Foreign national couples may no longer be able to choose
India as their destination to bring them the joy of parenthood. The government,
in its newly-drafted Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) (Regulation) Bill,
2014, has proposed to bar foreigners from commissioning surrogacy in India.
Instead, the government has proposed allowing surrogacy only
to couples who live together legally as per the Indian Consititution — Overseas
Citizens of India (OCI), People of Indian origin (PIO), Non-Resident Indian’s
(NRIs) and a foreigner married to an Indian citizen.
Contrary to the recommendation of the Women and Child
Development (WCD) ministry, which had earlier proposed the health ministry to
widen the definition of “couples by allowing surrogacy to everyone who wants to
avail ARTs and surrogacy, irrespective of marriage”, the new draft remains
quiet on live-in relationships, unmarried couples and single parents.
According to the draft, being put up for suggestions and
comments by the Department of Health Research under the Union health ministry,
OCIs, PIOs and foreigner married to an Indian citizen, commissioning surrogacy
in India shall be married and the marriage should have sustained at least for
two years.
They will have to submit a certificate conveying that the
woman is unable to conceive their own child and the certificate shall be
attested by the appropriate government authority of that country.
Those seeking surrogacy will also have to appoint a local
guardian who shall be legally responsible for taking care of the surrogate
during and after the pregnancy etc.
As per the draft if OCI, PIO and a foreigner married to an
Indian citizen seeks sperm or egg donation, or surrogacy in India, and a child
or children are born as a consequence, the child or children, even though born
in India, shall not be an Indian citizen but shall be entitled to Overseas
Citizenship of India under Section 7A of the Citizenship Act, 1955.
The draft also proposed that only Indian citizens shall have
a right to act as a surrogate, and no assisted reproductive technology bank or
assisted reproductive technology clinic shall receive or send an Indian woman
for surrogacy abroad. The draft also states that no ART procedure shall be
performed on a man and a woman below the age of 23 years and above the age of
fifty years in case of women and 55 years in case of men.
According to the new draft, surrogate mother shall be an
ever married Indian woman with minimum 23 years of age and shall have at least
one live child of her own with minimum age of three years. “No woman shall act
as a surrogate for more than one successful live birth in her life and with not
less than two years interval between two deliveries. The surrogate mother shall
be subjected to maximum three cycles of medications while she is acting as
surrogate mother,”says the draft copy.
In the event that the man intending to act as sperm donor is
married, the consent of his spouse shall be required before he may act as sperm
donor, it adds.
The draft makes it mandatory for all those commissioning
couple including OCI,PIO, NRIs and foreigner married to an Indian citizen who
have availed of the services of a surrogate to accept the custody of the child
or children irrespective of any abnormality that the child or children may
have. “Commissioning couple shall submit a certificate indicating that the
child/children born in India through surrogacy is/are genetically linked to
them and they will not involve the child/children in any kind of pornography or
paedophilia,” it further says.
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