Pregnant pause

Mona

In a move to swap ‘commercial’ with ‘altruistic’, the Surrogacy Regulation Bill, 2016 has led to a heated public debate. Has India become the hub of fertility clinics all out to ‘manufacture’ babies for oh so rich, exploiting poor women; or the blanket ban curbs the technological advancement to help childless fulfil their dream? Two lawyers, Akshay Jindal and Anurag Singh Tagra, take up different sides.

For
It’s pro-poor

The Surrogacy Regulation Bill, 2016 is a step forward towards women and child rights. Commercial surrogacy had been warranting regulation for a long time due to the prevalence of unethical practices. Law Commission of India 228th report recommended the abolition of commercial surrogacy because of rampant mismanagement. The mushrooming of some 3,000 so-called fertility clinics teemed with middlemen had heartlessly commercialised parenthood. Women who are in need of money were made to bear multiple children and hardly any monetary benefit reached them as middlemen enjoyed the larger share. Not only the poor were inhumanely treated but also many a special children thus born and even female children were abandoned. The Bill, that is pro-poor, also aims to protect rural and tribal women against exploitation, still ensuring the right of parenthood to infertile couples. For, if a legally wedded couple opts for surrogacy, the child is getting legal parents. The Bill bans foreign couples because due to different laws of the land, it leads to citizenship and rights issues. It bars live-in couples to have a child thus for in case of their break up who fulfils the responsibility? The Bill not only addresses these concerns but also protects the rights of children born out of such surrogacy by ensuring legal parentage.

Akshay Jindal, advocate, Punjab & Haryana High Court, Chandigarh

Against
A rude shock

For me, the citizen of what we proudly call the ‘largest democracy of the world’, the Surrogacy Regulation Bill, 2016 has come as a rude shock. In this era when we proudly speak and vouch for our rights, liberty and personal choices, the said Bill has seriously tried to curb our rights. And the most pitiable situation where there is no choice left than to follow the diktats, is of the divorced, separated, widow/widowers, homosexuals, lesbians, those who have a biological child and want more, poor, born in India and now the citizen of another country, those who don’t have a ‘close’ relative to help, a divorcee parent who has married for the second time etc and the list will continue to alter with the deeper perusal and analysis of the Bill.

Let me elaborate the example which reveals the plight of a separated male who is contesting a never-ending litigation with his spouse and has no chances of re-joining the company of each other but wishes to have a biological child (which of course is purely his personal choice/wish/dream) and will not be able to do so. The same goes with similarly placed female. How does the said Bill give justice to the same-sex couples as the joy of having a biological child has been snatched away from them?

The list will go on and on if we keep discussing the examples and the lame argument that the Bill aims at encouraging the adoption of the girl child finds no ground as the said objective can be achieved by alternate remedies without curtailing the liberties of other human beings. Another major flaw in the Bill is the non-readily availability of the ‘close relative’ for this ‘altruistic surrogacy’. That means that even the couple medically unfit to have a child will not be able to do so unless they have a close relative. Speaking in practical terms, how many times will a married sister in Indian society be allowed by her in-laws to help her brother for the same and in how many cases will the daughter-in-law be able to refuse the said obligation, if asked for by the in-laws.

Further, I fail to understand the reasons for ignoring the concerns of the surrogate mothers who rent out their womb for financial reasons which is again an ethical and noble way to earn money while at the same time giving joy to the desiring couple.

— Anurag Singh Tagra, advocate, Punjab & Haryana High Court, Chandigarh