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 parent-less and stateless, caught between the legal
systems of two countries.
2008 The child is now in her grandmother’s custody
in Japan but has not obtained citizenship, as surrogacy is not legal in
Japan.
2012, an Australian couple who had twins by
surrogacy, arbitrarily 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 auto-rickshaw driver who
served as a middleman, taking a 50 per cent cut. After repaying the
loans, she did not have enough money.
On January 29, 2014, 26-year-old
Yuma Sherpa died in the aftermath 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 litigation 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 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, 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 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.
While
infertility is a growing problem in India, there are many different
ways of making a family. Adoption is an underutilized 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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