By Prabha Raghavan & Divya Rajagopal, ET Bureau | Sep 03, 2016, 03.33 AM IST
It took two decades of savings, a long, unsuccessful attempt
at adoption and an uncooperative family before Mrs.X and her
husband used the last resort - a surrogate mother - to have their baby. Sitting
at her doctor's clinic in south Delhi, Mrs X, now 48, narrates how the painful
and expensive invitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment failed her four times since
1995 and how her endeavor to adopt caused a furor after her in-laws found out. That's
when she and her husband decided to have a child through surrogacy, where a
young woman bears a child for someone else. In
India, a surrogate mother often bears the child for a price, which benefits
both sides. However, if the Indian government has its way, a new bill will all
but shut the doors on surrogacy, one of the least-used options by childless
Indians. Last week, the Union Cabinet approved the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill,
2016, which is aimed at curbing unethical and commercial practices and
preventing the exploitation of poor women as substitute mothers.
In the process, however, the bill proposes to narrow options
for those wanting children and shuts out an income-earning opportunity for
women as surrogate mothers. For one thing, the bill makes only married couples
eligible for surrogacy - no single parents, live-in couples and gays, please.
The couple must certify that one of them is medically unfit to reproduce
naturally. Those who have biological or adopted children will not be eligible
for a surrogate, a point emphasised by external affairs . Sushma Swaraj, who targeted celebrities opting
for surrogacy after having their own biological children.
"I am sad to say that what was started to fulfill a
necessity is now treated as fashion," Swaraj had complained. She was one
of the members of the committee that prepared the bill. These restrictions,
especially those based on marital status, have drawn criticism. "When the
law allows adoption by a single parent, why not allow surrogacy too?"
Indira Hinduja, a Mumbai-based infertility specialist who delivered India's
first test-tube baby in 1988, asked soon after the cabinet approved the bill. In
response, health minister JP Nadda said a family institution was required to
protect children from potential abuse and the adoption laws, too, need many
changes that will be taken up later on. Swaraj had suggested that couples who
don't have close relatives who can offer to be surrogate mothers should look at
adoption more closely. As far as surrogates are concerned, the government's
heart might be in the right place in wanting to curb the exploitation of poor
women hired to bear children for for others. Not that the government wants
to completely ban the renting of wombs, but it wants to make it an altruistic
practice, where eligible women offer to be surrogates for family members in
need. The bill says surrogate mothers should be married and should have given
birth to a healthy child before.
Women who are foreign nationals, non-resident
Indians or overseas citizens of India cannot become surrogate mothers.
"How many women will agree to bear someone's child for nine months for
altruistic reasons without any advantage? Could there be the possibility of
coercion of daughters-in-law in families?" asked Duru Shah, President of
Indian Society for Assisted Reproduction, a lobby group of top IVF doctors.
Experts say couples in India try various medical treatment options before they
go for surrogacy, which can cost as much as Rs 15 lakh.
Dr Aniruddha Malpani, who runs an IVF clinic in Mumbai, says
that only 10,000 surrogacy treatments are done in a year, which is too small a
number. Even so, it eliminates a lifeline for those willing to become surrogate
mothers. In a south Delhi IVF clinic, 25-year-old Priya (name changed), a
surrogate mother, is waiting for her appointment. With her dupatta, she tries
to cover her bulge, but the seven-month baby she carries is difficult to hide.
The mother of two children aged 6 and 4, Priya agreed to be a surrogate for a
couple after her neighbour told her about the possibility of earning more than
what she would as a daily-wage labourer.
With a family income of Rs 8,000 per month, it was difficult
for Priya and her husband to feed their two children, let alone educate them.
Priya decided to rent her womb so that she could secure a better future for her
children. "There was a time we didn't even have money to buy milk. Now,
I'm able to feed myself and my kids and even pay their school fees," Priya
told ET. She has been promised `4 lakh, excluding the treatment and delivery
costs, which the commissioning couple pays for.Not all suurrogate mothers are
treated the way Priya is - and that was the genesis of this bill.
The lack of provisions to regulate surrogacy, which was
legalised here in 2002, made it easy to commission economically poor and
illiterate women to be surrogates, a practice that put many of their lives at
risk, according to activists and researchers. Some surrogates reportedly rented
out their wombs more than once despite the perils associated with pregnancy.
The bill proposes a fine of `10 lakh and jail terms of up to 10 years for
violations. Many IVF specialists, while welcoming clearer guidelines for strict
punishment, have frowned upon the proposed restrictions and some have even
called it an attempt to impose a certain religious or moral ideal in a secular
country.
"This is a black day in the history of science and
scientific development. We have put our country back by many years," said
Rita Bakshi, who runs the International Fertility Centre in New Delhi. Health
minister Nadda has said that while the government is open to ideas to improve
the bill, provisions to protect women from being exploited were non-negotiable.
He cited instances where children born through surrogacy had been abandoned and
a surrogate woman's family not being compensated after she died during
childbirth. Commercial surrogacy is banned in most countries, argued Nadda.
"The reality is that the government has been forced to step in because the
medical profession failed to regulate itself," said Malpani.
"So when an IVF doctor takes advantage of the fact that
there is no law or regulation and performs completely unacceptable treatments
because he is not barred from doing so by the law and other doctors keep quiet
and do nothing about this, then how can the government continue to remain a
silent bystander?" There is unanimous agreement among healthcare
professionals on the need for regulation - what's open for debate is how it
should be done. Malpani suggested that surrogacy should be governed by the
Central Adoption Resource Authority, which can help coordinate the process and
keep a check on exploitation. The other issue is whether the state should have
a say on what women do with their bodies.
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