implementation will be through the national and State surrogacy boards. Any
establishment found undertaking commercial surrogacy, abandoning(leave,छोड़ना) the child, exploiting
the surrogate mother, selling or importing a human embryo shall be punishable
with imprisonment for a term not be less than 10 years and with a fine up to
Rs.10 lakh. Registered surrogacy clinics will have to maintain all records for
a minimum period of 25 years.
Think adoption
While infertility is a
growing problem in India, there are many different ways of making a family.
Adoption is an underutilised option that can not only give happiness to a
childless couple but also provide a home and a future for an orphan child.
While the Bill will now be placed before Parliament and the details debated,
the basic tenet of disallowing commercial surrogacy is at its heart, and will
remain.
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