New Delhi, December 19: The Lok Sabha today passed a Bill banning commercial surrogacy in India, limiting the service for altruistic purposes only, in the first-ever national attempt to regulate the $2 billion industry.
The service will be available only for infertile Indian and NRI couples who have been married for five years and have tried all other assisted reproductive technology means to have a child and failed.
The Bill bars foreigners, Persons of Indian Origin, Overseas Citizens of India, single, divorced persons, widows and members of LGBT community from engaging surrogates.
Health Minister JP Nadda introduced the Bill and it was passed after an hour of debate amid disruptions.
The Bill ensures that persons like Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan and Tushar Kapoor don’t flaunt children born out of commercial surrogacy arrangements any more.
It defines altruistic surrogacy as “one which involves no monetary incentive, except medical expenses incurred on the surrogate mother and insurance coverage for her when pregnant”; and says a surrogate can only be a close relative of the intending couple.
The word “close relative” will be defined by the National Surrogacy Board that will come up after the Bill becomes law.
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
