LS passes Bill on surrogacy

The legislation prescribes eligibility for surrogates and intending couples. A surrogate mother can only be a married woman with a child of her own. Intending couples can’t have a previous child, biological or adopted. Married Indian couples with a mentally disabled child can, however, engage a surrogate. The Bill mandates registration of surrogacy clinics and requires intending couples to produce a certificate of medical infertility to the appropriate authority to become eligible.

It allows the surrogate child same rights as a biological child and also makes it compulsory for intending couples to sign parentage orders to guarantee they won’t abandon the baby once born.

The Bill was drafted by a Group of Ministers headed by Sushma Swaraj in 2016. Swaraj had said, “Surrogacy cannot be a fashion, hobby or a pleasure for actors who don’t want their wives to undergo labour or who already have biological children. Surrogacy must have a purpose. This Bill is in line with the Indian ethos.”

Critiqued for leaving out single women who are allowed by law to adopt children, the Bill intends to discourage rather than encourage surrogacy while ensuring that adoption remains the choice for childless couples.

TMC’s Kakoli Ghosh, while debating the Bill, called for it to include same sex couples while NCP’s Supriya Sule wanted the scope of the definition of a surrogate expanded. Estimates suggest 75 per cent surrogacy services in India are hired by foreigners.

What’s surrogacy

It’s a practice where a woman bears a child for a couple with the intention of handing it over to them and where neither of the gametes — eggs or sperms — belong either to her or her husband

Surrogacy involves creating human embryos through IVF and then implanting these for pregnancy in another woman’s womb; it is needed only when a woman cannot bear a child

Who can be a surrogate

A married Indian woman with a child of her own aged 25 to 35 years; no woman can be a surrogate more than once

Who can avail surrogacy

Indian and NRI couples married for five years with no child and with proven infertility

Husband must be 26 to 55 years and wife 23 to 50 years; they should be childless

Punishment

The Bill provides for up to 10-year imprisonment and Rs 10-lakh fine for contravention of provisions

Monitoring set-up

State-level surrogacy boards will monitor implementation of the law and receive complaints or take suo motu action for violations

The national surrogacy board will frame code of conduct for surrogacy clinics

Appropriate authorities at state level will invite surrogacy applications from indenting couples