{"id":189210,"date":"2022-06-07T20:42:16","date_gmt":"2022-06-07T15:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=189210"},"modified":"2022-06-07T20:42:16","modified_gmt":"2022-06-07T15:12:16","slug":"the-debates-around-the-surrogacy-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-debates-around-the-surrogacy-act\/","title":{"rendered":"The debates around the Surrogacy Act"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

News<\/strong>: Petitioners in the Delhi High Court questioned why marital status, age, or gender were the criteria for being allowed to commission or not commission surrogacy in India.<\/p>\n

The female petitioner said that she already had a child, but the trauma of the first childbirth experience and her need to juggle work with child care persuaded her that surrogacy would be a better option for the second child. But under the provisions of the Surrogacy Act, she was denied a chance at commissioning surrogacy.<\/p>\n

What is the Surrogacy Act?<\/b><\/h5>\n

The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill was introduced in Parliament in November 2016, and passed in the Winter session of Parliament in 2021.<\/p>\n

The Act sought to regulate the surrogacy<\/strong> part of a rather flourishing infertility industry in the country.<\/p>\n

It defines \u2018surrogacy\u2019 as a practice where a woman undertakes to give birth to a child for another couple and agrees to hand over the child to them after birth,<\/p>\n

The Act allows \u2018altruistic surrogacy\u2019<\/strong> \u2014 wherein only the medical expenses and insurance coverage is provided by the couple to the surrogate mother during pregnancy. No other monetary consideration will be permitted.<\/p>\n

As per the Surrogacy Act that kicked in from January this year, a married couple can opt for surrogacy only on medical grounds<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The law defines a couple as a married Indian \u201cman and woman\u201d and also prescribes an age-criteria with the woman being in the age group of 23 to 50 years<\/strong> and the man between 26 and 55 years<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the couple should not have a child of their own.<\/p>\n

Though the law allows single women to resort to surrogacy<\/strong>, she should either be a widow<\/strong> or a divorcee<\/strong>, between the age of 35 to 45 years.<\/p>\n

Single men<\/strong> are, however, not eligible<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Why is there a need for a Surrogacy Act in India?<\/b><\/h5>\n

India has emerged as a hub for infertility treatment<\/strong>, attracting people from the world over with its state-of-the-art technology and competitive prices to treat infertility.<\/p>\n

Soon enough, due to prevailing socio-economic inequities<\/strong>, underprivileged women found an option to \u2018rent their wombs\u2019 and thereby make money to take care of their expenses.<\/p>\n

Once information of the availability of such wombs got out, the demand also picked up, and exploitation of these women began<\/strong>. Several instances began to emerge where women, in often desperate straits, started lodging police complaints after they did not receive the promised sum.<\/p>\n

Other issues also began to crop up. For instance<\/strong>,<\/p>\n

–<\/strong> in 2008 a Japanese couple began the process with a surrogate mother in Gujarat, but before the child was born they split with both of them refusing to take the child.<\/p>\n

–<\/strong> in 2012, an Australian couple commissioned a surrogate mother, and arbitrarily chose one of the twins that were born.<\/p>\n

The time therefore, was ripe for proper regulation.<\/p>\n

Who all are allowed to make use of the services of a surrogate mother?<\/b><\/h5>\n

Any couple that has \u2018proven infertility<\/strong>\u2019 are candidates.<\/p>\n

The \u2018intending couple\u2019 as the Act calls them, will be eligible if they have a \u2018certificate of essentiality<\/strong>\u2019 and a \u2018certificate of eligibility<\/strong>\u2019 issued by the appropriate authority.<\/p>\n

–<\/strong> The certificate of essentiality <\/strong>will be issued if the couple fulfills three conditions: a)<\/strong>, a certificate of infertility of one or both from a district medical board; b)<\/strong>, an order of parentage and custody of the surrogate child passed by a Magistrate\u2019s court; c)<\/strong> insurance cover for the surrogate mother.<\/p>\n

Who can become a surrogate mother? <\/b><\/h5>\n

Only a close relative of the couple<\/strong> can be a surrogate mother, one who is able to provide a medical fitness certificate. She should have been married, with a child of her own, and must be between 25 and 35 years, but can be a surrogate mother only once.<\/p>\n

Source<\/strong>: This post is based on the article \u201cThe debates around the Surrogacy Act<\/strong>\u201d published in The Hindu<\/strong> on 7th<\/strong> June 22<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

News: Petitioners in the Delhi High Court questioned why marital status, age, or gender were the criteria for being allowed to commission or not commission surrogacy in India. The female petitioner said that she already had a child, but the trauma of the first childbirth experience and her need to juggle work with child care… Continue reading The debates around the Surrogacy Act<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10328,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[263,10498],"class_list":["post-189210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-1","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10328"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189210\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}