The Bill does not allow foreign and gay couples, single men or women and couples who already have children to approach a surrogate. We opened the business fulfilling all legal formalities and abiding by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) guidelines.
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“I don’t think anyone in their right senses will want to reject this bill”, Shaina said. “There was an urgency to regulate surrogacy as it was going out of control and the government had given repeated assurances in Parliament”, Swaminathan said.
In a commercial surrogacy arrangement, the surrogate mother is paid to carry the child during the term of the pregnancy. This is the main reason that India had become the hub for surrogacy – 80% of them commissioned by foreigners.
After the Cabinet approved the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016 this week, IVF clinics have decided not to take even Indian cases. “Does she have to wait till she turns 28 to find a surrogate mother, just because a rule says so?” Since surrogacy is so prominent and controversial, the government chose to deal with it first.
The Congress has opposed the draft law on surrogacy, which proposes a ban on commercial surrogacy. Nadda said the government will ensure the provision of “close relatives” is defined in a way that it takes care of modern nuclear families where there may not be immediate sister or sister-in-law. “The new Bill will stop this”, said Tripurana Venkataratnam, chairman of Telangana Women’s Commission, on Friday. “Surrogacy could be desired by widows, live-in partners and NRIs among others”, he said it was unusual that the reason for excluding Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) and foreigners is that divorces are very common in foreign countries. In fact, India is probably the only country after the USA to have been able to successfully offer commercial surrogacy for nearly two decades now. He said the bill is a “progressive” step towards regulating exploitation of women. A usual scenario would be- well-off people commissioning surrogacy to women who need financial help. The surrogate should be a willing, family member only. Women like Premila Vaghila, who died after giving birth prematurely, have no recourse to legal measures, and others like her are often exploited, their “wombs” being ‘put up for rent.’ Wesley J. Smith, Fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism, refers to the commercialization of women’s uteruses as “biological colonialism”, where individuals exploit those who are destitute and powerless to enhance their own health and happiness.
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Today, when surrogate mothers have legal rights, there are accusations of exploitation.
